Healthy Living: How Effective are Multivitamins?

Many of us grew up with parents forcing us to take our vitamins. Whether it was cod-liver oil or Flinstones vitamins, our parents all believed that it would make us get sick less and grow stronger. How much of this is true? That’s what we attempt to find out in tonight’s Healthy Living.

Marleni Cuellar, Reporting

Taking daily multi vitamins seems like such an easy way to do something good for your body. But is it helpful harmful or just entirely useless?  As nutritionist, Doris Sutherland, explains getting the right amount of vitamins doesn’t require taking a supplement.

Doris Sutherland

Doris Sutherland, Nutritionist

“It is not necessary to take the multivitamins. You can get the necessary vitamins from just getting a complete and balanced diet. Or if you suspect any deficiency let’s say iron, or folic acid deficiency which is very common in pregnant women then you may need to take that specific vitamin. When it comes to children we would want to supplement them only if they’re appetite is low or they don’t consume specific meals or if they are intolerant to specific food groups.”

Pregnant women, adults with poor nutrition, the elderly and some who suffer from certain illnesses would require supplements due to very specific deficiencies. This is why it is advised to consult a doctor before starting multivitamins.

Doris Sutherland

“Before you start taking a vitamin especially if you’re already taking other medication or any terminal illness or liver disease or kidney disease that can affect the use of any of these vitamins.   There are many risks… This is known as an overdose of vitamins you can go from the swelling of the tongue to the throat to the mouth. You can also develop gastrointestinal symptoms: Nassau vomiting diarrhea. Weight loss is also common; headaches. Many symptoms you can have. The symptoms all depend on the type of vitamin you are taking in excess.”

Additionally the body doesn’t actually absorb the amount of the vitamins you are taking. So while the packaging reads one hundred percent of let’s say Vitamin C; you’re body is most likely absorbing fifty percent or less. And what about herbal supplements?

Doris Sutherland

“Herbal supplements are completely different from the vitamins. The difference is that these supplements not only contain the plants they can contain pesticides they could contain heavy metals and even some medications that have not been proved its actual use. The problem with these supplements is that these have not be proven in its safety or efficacy for a long period of time. Maybe at the moment you find it giving you a benefit but in the long term it may actually cause more harm than benefits.”

All you really have to do to get in the right amount of vitamin is get the right foods in your diet.

Doris Sutherland

“For vitamin c to achieve the daily value you want to go more for fruits. You’ll find it in orange fruits, red fruits and also purple fruits. You want to go more for those and vegetables contain some vitamin C. So our average diet should give us sufficient vitamin c for the day? Yes it should. If you consume one cup of milk you average to about eight hundred milligrams of calcium and the recommended amount is one thousand to one thousand five hundred milligrams. If you are a teenager or pregnant, women you require more. So you can have two glasses of milk a day or a glass of milk and a portion of cheese and you can also find calcium in vegetables for example cabbage broccoli, bok choy, all of those have calcium as well.   It’s better to get them from foods. Actually there are many studies that have shown that the benefits are even better when you get them from the actual food instead of the supplements.”

There are in fact only two vitamins that you can may to your daily diet.

Doris Sutherland

“Sometimes you might still lack on Vitamin B-twelve so this is one vitamin you may consider consuming daily and also the Vitamin D.”