Editor’s note: This article was first published in December 2014 and discusses studies from 2013; newer research on vitamin D and other supplements has appeared since. People with a diagnosed deficiency or particular medical needs may need supplements, so ask a doctor before starting or stopping any. This 2014 article is not medical advice.
Vitamin supplement use is booming. And right now, with New Year’s resolutions, many people set out to change their lifestyle, and it is very common to turn to extra vitamins to improve their health. In reality, though, taking extra vitamins is doing you more harm than good.
Vitamin supplements are sold as a way to get the daily amounts of vitamins your body needs, which our current eating habits fall short of. They are sold on the premise that extra vitamins can’t do you any harm. Reaching for that pill or tablet that gives you all this sounds like a great idea.
However, after decades of research, these vitamin supplements have been linked to a higher risk of several types of cancer and heart disease.
It isn’t that your body doesn’t need vitamins A, C, E and so on. Without these vitamins we would have serious difficulty turning food into energy and could develop diseases such as scurvy or rickets.
A scientific study reported in Scientific American showed evidence that vitamin supplements were simply a way of throwing money away, as scientists had found absolutely no benefit or improvement in the health of regular users of these supplements. But the studies have gone further.
Not only have they failed to show any benefit from taking these supplements or antioxidants, but doses of supplemental beta-carotene, vitamin E and, potentially, vitamin A have been linked to a higher risk of premature death.
With that evidence in hand, researchers are now studying whether a vitamin D supplement might offer some benefit to people with a clear deficiency of this vitamin, since it is true that some people may need to make up for such a deficiency.
But the researchers were very clear in their editorial in the Annals of Internal Medicine: in short, vitamin supplements do not prevent chronic disease, their use is not justified, and they should be avoided. That message is entirely right for the general population with no clear evidence of micronutrient deficiencies, who are, after all, the biggest consumers of these products, believing that their low mood could be fixed with a boost of extra vitamins.
Paul Offit, chief of the division of infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, wrote in The New York Times that for many years vitamin makers have successfully prevented the Food and Drug Administration from regulating the industry and clearly informing the public that vitamins are not safe in any way. He warns that consumers should know that vitamin supplements can increase the risk of cancer and heart disease and shorten life.
Featured image: Ragesoss, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
