Are You Popping Multivitamins Mindlessly? Here’s What You Should Know

New Delhi:  Indians bought over 500 crore pills of Vitamin C, Zinc, and multivitamins to battle COVID-19 in 2020.

If you think multivitamin pills are a safety net and will provide you with better health, you could be wrong. For those of us who are obsessed with multivitamins and insist that our doctors prescribe them, here is news. They are not a shortcut to better health’ — this is what several doctors across the country are saying.

The myth that we need to consume multivitamins for better health is now exploding.

“There are patients who ask me to prescribe multivitamins for no reason. I don’t recommend supplements unless the report shows deficiency. Otherwise, if you follow a healthy diet, you can get all of the vitamins and minerals from food Dr Manisha Arora, a consultant on internal medicine at New Delhi-based Sri Balaji Action Medical Institute told News18.

According to the doctor, the fad has gotten even more pronounced post the COVID-19 outbreak. Even healthy people ask for such capsules and syrups, assuming that it will give them immunity and maintain health.

This is a common myth that is being bred since the 1970s that multivitamins should be consumed by everyone to prevent chronic diseases and to stay in the pink of health.

Consuming a multivitamin daily to improve health and prevent diseases is a generalised misbelief among the population. It is one of people’s commonest, self-deceptive, illusions of ‘good health’. Even then, there is no standard definition of what and how many nutrients a multivitamin tablet or syrup must contain. In fact, there is no good quality research data to suggest an intake of daily multivitamins and minerals.

Our bodies cannot absorb all the food we eat. There are physiological limits to the amount of nutrients our bodies can absorb. For example, our bodies usually can’t absorb more than 10% of the iron from a vegetarian diet and 18% of iron from the western diet, which includes animal food. Similarly, only 20-25 grams of high-quality protein is absorbed in one go. The same is true for multivitamins. The human body cannot absorb all of them and popping extra pills puts unnecessary strain on our system, such as on the kidneys to flush them out which eventually impacts the natural harmony of the body, according to a report in News18.

Symptoms of iron deficiency anaemia or vitamin C deficiency are hard to miss by practitioners. Even B12 deficiency, most common among vegetarians in India can be diagnosed by numbness and tingling of the hands. Hence, balance is the key.

Multivitamins are useful for sportspersons, athletes and pregnant women. But taking anything off the shelf will not help even them. Supplements for each of these categories are different and it is the job of the nutritionist and doctor to determine that, the report adds. But for an everyday Joe, just having a glass of milk or eating an apple or any fruit gives him or her the required amount of vitamins.

“An important vitamin that I generally prescribe elderly vegetarians is B12. So, if you are ageing and consume only a vegetarian diet, you must watch out for your B12 levels,” Dr Sumit Ray, critical care specialist at Holy Family Hospital, told News18.

Here is an example

According to the report, emerging evidence shows that vitamin D pills taken with or without calcium have no effect on bone fracture rates. The latest study of nearly 26,000 people published on July 26, who were assigned to take vitamin D each day found the vitamin had no effect, even among people who had low vitamin D levels or osteoporosis.

And even if there is no harm, there is no benefit as well. A 2018 study showed multivitamins had slightly substantial benefits and the review found that consumption of multivitamins, vitamin D, calcium or vitamin C, does no harm but there is no clear advantage either.

The idea of popping vitamins has been unquestioningly accepted by many in India. It’s time to question the approach. Meanwhile, a balanced approach is needed and science-based, rational prescribing is the need of the hour when it comes to multivitamins. Neither should you outrightly reject vitamins nor should you gulp them unnecessarily without a proven cause, concludes the News18 report.