Vitamins, News, Research, and Controversy

I always meet new people when traveling by airplane.  Yesterday's international flight was no exception.  My newfound friend told me he brought a few bottles of vitamins as gifts.  He proceeded to say he wasn't sure if he wasted his time/money, quoting a recent news report.

I understand the confusion.  One news reports tells us vitamins help prevent heart disease and cancer, the next week we'll see another study refuting the previous report.

Let's use common sense and keep a few things in mind:

*We are 100% certain of the negative effects of nutrient deficiencies.  Lack of the essential vitamins do cause health problems.

*There's no ethical way to scientifically study the effect of vitamins on cancer, heart disease, etc.  In order to do this, you'd have to deprive people of a certain vitamin and see what kind of nasty things happen in his/her body. 

*Most studies (that I'm aware of) don't examine the needs of athletes.  In other words, there's a "one size fits all" mentality when it comes to our dietary/vitamin needs.

*Cooking often removes vitamins from food.  This makes it all the more difficult to ensure we get all of our vitamin requiremens through the evasive "balanced diet."

Here's how I put all of this together.  Knowing that:

1. Vitamin deficiencies are harmful, and
2. It is difficult (understatement) for most of us to ensure we have a 100% perfectly "balanced diet," and
3. Rigorous exercise probably increases the need for certain vitamins/minerals,

it makes sense to take your vitamins!

Here's my advice: find a good multivitamin and take one every day--it isn't going to hurt you, and it helps fill in the gaps of your diet.  I usually just buy the Equate/Wal-Mart multivitamin (I only want to pay for the vitamin, not a bunch of fancy packaging and advertising).