When I’m in a pharmacy, I sometimes get nosey and look into customers shopping baskets to see what they are buying. One of the products that I notice fly off the shelves the most are vitamin supplements. Vitamin A, Vitamin B12, Vitamin C, Vitamin B, Vitamin D… The list is endless. Seeing all of these products make me wonder. Should I be taking supplements too? Are they really that necessary?
What are vitamins?
Vitamins are organic molecules needed by living organisms for the proper function of their metabolism. To say it in an easier way, vitamins are molecules that we need to consume for a healthy metabolism. There are thirteen vitamins known to be needed by humans. Vitamin A, C, D, E, K, and 8 different B Vitamins are all needed for a healthy body.
The history of vitamin supplements
For most of humanity, our only source of vitamins was the foods we ate. However, in 1970, Linus Pauling, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist published a book named “Vitamin C and the Common Cold”. In this book, he stated that Vitamin C is effective in reducing the incidence of colds. He recommended 1,000mg of vitamin C a day, when a healthy dose is actually 65 to 90mg a day. Ever since, vitamin supplements have become increasingly popular, resulting in over half of Americans taking multivitamins daily.
So should we take supplements?
Taking too many vitamin supplements can actually be harmful. Too large doses of vitamin C has been shown to cause nasty side effects such as diarrhea, nausea or stomach cramps. Some studies even show that consuming too many vitamin supplements can cause some cancers. Also, some supplements contain doses too high to be absorbed by our bodies. Our bodies absorb what they can, and the rest comes out through our urine. With the sky-high prices of some vitamin supplements, that’s some expensive pee! With a healthy diet, we can satisfy all our vitamin needs, so it’s better to go with that, then with a pill.
In conclusion,
In a nutshell, unless your doctor is telling you to, you don’t need to be taking vitamin supplements. It’s like taking an aspirin when you don’t have a headache! The best way to consume vitamins is by eating a healthy balanced diet with lots of variety. Taking many vitamins probably won’t hurt you, but there really aren’t many benefits to take them. Remember to always ask your doctor if you have concerns about your health. Real gummies taste better than those Flinstones gummies anyway!
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