During my childhood, my mother’s grocery list varied little from week to week. Flintstone’s Vitamins always held a spot on that list. Every day, my two little sisters and I would dutifully gobble up the Dino, Fred, or Betty given to us, encouraged by Mom’s “Eat your vitamins – they’re good for you.” I loved the taste of those things. Really, I still love the taste of those things. I find myself daydreaming from time-to-time that Dairy Queen has developed a Flintstone’s Vitamins Blizzard, which I would purchase and consume by the dozen. Besides the taste however, I really had no need of taking a daily vitamin pill.
A vitamin is any substance that the body cannot make on its own, but needs for normal metabolism. Examples include vitamins A, C, D, E, K, and several B’s, as well as iron, manganese, selenium, and multiple others. For much of human history, and ongoing in some parts of the world, people struggled to get enough of some of these vitamins. For example, sailors used to get scurvy, or vitamin C deficiency, after spending months at sea with no fresh fruits or vegetables. Scurvy causes bleeding gums, slow wound healing, brittle bones, a rash, and low immunity. With time, the British discovered that sailors could avoid scurvy by consuming lime juice, a vitamin C rich food, which became standard fare on their ships. This also led to British sailors being called “limeys,” a significant improvement over the previous slur, “scurvy scalawags.”
As time passed and scientists discovered more and more about vitamin deficiencies, some flawed thinking began to take place. Many reasoned that if consuming too little of a specific vitamin causes a disease, and consuming a minimum of this vitamin prevents the disease, then consuming a large quantity of the vitamin must do even better things for the body. Vitamin companies only too happily started to sell vitamin pills based on this premise. Here’s the problem with the premise, though: it’s wrong.
For the vast majority of vitamins, consuming a quantity above a certain level leads to improvements in one thing alone: the nutritional quality of the consumer’s urine. For most vitamins, if someone consumes more than the body really needs, the body will excrete the rest of said vitamin in that person’s pee. I’ll use vitamin C as an example, once again. The recommended minimum intake of vitamin C per day is 60 mg. Many vitamin C supplements contain 1000 mg or more. For most people, any ingested quantity above about 150 mg per day winds up in the urine. So out of that 1000 mg in the supplement, about 850 mg winds up, quite literally, in the toilet.
Different vitamins have had claims to improve health in numerous different ways. Vitamin A prevents cancer. Thiamine (or vitamin B1) prevents neurologic diseases. Thiamine (or vitamin B2) prevents cataracts and migraines. Niacin (or vitamin B3) prevents cancer and diabetes. Vitamin B5 promotes wound healing. Vitamin B6 improves memory, prevents heart disease, and promotes a strong immune system. Vitamin B12 prevents heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and cancer. Vitamin C promotes immunity, prevents gout, cataracts, cancer, kidney stones, and can lower blood pressure. Vitamin D prevents diabetes, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer. Vitamin E can treat Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and cancer. Vitamin K prevents osteoporosis and blood disorders. Chromium promotes weight loss and treats diabetes. Selenium prevents viral infections. Manganese prevents seizure disorders. Multivitamins boost energy. Heard enough?
The problem with all the claims that the preceding paragraph makes is that no good science exists to support any of them. Lots of bad science exists, though. If a company wants to sell a pill, that company can surely design a flawed study to support almost whatever it wants to claim about the pill. Because vitamins are considered food supplements and not drugs, though, the FDA does not regulate what vitamin sellers can put on their labels. Legally, you could put your grass clippings into a pill and sell them with a label that says, “Grass Clippings Prevent Male Pattern Baldness.” You need no science to support this label, since the grass clippings are “natural” and therefore considered a supplement and not a medicine. The same is true of vitamins, so the companies selling the vitamins can say almost anything they want on the labels.
Only two vitamin deficiencies exist with any sort of frequency in the United States: vitamin D and vitamin B12. Vitamin D deficiency is actually fairly widespread. Vitamin D exists in food in an inactive form. People ingest the vitamin D in an inactive form which requires sunlight to become active. Southern Illinois lies far away enough from the equator that, during late fall, winter, and early spring, it does not get enough sunlight to convert a sufficient amount of vitamin D into its active form. Plus, the American diet lacks foods high in vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency can lead to osteoporosis and fractures. I think it’s a good idea for all postmenopausal women, and possibly all women, to take a supplement of 400 IU of vitamin D every day.
Only red meat contains large amounts of vitamin B12. Vegetarians should take a vitamin B12 supplement. Some people don’t absorb vitamin B12 from food in sufficient quantities. B12 deficiency causes anemia and numbness of the fingers and toes. Vitamin B12 deficiency can be treated with a B12 pill, but many people who don’t absorb B12 require a monthly injection.
Excluding vitamin D and vitamin B12, though, most people get all of the vitamins they need the old-fashioned way: in their food. The average American diet, even a fatty one with rare fruits and vegetables, contains all necessary vitamins. Ingesting more than the bare minimum of most vitamins provides no proven health benefits whatsoever, and, thus, taking a multivitamin a day provides no health benefits at all. The next time you’re standing at the pharmacy, considering the purchase of a multivitamin for one of the purported health benefits, ask yourself this: when’s the last time you met someone with scurvy?
