Do you have them? Check most bathroom cupboards across the country and you’re sure to find dusty tubs full of vitamins, supplements, and the latest pills and potions that were going to give us eternal youth. It’s not surprising the industry in the UK alone is worth nearly £400 million a year!
But do we need to supplement our diet? Or are we just victims of clever marketing? Research carried out in 2008 by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) revealed nearly a third of us in the UK are taking some sort of vitamin, mineral or dietary supplement. But how many of these supplements actually do us any good, and are some of them actually harmful?
We heard a story of a woman who had suspected bowel cancer. Having gone through some rather unpleasant and presumably costly investigations, they could find nothing wrong with her. Eventually she discovered her symptoms were caused by a reaction to a glucosamine and chondriotin supplement. Just a few months later, her elderly and arthritic dog developed similar symptoms. The dog too was ‘cured’ when a similar supplement was removed from its diet. So in true Nina & Co fashion, we decided to investigate…
It’s easy to think those innocuous little pills available off-the-shelf from your local health food shop, chemists or supermarket must be good for you. It’s also easy to think that you can consume them at will and it doesn’t matter how you take them. After all, they’re good for you, aren’t they? We seem to live by the rule “if a little is good, then more must be better”. This quote incidentally, came from an article about vitamins by Dr Chris van Tulleken’s on the BBC website.
It’s fascinating reading. For example, did you know taking too much Vitamin A in early pregnancy can cause birth defects? Too much zinc can affect your immune function. Too much manganese is linked to muscle and nerve disorders in older people. Niacin has been linked to cell damage. And so the list of horrors continues…
Did you know dietary supplements are not regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)? In fact, they’re classified as food and come under the Food Safety Act of 1990. Scary or what? Did you know that there is no system in place to report adverse reactions to vitamins and supplements in the UK? Even more scary!
So what other horrors did we unearth? It seems glucosamine has a reputation for causing digestive problems. Antioxidants, taken to eliminate harmful free radicals, can be damaging if taken in large quantities. Not all free radicals are bad for us, but antioxidants may destroy the good ones too.
What about those appetite suppressant pills that are ‘guaranteed’ to help you lose weight? One woman in Scotland is lucky to be alive after being prescribed lonamin by a doctor at a weight loss clinic. There are a host of dangers associated with weight loss tablets including addiction and increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.
After all our investigation, our advice is simple. Don’t let yourself be swayed by marketing hype. If you think your diet needs supplementing, spend your hard-earned cash on eating healthily instead. And if you’re not convinced, arm yourself with the facts. You’ll find chapter and verse here on dietary supplements courtesy of the NHS.
And finally, get rid of all those stocks lurking in the bathroom cabinet. Pop them along to your local pharmacy for safe disposal. That’s my next job!