
The problem with taking too many vitamins - pacemkr
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24563590
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patrickg_zill
I don't feel this is a very good article.

IMHO the key to understanding vitamin supplementation is first, to know which
are fat-soluble (and will be stored by your body) and which are water-soluble
(and will be flushed by your body when you urinate).

So, it is almost impossible to over-dose on Vitamin C, since, your body will
easily eliminate anything it doesn't need - C is water-soluble.

This article covers the differences well enough:
[http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=10...](http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=10736)

I think what drives vitamin taking is a combination of

i) people not fully trusting doctors

ii) knowing that today's food is factory-produced and may be deficient in
micro-nutrients like vitamins and minerals

iii) being willing to spend a few dollars per day as an insurance policy;
after all, how many drop $5 a day at Starbucks?

~~~
typicalrunt
In school, I was taught a mnemonic for fat soluble vitamins: DEAK. In other
words, you want to "deke" [1] out of the way from these vitamins. You want to
watch how much of vitamins D, E, A, K you ingest because they are fat soluble
and you can easily overdose on them (unlike vitamin C). It's not a catch-all
but it helps when you are taking vitamins.

[1] it's a play on words and a homonym, "deke" comes from hockey where you
dodge or fake out an opponent to get around them. It must be the Canadian
school system further injecting hockey into our lives. :)

~~~
nagrom
Then again, there have been several studies [0] that show that many people in
the northern hemisphere are deficient in vitamin D and that the deficiency
could be the root of serious health problems.

[0] E.g.
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21310306](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21310306)

~~~
Ras_
True, for example half of Finns receive less than recommended amount of
vitamin D. To combat this dairy and edible fat products have received vitamin
D supplements since 2003. For example skimmed milk (the most popular one)
would otherwise have very little D because it gets removed in the process
along with fat. First you take it out, then put it back in...

------
alexandros
Sometimes visualisations are useless overillustrations. Other times, they are
enough to put a complex argument to rest. One of the latter ones:

[http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/snake-oil-
supplem...](http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/play/snake-oil-supplements/)

------
fauigerzigerk
Everything I've read about this in recent years seems to boil down to one
simple rule of thumb: Supplement vitamin D and forget about everything else.

~~~
rjurney
Yeah, my doctor recommends 5000 IUs of D3 for the north bay area.

~~~
skore
Interesting, particularly since recent recommendations say that 4000 IUs
should be the maximum dose. Any reason why s/he recommended 5k?

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drakaal
I used to eat the gummy vitamins like candy, I got Hypervitaminosis, and my
hair started to fall out. I thought I had a horrible disease. Then we figured
it out. It wasn't much fun.

~~~
capisce
Ignored the "Do not exceed the recommended dosage" warning eh?

~~~
rjurney
They taste SO good.

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spikels
I hope everyone understands that there is NO reliable evidence that any
dietary supplements, including vitamins, provide any health benefits
whatsoever to healthy people.[1] Occasionally individual studies will find an
association between a particular positive outcome and a particular supplement,
say breast cancer survival and vitamin D.[2] But it is just as likely to find
an association with a negative outcome, say higher breast cancer risk in
regular vitamin takers.[3] However none of these results has ever been found
to be reproducible AFAIK.

For example a 2009 thorough review of all research on vitamin D and calcium
supplements by US DHHS concluded:

The majority of the findings concerning vitamin D, calcium, or a combination
of both nutrients on the different health outcomes were inconsistent.[4]

Most if not all of the studies initially finding these spurious correlations
are large studies looking at lots of factors and outcomes. Unfortunately due
to the nature of statistics there is always a small chance of a false positive
or negative relationship and if many possible relationships are examined, such
as in these large exploratory studies, it is almost a certainty that some
false correlations will be found. This is why almost all of these studies say
that confirmation in additional studies is required but this warning does not
always make it into press reports. Occasionally a new relationship will be
found that is confirmed in follow up studies. Unfortunately this confirmation
has yet to be found for any supplement for any outcome in healthy people
AFAIK.

FYI - Peter Norvig has a nice writeup of what to look out for when considering
the results of a study.[5]

[1] Some supplements can help people with specific health issues but ask an
expert such as your doctor as there are many false claims about supplements
helping with specific conditions.

[2]
[http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/BreastCancer/...](http://www.medpagetoday.com/HematologyOncology/BreastCancer/42208)

[3]
[http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/183880.php](http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/183880.php)

[4] [http://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/evidence-based-
reports...](http://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/evidence-based-
reports/vitadcal.pdf)

[5] [http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html](http://norvig.com/experiment-
design.html)

~~~
Someone
_" I hope everyone understands that there is NO reliable evidence that any
dietary supplements, including vitamins, provide any health benefits
whatsoever to healthy people."_

I sort of agree with that, but I also know it is kind of a tautology. 'Healthy
people' can't become 'healthier people', by definition. Yet, every healthy
person can imagine himself, but slightly better: better vision, more
willpower, stronger, faster runner, more intelligent, etc.

Because of that, there are no 'Healthiest people'. Even the hypothetical
person who wins the decathlon at the Olympics at the age of 40 in the year
they won their fifth Nobel will have something to desire (a bald spot? Feeling
more tired after exercise than he used to be?). In that sense, nobody is truly
healthy.

That is what all the supplement sellers play at.

~~~
spikels
This is not a tautology. Every "healthy" person will someday die and will
often develop cancer or heart disease or have a stroke or have one of
thousands of rarer medical conditions. If any supplements actually worked they
would prolong life or reduce the occurrence of any of these diseases. All of
these out comes can be measured in a properly designed study. So far there is
no reliable evidence that supplements help with any of these outcomes.

------
skore
What I'm interested in with all the recent talk (/hype) about gut health and
gut bacteria transplants: Are there studies into whether the nutrients we can
supplement actually don't enter our own metabolism, but instead benefit our
gut bacteria which in turn benefit us?

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jotm
Well, then don't take too many vitamins - problem solved.

And as Patrickg_zill said, fat soluble vitamins are the dangerous ones, as
they accumulate instead of being flushed. Pretty much all of the other
vitamins and minerals are well controlled by the body...

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rjurney
To hell with Vitamins. Eat fruits and vegetables.

~~~
objclxt
...except Vitamin D, which doesn't really come in fruit and veg. Vitamin D
deficiency can be a real problem if you're a vegetarian and/or work in an
environment without much exposure to sun. I just had a physical and my D was
way down.

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juskrey
The problem with taking any amount of vitamins is that they give the false
feeling of security.

