Can Vitamin Supplements Be a Health Risk?
Too many vitamin supplements
For those of us who want to live a healthy lifestyle, vitamins are supposed to help…right? One would think they do, but there is evidence that taking vitamin supplements may not always be in our best interest. I’m a loyal vitamin supplement fan. I consistently take my multivitamin and a host of other vitamins that are aimed at improving my health. But recently I’ve been reading a lot of studies that show that vitamin supplements can actually be harmful at times and that getting vitamins from food is always preferable.
A clinical trial in Finland measured the effect of beta-carotene supplements among male smokers. The study randomly gave 29,000 men a supplement of beta-carotene, vitamin E, or both. Others were randomly given a placebo. In 1994 the researchers reported that a follow-up, averaging six years showed that lung cancer was 16% higher among participants who took supplements than among those who took a placebo.
Findings from the John Hopkins team found that vitamin E supplements of 400 IU or more per day, actually led to a higher risk of death. The John Hopkins team re-analyzed data from nineteen clinical trials. The studies took place between 1993-2004 among 136,000 patients in North America, Europe, and China. All of the studies had a control group who took a placebo compared to supplements of vitamin E. Those taking the vitamin E supplements had an increased risk of death.
A six year study in Sweden of 81,000 individuals found that those who ate at least 350 ug of folate from fruits and vegetables had a lowered risk of pancreatic cancer by 75%, compared to those who had less than 200 ug of folate from fruits and vegetables. Not surprisingly, those who took supplements of folate did not have a lowered risk of cancer. Only the individuals who received folate from food had a decreased risk.
Studies such as these cause us to pause with caution at our daily intake of vitamin supplements. While most doctors continue to recommend taking a multivitamin, these studies should cause us to re-evaluate taking any high dose supplements. I haven’t stopped taking vitamin supplements, but I’m very wary of taking high doses of any vitamin and I try to remember that vitamin supplements are not a replacement for a healthy diet or a healthy lifestyle.
I completely agree with this article. I have wondered why the vitamin industry continues to advertise these supplements without any real scientific backup to support their claims. It makes sense that vitamins found in foods is more easily digested than in a pill.
I looked at your blog with the purpose of commenting to receive a comment on my blog, http://www.getfrog.com/blog, but I actually am interested in the information you have posted.
thanks again.
If that’s the case, then why do doctors still advice for their patients to take vitamins..
If i haven’t read this i will not know. I always thought that food vitamins and pills are the same.
Thanks to this post. very useful
My wife always told me that taking vitamins wasn’t in my best interest. Guess she was right. Luckily, she won’t let me take them anyways so I haven’t taken vitamins in a very long time. She would much rather I get my vitamins from food. Seems like a much logical choice anyways.
That’s a valid question. But, as I pointed out in the post, taking a multivitamin is not the problem. The problem is taking additional megadose vitamins. When you read the research, doctor’s are not recommending high dose vitamins. Check out Dr. Oz’s advice on realage.
great info…keep posting things like this and it is definitely useful for your readers.
Thanks.
reddy-sri.blogspot.com
I take vitamin supps daily, but after reading this im not so sure i should thanks for the help!
I’m not trying to convince everyone not to take vitamins. I still take a multivitamin and a few others. I just think it’s good to know about the research that’s out there and to scale back on high doses.
Most people depend on vitamins but yes you should try and get them from food and a daily is like a back up for what you didn’t get. Don’t fear them just be smart about what you take.
I agree with a small information. generally the vitamins receiving from natural foods like vegetables and other grains are far better than the one people receiving from manufactured products like vitamin tabs and other foods. We have option to get all naturally available products with has more measurement of vitamin compare with limited in the tablets.
Sherin
The Money Maniac Blogger
http://investinternals.blogspot.com
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Thank you for your wonderful information. Dietary source of vitamins is best yet, sometimes you can’t get all of them without having to take a large amount of that food. As such, supplements come in.
There are natural vitamins and synthetic vitamins (produced from petrochemicals).
There have been comments by many who analyzed these studies and found that:
1. synthetic compounds were used
2. too high (toxic) or too low doses (no effect) were used
3. some of the meta-analyses that reported mortality from supplements excluded studies that had not shown mortality
More reading :
http://www.wellnessresources.com/health/articles/flawed_select_study_attacks_vitamin_e/
http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/Response-to-Selenium-Vitamin-E-Cancer-Prevention-Trial-study.htm
http://www.npicenter.com/anm/templates/newsATemp.aspx?articleid=22952&zoneid=41
The rule is: natural is always better. Supplements should not be seen as a substitute, but rather to fill in on what is missing from a meal.
[...] Can Vitamin Supplements Be a Health Risk? Taking megadoses of vitamin supplements can actually be a health risk according to research. Mail this post [...]
Really good read, nice to read a good blog at last!
If you have enough food then you may not need vitamins. But as per linul Pauling we need.
Please check this link:
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/vitaminC/
Thank you again for this informative post. Keep providing us such useful information
A healthy diet will always be composed of high fiber frutis and veggies, low sugar, low carb and rich in protein.~:-
Hi,
Very useful information.
I became aware that there might be a problem a few years ago. I had read that it was a great idea to take a large dose of vitamin C if you had a cold coming on. The idea being that you could stop it in its tracks. I read later that taking such a huge dose of vitamin C is a really bad idea and can cause harm, so I stopped doing it straight away.
Dosage is important….
Kind regards,
John
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