Vitamins, Miracle Cure or Curse?

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In the battle to stay healthy in an increasingly fast-paced world, people are constantly taking shortcuts to stay healthy. One of the biggest trends that has been building for the last several decades has been the use of vitamin supplements. You can just take a handful, or even better, just one pill in the morning that supposedly has all of the vitamins and minerals for your day. Sounds great for someone always on the go, with no time to think about what they eat.

Well, as it always seems to turn out, there is a catch. Some of these vitamin supplements may pose a risk to some people, with that risk growing even more when they misuse or overuse the product. A New York Times piece titled, “Revisiting a Poison Control Database on Supplement Risks,” serves as a correction on another article, but also highlights the number of adverse reactions to these substances. Granted, the number is rather low, so to be clear I am not advocating that everybody quit taking vitamins, but rather be careful when beginning a regimen, waiting to see how your body reacts, and to always listen to your doctor or at least the label when determining dosage.

According to the Times article, of the 125,595 exposures to supplements documented by the Poison Control Center, 17,843 of them resulted in health care visits, which is over 10 percent of the cases.

Another article by the New York Times, “Vitamins: More may be too much,” looked to over-using vitamin A as being a potential hazard. The article estimated that 70 percent of Americans occasionally use supplements, with 40 percent using them regularly. Of these health conscious people, there is a sub-set that may be pre-disposed to over doing it. Some supplements contain up to four times the recommended daily dosage of vitamin A, a fact that may put some people at greater risk for bone breakage and weakness.

Dr. Benjamin Caballero, a member of the Food and Nutrition Board at the National Academy of Sciences said to the interviewing reporter, “that the difference between the recommended dose and a dose that could lead to bad outcomes like osteoperosis is not large.”

He added that popular multivitamins often contain what could be considered risky doses.
Admittedly, this risk affects only a small amount of the population, but with the growing amount of multivitamins and health-conscious consumers, it’s one that we should be aware of. The best thing to do is always check the label, do research or when in doubt, ask a doctor.