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Home » Diets that Work » Do we really need to take vitamins? – StarNewsOnline.com

Vitamins are big business. In 2017, the sales figure for vitamins and nutritional supplements in this country is expected to reach $36.1 billion.

With a recent Gallup Poll showing half of Americans take vitamins or other mineral supplements, chances are many of you visit the health aisle on a regular basis. After all, vitamins are big business. In 2017, the sales figure for vitamins and nutritional supplements in this country is expected to reach $36.1 billion. Thats up from $17.2 billion in 2000. But is all this spending actually improving your health?

I dont have anything against somebody taking a multivitamin, said Dr. J. Todd Kornegay, internal medicine physician with the NHRMC Physician Group at the New Hanover Medical Group Practice. But if you look at the data, theres not a lot of information that supports everyday use in everybody.

Many studies share that assertion, including one in 2013 from the Annals of Internal Medicine with an accompanying editorial titled Enough Is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Vitamin and Mineral Supplements and the 2011 Iowa Womens Health Study.

And while multivitamins are one thing, choosing supplements a la carte is quite another, said Laura Greenhow, owner of Summerfield Custom Wellness in Wilmington and a registered dietitian and licensed dietitian/nutritionist.

The problem is that vitamins try to sell themselves by this is good for this person and this is good for this person, but I dont think its appropriate to get that advice from anyone who doesnt know your medical history, she said. Have a doctor check your levels and go from there. You shouldnt just start taking them because of something you read unless youre a health-care provider and have some science behind it.

While vitamin toxicity alone is not something most people have to worry about, boosting your intake of certain nutrients and not others could potentially be harmful, Greenhow added.

Most things in our body kind of work together and have some synergies, she said. The worst thing you can do is decide on your own that you need certain nutrients. They work together with other things, and that can throw yourself out of whack.

If youre thinking of adding vitamin supplements to your diet, chances are you are looking to change or improve some aspect of your health, Greenhow said. She encouraged people to talk to a health-care professional and explore other avenues first, including boosting water intake or adding more healthy foods to their diets.

The way we get vitamins from our food is from eating a lot of different colors, but the problem is that most of what we eat is white and brown with maybe a little bit of green, Greenhow said. A multivitamin could be a good insurance policy, but really what they would want to work on is increasing the number of colorful fruits and vegetables to get the nutrients from their diet. Its more effective to get it from foods. It just behaves differently in our bodies.

Kornegay agreed that we should first turn to food: A western diet thats high in fruits and vegetables should have everything you need in it, and you shouldnt have to supplement it with a vitamin.

But those who still insist vitamins might be for them should be sure they consult with someone they trust before getting started on a regimen, he said.

I would suggest that they talk to their physician about it, as long as their physician doesnt sell vitamins in their office, Kornegay added. A pharmacist, dietitian or nutritionist would be a good resource, too.

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Do we really need to take vitamins? - StarNewsOnline.com

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Home » Diets that Work » Do we really need to take vitamins? – StarNewsOnline.com