TedEd-21

Are Multivitamins ReallyGood For You?

From colorful pills to chewy gummies in the shape of your favorite cartoon character there are tonsof multivitamin supplements to choose from. And people spend billions of dollars every year trying toboost their health with them. But if you look on the back of the bottle lots of these supplements havemore than 100% sometimes up to 500% or 2000% of the recommended daily value for different
vitamins inside. So, why are they so jam-packed with vitamins? And is taking all these supplements
actually good for you? Well, if you are healthy and eating a balanced diet, you should be getting all
the vitamins you need. So at best, they probably aren't doing very much. At worst, they could bedoing you harm.
Vitamins are important compounds that our bodies need to grow and function. But we need to getthem from food because we can't make them, or enough of them, ourselves. There are fat-soluble
vitamins A, D, E and K which means they dissolve in lipids and B vitamins and Vitamin C are water-TedEd-21

Are Multivitamins ReallyGood For You?

soluble which means they dissolve in water. And different vitamins come from different foods.
Vitamin K, for example, can come from dark green vegetables, while Vitamin C is in all kinds ofcitrus fruits, and your body can make vitamin D after spending some time in the sun. If you'redeficient in any of them, your cells and enzymes won't be able to work properly, and you could beprone to diseases. So the reason to taking multivitamin supplements is usually to prevent anyvitamin deficiencies. Sounds reasonable. But taking supplements when you don't actually needthem can cause problems. Multivitamins generally have more than 100% of your Recommended
Dietary Allowance, or RDA. RDA values are set by national organizations that study food andnutrition. They're basically the estimated nutrient requirements for healthy people. The samescientific committees also estimate a tolerable Upper intake Level, or UL which is the max amountof these nutrients you can take, without risking some negative health effects.
Generally, the levels for water-soluble vitamins are a lot higher than for fat-soluble vitamins. Eitherway, when you take a multivitamin that has more than 100% of the RDA for different vitamins, yourbody might not be digesting and absorbing it all. Your body tends to get rid of any excess watersoluble vitamins by peeing them out. But it stores the extra fat-soluble vitamins in your fatty tissues.
The problem is mega-doses of vitamins. If you consistently take the UL dose over weeks or months,
especially with fat-soluble vitamins, these vitamins will keep building up in your body, and eventuallycause toxicity or other health problems. For example, Vitamin D normally helps your body absorb
calcium but a lot Vitamin D could cause a buildup of calcium in your blood called Hypercalcemia oreven damage your heart. So even though your body needs vitamins to survive, taking multivitamins
doesn't replace the nutrients you get from a balanced diet, and can even be harmful if you overdo it.
If you have some s sort of health condition, or pregnant, definitely listen to your doctor and thesupplements they recommend. But, usually just taking a bunch of extra multivitamins won't do muchfor your health.