Spakka said:
I actually registered to respond to this...
multivitamins in healthy young people are actually harmful. This one of the best researched topics in the whole of medicine (I'm a final year medical student). Daily multivitamins in a healthy male population (a study size of over 100 000, double blind, placebo controlled) INCREASED mortality (edit:this means death rate) by over 20%.
They have...
Thanks for saying it before me.
Vitamins, if you already eat a healthy diet, don't do squat. They may harm you significantly if you overdose (which is possible), and many have been associated with increased mortality rates. The only supplement that I've not seen any negative press about is Calcium, but take too much Calcium and you end up with kidney stones.
Unless you are diagnosed deficient, there's no reason to take them. Especially because, in the United States at least, there's ABSOLUTELY NO REGULATION OF THEM WHATSOEVER. They can slap whatever the hell they want on the bottle, put whatever they want into the pills (some tested had sawdust), and one company was putting Ephedrin into their pills.
Because, you know, fuck your heart.
Hell, even if one of them did do something, by taking 1000% of it doesn't mean its bioavailability allows it to be used. When you scarf down 1500% of your Vitamin C because you have a cold, your body will take 100% and then (because it's completely water soluble) just piss out 1400%. The same goes for all the water-soluble vitamins. The fat soluble ones can cause complications if you eat enough to store large amounts in adipose tissue and then (perhaps because of surgery) see drastic weightloss. When your body metabolizes the fat, it gets a huge influx of vitamins and can overload the liver.
To quote my favorite advice ever on eating:
"Real food. In moderation. Mostly plants."