As a nation, we are all about vitamins. If you go to any average house you will probably find not just one but many vitamin bottles. Unfortunately, a lot of people buy vitamins as a substitute for a healthy diet or rather a “healthy” addiction to an unhealthy diet. Americans spend over 28 billion dollars on vitamins a year. It’s no wonder that pharmaceutical companies jumped on the opportunity to make even more money by selling something that people don’t really need. Many think that vitamins are harmless and that they have nothing to lose by taking them. Growing up, I always thought people that took multivitamins were a lot healthier. In my mind, that white bottle of multivitamins was essential for a healthy body. (like this one) As it turns out, people have been wasting their money on vitamins.
Reasons You Are Wasting Your Money on Vitamins
Let me explain first by saying that vitamins are absolutely necessary for optimal health. I am not questioning the goodness of such but I am referring to vitamin supplementation (which might not be necessary at all if people get enough vitamins through food) and to the fact that conventional vitamins sold in most stores have no nutritional value whatsoever. Some Vitamins such as A and E are not water soluble (that means that your body cannot flush out the excess). Thus, taking more than needed is very dangerous for your health. It leads to toxic built up and consequently to health problems. Also, even if you follow the suggested dosage, you might still be overdosing yourself on vitamins since you really don’t know how much of these you’ve already taken through food.
Most Conventional Vitamins Are Full of Toxins
Most vitamins sold in stores are trash. Did you know that nutritional supplements in the U.S. are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration? All that is required by the FDA is the label, “these statements have not been evaluated by the FDA”. There are a lot of hidden toxins in conventional vitamins. Almost all Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) sold in America is made with GMO corn (unless the vitamins are made outside of the US). Even popular health stores, more than not, sell GMO Vitamins. Additionally, cheaper brands of Vitamins contain iron fillings and dangerous additives such as talc, dyes, sodium benzoate, methylcellulose, carnauba wax, silicon and/or titanium dioxide.
Vitamins Don’t Help People with Poor Diets
If you are not eating a healthy diet, vitamins will never be able to help you compensate for the lack of nutrients.
Your body is designed to feed off nutrients from food… whole, real, unprocessed food. There is no substitution for a healthy diet.
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Vitamins May Cause Diseases.
Vitamins can cause kidney disease, liver disease, birth effects, central nervous system disorders, hair loss, and blurred vision. According to a recent study, vitamins are not only ineffective in protecting you from lung cancer, but can actually cause it. Scientists found that Vitamin E supplementation led to an increased risk of lung cancer. In 2011, The Journal of the American Medical Association stated that taking Vitamin E can increase a man’s risk of prostate cancer.
I personally never take vitamins. Now I know that the best way to get the nutrients your body needs is through real food. Real food (which includes organic fruits and vegetables) is way more nutritious than any super vitamins you can buy. Real food is the multivitamin that needs to be marketed and consumed. But unfortunately, it’s not a money maker. Hippocrates said it best, “Let food be thy medicine and let thy medicine be thy food.”
Sources: http://www.naturalnews.com/036650_synthetic_vitamins_disease_side_effects.html
http://www.medpagetoday.com/PrimaryCare/DietNutrition/28971
www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/12/17/251955878/the-case-against-multivitamins-grows-stronger/?_nospa=true
http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/healthday/080229/vitamin-e-supplements-may-raise-lung-cancer-risk.htm
http://www.naturalnews.com/036650_synthetic_vitamins_disease_side_effects.html#ixzz2oqRYkwjw
I find it very interesting to read about how most vitamins can be harmful and when I try to find the source of this information I cannot find it.
Roger! There are 5 sources included in this article!
That why its important to buy your vitamins from a healthy food store. Also I have a holistic doctor who can muscle test me to see what vitamins or supplements that I need and how much to take. Also it is almost impossible to get all the vitamins and minerals you need from our food. Seeing a holistic doctor who Nutritional Response Testing can help you stay healthy and help those with health problems.
It would be most helpful to name the products mentioned. How will people know otherwise. There are some supplements we should take, unless your veggies come from good soil etc.
I agree! Ask any water management facility where all of our vitamins go. Ive also heard it said that Americans have the most expensive pee in the world, lol 😉
While this is a great article for raising awareness that taking vitamins doesn’t necessarily make you healthy, I have to disagree to some extent. If you are taking a high quality vitamin they most definitely can help you achieve better health (along with a whole food diet, of course). The problem today is that people want to take vitamins but they are not willing to pay the extra money to get the good quality ones. Taking low quality vitamins can most definitely cause health problems because THESE are the vitamins that are derived from GMO ingredients. Especially multi-vitamins because people seem to think if they take a multi-vitamin every day they are covering all their bases, except for the fact that many of those vitamins/minerals compete for absorption in the body so you aren’t really going to be able to absorb all those things in a one a day pill. Furthermore, there are some vitamins and minerals that we now have a difficult time getting from our food due to the soil being depleted of minerals and non-organic food containing less vitamins than its organic counterpart. For example, it is recommended that most people supplement (good quality) vitamin D as most people are vitamin D deficient from spending so much time indoors now adays.
Thank you, Tawny! I agree that most people are Vitamin D deficient. But you can also get some Vitamin D from the diet – it is found in eggs, salmon, tuna, mackerel and sardines. Blessings!