(Newswire.net — July 30, 2019) — Vitamins are a good thing. Nobody is disputing that, and we’re not going to do so in this article, either. The majority of vitamins serve a specific purpose in your body, from boosting recovery to strengthening bones and teeth. There are a number of health conditions that come as part and parcel of being low on vitamins, and so it makes sense to top up using supplements if you’re not getting enough of them elsewhere.
In recent years, though, it’s started to feel like we’re going overboard with the number of vitamins we’re putting into our bodies. Whereas taking additional vitamins and minerals onboard used to be a case of taking a pill either in the morning or the evening, now they’re being added everywhere. You can buy bottled water with enhanced vitamin content. You can buy your preferred flavor of juice drink, and have that turbo-charged with vitamins, too. Even some foods have been infused with vitamins. The companies who make these products extol the virtues of their vitamin content on the packaging, and we’re inclined to buy them because we think we’re doing our bodies a favor.
The truth is that we might be getting too much of a good thing.
You can overdose on vitamins
The word ‘overdose’ is a scary one, so to be clear on this point, we feel it’s important to point out that when we say ‘overdose,’ we don’t mean that it’s likely you can vitamin-pill yourself to death. You’d have to be suffering from a severe allergy, or be exceptionally unfortunate for that to be the case. You can, however, make yourself ill by taking too many vitamins into your body too close together.
Take Vitamin C, for example. It’s a powerful antioxidant that can lower the risk of suffering a serious illness. There’s some evidence that it can help to regulate your blood pressure, and supports a healthy heart. Who wouldn’t want those things? Yet at the same time, if there’s too much of it in your system, you might find yourself suffering from diarrhea, nausea, and general pain in your gut which will leave you feeling anything but healthy.
Selenium supplements are a health trend we’ve seen more recently than Vitamin C, and again, selenium can do wonderful things for you. Your immune system relies on selenium in order to function properly. There’s anecdotal evidence that it can improve cognitive performance, and we’ve even heard of it being recommended as a fertility aid for those who are struggling to conceive naturally. Push it too far, though, and you’ll have an excess of it in your body. That can manifest as hair loss, which is embarrassing. More seriously, it can manifest as nerve damage.
We’re not suggesting that a serious side effect is likely to occur just because you’re taking a couple of supplements a day, but you do need to have an awareness of just how much of each vitamin or mineral you’re putting into your system, and at what point you cross the line between helping and hurting.
Where Should You Draw The Line?
Ultimately, the safest way to undertake any sort of vitamin course, mineral booster or other change to your regular health routine is to consult your doctor, but we realize that isn’t always desirable or possible. You can easily track the safe amounts yourself, though. What we need to understand is that your body isn’t like the games you play at a New UK Casino. You can’t just keep putting things into it in the hope that something wonderful is going to come as a result. Unlike a casino game, there isn’t a jackpot that comes after you’ve paid in enough money to trigger it; just discomfort, and potentially health conditions that weren’t there before you started taking the supplements.
It’s not only the dangers to your health you should be concerned about, either. You might also be wasting your money! Multivitamins are the worst offenders for this. Whilst they might claim to be servicing all of your vitamin needs in one pill, the reality is that every element within the tablet is competing with every other element for absorption. Not all of them can be absorbed at once. It’s a scientific fact that your body can’t absorb iron at the same time as absorbing calcium. In the same way, the absorption of iron blocks the absorption of zinc. Too much Vitamin C in your body makes it hard to take in the tiny traces of copper that you need. It’s a balancing act, and all those vitamins which can’t be absorbed just leave your body as waste – which is exactly what you’ve done with the money you spent on them!
Guidelines as to how much of each vitamin and mineral your body really wants and needs are available all over the internet – including right here – so make yourself familiar with them. Also, always check the packaging of any product containing vitamins before you purchase it. It should clearly indicate what percentage of your recommended daily intake is contained within each tablet, or each serving. If it’s more than 100%, there’s no need to take it unless you’ve been diagnosed with a deficiency. There’s no health benefit whatsoever in taking more than your recommended daily allowance of any vitamin or mineral.
You’re probably doing everything right already. Given that you’re visiting our website, you obviously have an interest in looking after your own health, and so you’ll have an idea of what does and doesn’t work for you. If you do feel like you’re putting too many supplements into your system, have a conversation with your doctor to confirm it, and consider swapping a few things out. You almost certainly don’t need vitamin-infused water, for example. The regular stuff from your tap will do just fine. Consider natural remedies, eat plenty of vegetables, and exercise well. All of these things are more conducive to your long-term well-being than something that’s been manufactured by a pharmaceutical company. It might sound like old advice, but the reason we still stick by it today is that it works!