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During my childhood, my mother’s grocery list varied little from week to week. Flintstone’s Vitamins always held a spot on that list. Every day, my two little sisters and I would dutifully gobble up the Dino, Fred, or Betty given to us, encouraged by Mom’s “Eat your vitamins – they’re good for you.” I loved the taste of those things. Really, I still love the taste of those things. I find myself daydreaming from time-to-time that Dairy Queen has developed a Flintstone’s Vitamins Blizzard, which I would purchase and consume by the dozen. Besides the taste however, I really had no need of taking a daily vitamin pill.
A vitamin is any substance that the body cannot make on its own, but needs for normal metabolism. Examples include vitamins A, C, D, E, K, and several B’s, as well as iron, manganese, selenium, and multiple others. For much of human history, and ongoing in some parts of the world, people struggled to get enough of some of these vitamins. For example, sailors used to get scurvy, or vitamin C deficiency, after spending months at sea with no fresh fruits or vegetables. Scurvy causes bleeding gums, slow wound healing, brittle bones, a rash, and low immunity. With time, the British discovered that sailors could avoid scurvy by consuming lime juice, a vitamin C rich food, which became standard fare on their ships. This also led to British sailors being called “limeys,” a significant improvement over the previous slur, “scurvy scalawags.”
As time passed and scientists discovered more and more about vitamin deficiencies, some flawed thinking began to take place. Many reasoned that if consuming too little of a specific vitamin causes a disease, and consuming a minimum of this vitamin prevents the disease, then consuming a large quantity of the vitamin must do even better things for the body. Vitamin companies only too happily started to sell vitamin pills based on this premise. Here’s the problem with the premise, though: it’s wrong.
For the vast majority of vitamins, consuming a quantity above a certain level leads to improvements in one thing alone: the nutritional quality of the consumer’s urine. For most vitamins, if someone consumes more than the body really needs, the body will excrete the rest of said vitamin in that person’s pee. I’ll use vitamin C as an example, once again. The recommended minimum intake of vitamin C per day is 60 mg. Many vitamin C supplements contain 1000 mg or more. For most people, any ingested quantity above about 150 mg per day winds up in the urine. So out of that 1000 mg in the supplement, about 850 mg winds up, quite literally, in the toilet.
Different vitamins have had claims to improve health in numerous different ways. Vitamin A prevents cancer. Thiamine (or vitamin B1) prevents neurologic diseases. Thiamine (or vitamin B2) prevents cataracts and migraines. Niacin (or vitamin B3) prevents cancer and diabetes. Vitamin B5 promotes wound healing. Vitamin B6 improves memory, prevents heart disease, and promotes a strong immune system. Vitamin B12 prevents heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and cancer. Vitamin C promotes immunity, prevents gout, cataracts, cancer, kidney stones, and can lower blood pressure. Vitamin D prevents diabetes, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer. Vitamin E can treat Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and cancer. Vitamin K prevents osteoporosis and blood disorders. Chromium promotes weight loss and treats diabetes. Selenium prevents viral infections. Manganese prevents seizure disorders. Multivitamins boost energy. Heard enough?
The problem with all the claims that the preceding paragraph makes is that no good science exists to support any of them. Lots of bad science exists, though. If a company wants to sell a pill, that company can surely design a flawed study to support almost whatever it wants to claim about the pill. Because vitamins are considered food supplements and not drugs, though, the FDA does not regulate what vitamin sellers can put on their labels. Legally, you could put your grass clippings into a pill and sell them with a label that says, “Grass Clippings Prevent Male Pattern Baldness.” You need no science to support this label, since the grass clippings are “natural” and therefore considered a supplement and not a medicine. The same is true of vitamins, so the companies selling the vitamins can say almost anything they want on the labels.
Only two vitamin deficiencies exist with any sort of frequency in the United States: vitamin D and vitamin B12. Vitamin D deficiency is actually fairly widespread. Vitamin D exists in food in an inactive form. People ingest the vitamin D in an inactive form which requires sunlight to become active. Southern Illinois lies far away enough from the equator that, during late fall, winter, and early spring, it does not get enough sunlight to convert a sufficient amount of vitamin D into its active form. Plus, the American diet lacks foods high in vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency can lead to osteoporosis and fractures. I think it’s a good idea for all postmenopausal women, and possibly all women, to take a supplement of 400 IU of vitamin D every day.
Only red meat contains large amounts of vitamin B12. Vegetarians should take a vitamin B12 supplement. Some people don’t absorb vitamin B12 from food in sufficient quantities. B12 deficiency causes anemia and numbness of the fingers and toes. Vitamin B12 deficiency can be treated with a B12 pill, but many people who don’t absorb B12 require a monthly injection.
Excluding vitamin D and vitamin B12, though, most people get all of the vitamins they need the old-fashioned way: in their food. The average American diet, even a fatty one with rare fruits and vegetables, contains all necessary vitamins. Ingesting more than the bare minimum of most vitamins provides no proven health benefits whatsoever, and, thus, taking a multivitamin a day provides no health benefits at all. The next time you’re standing at the pharmacy, considering the purchase of a multivitamin for one of the purported health benefits, ask yourself this: when’s the last time you met someone with scurvy?
