Which vitamins are bad for you

There has been a climb in consumer interest in vitamins with the whole supplement market commanding over 6 billion in sales as of 2013. The course doesn't seem to be slowing down with the industry growing 8% year over year. Many people don't query the usefulness of taking exorbitant quantities of supplements. So the topic that physicians have recently begun to ponder is if these vitamins have bad effects. Has the increasing sales in this business actually deteriorated peoples health or is taking multivitamins the best approach to fighting off poor health and the likes.

Several weeks ago the Cochran review an organization that works to elucidate research findings reviewed thousands of randomized controlled clinical trials encompassing over 296,000 participants half of which were randomized to take various supplements including beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, and selenium and compared them to the other fifty percent of the patients who were set as controls. The study was performed as a randomized double blinded clinical study meaning that neither patients nor medical doctors who providing the medication knew what the pills actually contained which may have been supplements or placedo i.e.)the control cohort receiving placebo pill.

Studies like this have been done beforehand to evaluate the health benefits of supplements with confounding results as they were often without enough patients or were not formed in such a manner to be able to answer the clinical question. The Current study however has been powered to be able to shed some light on the age old inquiry of whether multivitamins are really good for you.

"The real concern comes into play when you consider that perfectly healthful individuals are taking large amounts of multivitamins in order to stay healthy" - Dr. Golshani a distinguished Los Angeles based interventional oncologist stated. Some dietary supplements are definitely indicated for certain illnesses mutivitamins are essential as the body does not make, digest or utilize certain multivitamins in some diseases. But for the normal 60 something supplements especially some antioxidants which have been in days gone by heralded for their disease thwarting powers taking supplements may actually be increasing their risk of cancers.

In early 2008 the Cohran review conducted a smaller study than the current one and did not validate any reason for a healthy adult to take a multivitamin supplement that was not obligatory for a certain affliction or clinical state. This most recent study seems to agree with the findings of the 2008 study on most accounts. Needlessly taking vitamins with beta-carotene and possibly vitamin E and vitamin A were in this very large study associated with an increased risk of mortality. Yes death this means that almost everything we thought we knew about supplements and taking multivitamins may be wrong.

A current thinking in regards to why this is at he case and why these vitamins are thought to increase cancer and mortality risk is that antioxidants have long been believed to help save cells from early death well in a clinical context cancer cells are cells that occur in our bodies on a regular basis and our bodies have a machinery to do away with these cells but taking supplements that work as antioxidants can work to also save these malignant cells from being tagged by the bodies normal methods of destroying these rogue cells.

In reality there is no practice yet about whether all or most supplements are damaging to our health because even in this study several of the tested supplements did not show injurious health effects including the use of vitamin C and Selenium. What is now clear is that we ned to be more apprehensive with our bodies and take what we see on the back of a supplement bottle with a grain of salt.

Physicians can likely help in deciding wether you should take a multivitamin/supplement or not. If they are unaware of the health risks or benefits of a certain approach then they can definitely guide you or look into the approach to best practices.

If this article peaks your interest and you enjoyed our review of original medically related investigations drop by the Pogosh website where we review and blog about health topics such as the effects of fish oils moderated by an experienced physician.