Vitamins: a marketing ploy or an important component of the diet?

Let’s start with one of the most common myths: you don’t need to take vitamins, it’s just a marketing ploy.

This is not true. The thing is that today’s food is not as rich in vitamins as before. Ecology, water, food quality leave much to be desired, so we need vitamins more than ever. However, there is one “but”: an overabundance of vitamins is more dangerous than their lack.

• Excess B vitamins can cause allergies, nausea, and headaches.
• Vitamin B₆ toxic in high doses.
• An excess of vitamin C leads to gastrointestinal problems, exacerbation of urolithiasis.
• Excess vitamin D leads to nausea, headaches, loss of appetite
• Excess vitamin E is most often excreted from the body with bile. Prolonged use of it leads to an increase in blood pressure.
• An excess of iron leads to problems with the liver and heart.

True, you need to make a reservation that gaining an excess of vitamins is not so simple:

• Vitamin A: daily norm – 800 mcg, excess – 7500 mcg.
• Vitamin C: daily norm – 60 mg, excess – 2200 mg.
• Vitamin D: the daily norm is 10 mcg, the excess is 40 mcg.
• Vitamin B₁₂: daily norm – 1 mcg, excess – 500 mcg.
• Iron: daily norm – 15 mg, excess – 35 mg.

It is important to consult a doctor, take tests, and choose a vitamin complex based on them. And of course, you should not take more than the recommended daily allowance in the instructions.

The role of vitamins

Even a slight decrease in the level of vitamins can cause various diseases, and minerals play an important role in building body tissues, especially bones. Without them, the normal functioning of the nervous, cardiovascular, digestive and other systems is impossible.

• Lack of calcium and vitamin D can lead to rickets. Vitamin D has been shown to help fight certain types of cancer, multiple sclerosis, and type XNUMX diabetes.
• Vitamin A deficiency leads to vision problems. Its deficiency is especially dangerous for pregnant women: a baby can be born with bronchopulmonary dysplasia.
• Vitamin B deficiency₉ (folic acid) leads to dysplasia, anemia, problems with conception.
• Lack of vitamin C leads to scurvy and increased fatigue.
• Lack of vitamin E leads to violations of fertilization processes, problems with the menstrual cycle, and muscular dystrophy.
• Lack of vitamin K causes a violation of blood clotting, hemorrhagic diathesis.
• Lack of phosphorus leads to a deterioration in the functioning of the nervous and brain tissue, liver, and kidneys.
• Lack of potassium leads to dysregulation of water-salt metabolism, osmotic pressure.

Is there a difference for the body between vitamins and minerals from food and synthetic? The latest scientific evidence says no: chemically they are the same. True, synthetic vitamins do not contain acids, bioflavonoids (a class of antioxidant nutrients. – Ed.), which are found in foods, and the absorption of synthetic vitamins by the body is easier.

Ordinary foods contain vitamins and minerals, but with any processing their amount of vitamins is reduced, sometimes by 90%:

• Vitamin C completely disappears from freshly squeezed juice an hour after preparation.
• Vitamin B₁, which is contained in brown rice, completely disappears when rice is polished. White rice is an “empty” product, which also provokes blood sugar spikes.

Adding synthetic vitamins to the diet is still desirable, especially at a time when we eat little fresh vegetables and fruits. And also – with an unbalanced diet and excessive stress, both physical and moral, which lead to polyhypovitaminosis (lack of several vitamins at once), which we usually take for fatigue. The main rule is to observe the measure in everything.