What is the story with Vitamins and dietary supplements?

v638sg7k1a92bx

From a scientific perspective, is there any benefit to taking these? My perception was that the general consensus was always that omega 3,6,9 and a multi vitamin were part of a good diet, vitamin c was good for cold and flues but then I read a book by Dr. Paul Offit, The sense and nonsense of alternative medicine, and he more or less says the whole thing is rubbish and that the supplement industry is a big unregulated money making bluff and that a proper diet is all we need!

I was also in the health shop recently and it was stacked with supplements for all different types of vitamins and. Just made me question the whole thing as to whether we really need all these different types of supplements or is it effectively just a form of snake oil?

Kurtosis

Hi Tickers, I moved your thread to the main Health Sciences forum from the education sub forum, hopefully it will get more engagement here

Martina1991

I always thought that Vitamins and supplements were only useful if you were lacking something. E.g. Vitamin B12, Vitamin D, Folic Acid, iron etc.

If you're not lacking these vitamins then you'll just excrete them.

Kurtosis

Here's a recent piece published in the JAMA medical journal. This sums up the evidence pretty well:

Although routine micronutrient supplementation is not recommended for the general population, targeted supplementation may be warranted in high-risk groups for whom nutritional requirements may not be met through diet alone

The only supplementation in healthy populations there is evidence for is in the case of pregnancy (folic acid, prenatal vitamins), infants/children (vitamin D and iron in some cases), and midlife and older adults (some may benefit from vitamin B12 and vitamin D +/- calcium).

cruizer101

Scishow recently did a video on this:

In general they are not worth it unless you are actually deficient in something, but there are some exceptions.

cnocbui

Vitamin D supplements seem like a good idea in Ireland.

Vorsprung

cnocbui wrote: »

Vitamin D supplements seem like a good idea in Ireland.

In England, the advice is that in autumn/winter, everyone should take a small vitamin D supplement

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/phe-publishes-new-advice-on-vitamin-d

Martina1991

cnocbui wrote:

Vitamin D supplements seem like a good idea in Ireland.

The majority of Irish people are deficient in vitamin D.

v638sg7k1a92bx

Martina1991 wrote: »

The majority of Irish people are deficient in vitamin D.

I read somewhere that doctors in Seattle (which has a similar climate to Ireland) were suggesting that some of their patients take sunbeds, in moderation, during certain times of the year to help treat depression due to the lack of vitamin D...