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Vitamins & Dietary Supplements
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| Yes | 75% | 185 votes | Total: 247 votes | |
| No | 25% | 62 votes |
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Add to FavoritesLet's face it, most of the food we eat in the Western diet, is processed and depleted of nutrients and vitamins, causing our bodies to be deficient of one nutrient or another opening us up for disease. We are cheating ourselves out of a healthy life and some people don't know it or understand it. Even if we only ate a burger and fries once a week we are still damaging our cells and lowering the strength of our immune system, causing us to be affected by a number of diseases that today seem so common. We have options to help restore the balance in our bodies and allow us to live healthier, happier lives.
Every day your body uses nutrients and minerals to sustain itself to do a number of things, including building and maintaining tissues and organs. Vitamins provide energy, boost the immune system, keep skin healthy and help keep the brain and nervous system in good working order. Our bodies cannot make these nutrients on its own; the only way to get them is through food or vitamin supplements. The drug companies probably don't want you to know this, but vitamin supplements are a great way to get the nutrients and micronutrients that your body needs to get it back in harmony.
Herbs and supplements have been the "original" medicine of the world. They have been here long before the first drugs were ever manufactured and people still survived to explore the world. The great thing about vitamin supplements is one supplement can help more than one area of the body. Many times, with drugs, if you take one it causes problems somewhere else and forces you to take others to correct the problems that the first one caused. That is sometimes what happens when you hit middle age and end up taking a handful of drugs several times a day.
Most people wouldn't be willing to eat enough fruits, vegetables and nuts to get the proper amount of nutrition required for their body. So the best way to accomplish this is through taking vitamin supplements and reducing your risk of health problems allowing your body to function the way it was intended. For people without specific health challenges find a good multivitamin to maintain your body. If you have specific health concerns due research on the internet or just ask a person in the health food store if they have any suggestions for you particular health challenge. It could change your life.
Learn more about this author, Tina Clancy.
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No
No. Adults, or children for that matter, do not need vitamin supplements at all. All the vitamins and minerals needed for a healthy life are present in any balanced diet.
Vitamins are substances that are needed in minute amounts for the healthy functioning of the organism. Notice the emphasis on minute. What this means is that only very small amounts are needed for a healthy metabolism.
What if the diet is not balanced?
Junk food + Vitamins does not equal Balanced diet. Poor diet + Vitamins does not equal Balanced diet.
An exception to this general rule would be people on special diets that exclude important nutrients; for instance, strict vegetarians or vegans may have difficulty achieving adequate intakes of vitamin B12 and iron. An iron and B12 supplement would be a reasonable thing in such a case.
Now we are referring to physiologic doses of vitamins; essentially what is found in most multivitamin compounds. Those amounts are not too much larger than what you would find in nature. For instance, most multivitamins contain about 500-1000mgs of Vitamin C. That is the amount found in three oranges.
At times we use pharmacologic doses of Vitamins. This means amounts much higher than those found in nature, with the purpose of achieving a specific effect. For instance, women who wish to conceive, or are at risk of getting pregnant should take folic acid supplements, to decrease their risk of certain types of birth defects. The amount of folic acid recommended is, for most women, still very small, about 400 micrograms daily, an amount achievable through diet alone, provided she consumed a large amount of leafy vegetables daily. In this case however, it is easier to just take a pill. In the case of women taking certain anti-seizure medications, the amount of folic acid needed is much higher, unachievable without supplementation; again a pharmacologic dose.
Excess vitamins are just excreted in the urine. Large amounts of vitamins, taken for a long time, can cause health problems. For instance, excessive use of Vitamin C may cause kidney stones. High doses of Vitamin C and E have been proposed as a means to delay or prevent the onset of Alzheimer's disease, through their antioxidant effects. This has been disproven in randomized trials.
One exception may be if you find yourself in a situation where you are not able to get a balanced diet of fresh foods, then a vitamin supplement would be appropriate
Take home message: Take folic acid if you are female, planning to conceive, or at risk of getting pregnant. Otherwise, and barring different advice from your physician, a balanced diet provides all the vitamins you need, much more cheaply, and in addition you get the fiber and micronutrients that you might not from a pill; also you are getting them in the way nature intended.
Learn more about this author, Pedro Miranda.
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