Vitamin and mineral supplements are widely touted as the panacea for a long and active life. Vitamin C is presumed to fight off colds, betacarotene is touted as a cancer-beating drug, and vitamin E is supposed to defeat ageing and reduce the risk of a heart attack. Alarming new evidence, however, suggests that rather than helping us fight off disease, certain supplements may actually increase the risks of cancer and a range of debilitating diseases.

It appears that taking vitamin supplements in high doses may shunt the body’s biochemistry off in the wrong direction. Scientists are especially worried about people taking high doses of the antioxidant betacarotene, which the body converts into vitamin A.

Researchers are unsure exactly why vitamins, which are so essential to health, can be toxic in high doses. The most likely explanation is that the body is only equipped to deal with the levels found naturally in the environment. If the intake is too far outside the normal range, then the body’s internal chemistry can be shunted out of alignment.

Despite the slowly accruing evidence that certain vitamins in high doses can be damaging, the majority of scientists working in the field are still virtually unanimous in recommending — and taking — a good all round multi-vitamin and mineral supplement containing optimum levels of each vitamin and mineral. This is because overall there’s a lot of evidence that as long as the dose is not dangerously high vitamins and mineral supplements can improve health.

In short, it’s excessively high doses that are toxic; not the doses generally contained in quality vitamin and mineral supplements. So if you are taking a good quality multi vitamin or thinking about supplementing it is safe to do so, as long as the dose is not excessive.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 2:12 pm and is filed under Supplements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.