VITAMIN C
Perhaps no vitamin illustrates the need for caution better than that celebrity of supplements, vitamin C. Without enough C your muscles and ligaments would lose their stretch, like old rubber bands. You’d be plagued by bleeding gums, fatigue, and wounds that wouldn’t heal. Linus Pauling believed that C’s benefits extend to warding off heart attacks and strokes, and bolstering the immune system against colds, flu, and even cancer.
No wonder many people take huge doses. Yet several studies suggest the vitamin may have a Jekyll-and-Hyde character: At 500 milligrams daily – a dose higher than the RDA but lower than the amount frequently taken to beat back colds – it may cause the kind of genetic damage that can lead to cancer. Until all the facts are in, it’s wise to rely on your diet for C; if you want to supplement, take no more than 500 mg daily.
Beyond that, people with a tendency to develop kidney stones can increase their risk; too much C can also promote diarrhea. In fact studies show that in certain instances where people have complained of food poisoning, too much vitamin C was the culprits. Clearly people are just not aware how potent these vitamin supplements are.
Also, taking extra vitamin C does not seem to be as useful to protecting smokers’ lungs as it was made out to be.
ANTIOXIDANT VITAMINS: THE MYTH EXPLODES
The notion that you can fend off heart disease and cancer by taking vitamins always seemed too good to be true and it probably is. After making an exhaustive review of the top studies evaluating the use of vitamins for preventing disease, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force found no evidence that folic acid and the antioxidant vitamins A, C, E, and beta-carotene protect against heart disease and cancer. Two other major studies released last month also found no link between antioxidant vitamins and heart health.
PHILOSOPHY OF EXCESS VITAMIN
It is true that virtually everyone in the general population is at risk of deficiency, because we just don’t eat right. But elderly people, people on crash/fad diets, strict vegans, and alcoholics are at even higher risk. Multivitamin supplements play an important role in shoring up this deficiency.
Vitamin supplementation offers clear benefits for people with nutritional deficiencies and those at risk for them, including young children and elderly people with chronic illnesses. Women who start taking folic acid even before getting pregnant and early in pregnancy greatly reduce their child’s risk of being born with birth defects.
But experts are increasingly of the view that overdoing the supplement bit is now becoming a matter of taking in too much of a good thing, especially for ordinary people with no health conditions.
