The multivitamin see-saw                           

            Few topics in medicine have been as subject to confusion and contradiction as vitamins. Although the study of vitamins became well established a little more than a century ago there are many aspects of these micronutrients that are still poorly understood. One of the main reasons for the confusion is the failure to recognize, even today, that a vitamin never works alone but is only one ingredient in a vast stew of nutrients that number in the thousands in a single pot – the human body. Any cook knows that adding an excessive amount of a single ingredient will spoil the dish but many studies still follow such a faulty recipe. Large doses of single vitamins don’t yield the results of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables.

            You have probably heard that “if you have a normal diet you don’t need vitamins.”  That’s true but few people, especially in the U.S., have a normal diet. Humans evolved to eat a couple of pounds of plant foods with their abundance of vitamins A, B, C, E and K every day. The government suggests at least 5 servings a day of fruits and vegetables. Barely one adult in five even comes close to that low standard. Adolescents actually take in, on average, only nine-tenths of a serving on a daily basis and that typically consists of tomatoes, iceberg lettuce or French fries. Ask any school cafeteria worker how many trash can loads of salad and fruit are dumped by students every day.            Obstetricians are aware that the vast majority of their pregnant patients get inadequate amounts of essential nutrients such as folic acid, found in leafy greens, so they prescribe prenatal vitamins for all of them. One reason is that a deficiency of folic acid, one of the B vitamins, is a major cause of birth defects that range from spinal cord anomalies to cleft palate and heart abnormalities. By the time a woman comes in for her first prenatal check the damage has been done, so all women of childbearing age, whether or not they intend to become pregnant, should take a multivitamin.

            Seniors not only have erratic eating habits but the aging process, the stress of chronic disease, prescription drugs, the poor absorption of several nutrients and the avoidance of vitamin D-generating sunshine make a daily multivitamin a prudent choice.

            That doesn’t leave many of us with a “normal” diet, does it?