VItamins

Experts cut through the hype about the health benefits of vitamin supplements.

By Richard Sine
WebMD Feature

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

There are enough myths around vitamins to make an ancient Greek blush, and it's easy to see why.

We all know that vitamins and minerals are essential to good health -- it says so right there on the cereal box. And we live in the more-is-better era of Hummers, Big Gulps, and McMansions. Which raises the obvious question: if taking 100% of the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of, say, vitamin C is good enough to keep us going through the day, then why shouldn't taking 1,000% be enough to melt our fat, cure our blues, and let us leap tall buildings in a single bound?

Meanwhile, the $19 billion-a-year dietary supplement industry continually reminds us that we can get our vitamins from a pill. Which invites yet another question: Why should we bother choking down bushels of brussels sprouts when we could get the same effect by sprinkling supplement shavings over our Boston cream pie?

If life were only that easy. The broad consensus from nutrition experts -- or at least the ones who aren't buying Hummers with the proceeds from supplement sales -- is that while vitamins are indeed essential, big doses are usually pointless and can even be harmful. And no pill is likely to ever adequately substitute for a healthy diet.