Maybe a hundred years ago very few people knew about vitamins, but today the word “vitamin” is a household word. The vitamin’s popularity comes from the marketing success of chemical companies that have promoted the use of vitamins just as they have succeeded in promoting the use of drugs as wonder pills and cure-alls. But we now know better than to accept the cure-all philosophy. Or do we?
“Vitamin and mineral supplement sales are a S6.4 billion market; herbal supplements bring in at least SI.2 billion. The most dramatic increase in sales has occurred in the use of single vitamin supplements such as vitamin C, E, calcium and antioxidant tablets. The FDA reports that 53 percent of adults, or 101 million Americans, take nutritional supplements, with about 58 percent of women and 47 percent of men using vitamins or minerals. Typical users have some college education and fall in the middle to upper income range.
What do people expect to achieve by eating vitamin pills? Because most people are not very informed about how vitamins are made and what they are capable—and not capable—of doing, they rely on marketing claims. Like all marketing claims, some of what is said about vitamins is true and other statements are false; still other claims are misguided and misleading. It is true that vitamins are PARTS of foods, but they are NOT foods. It is true that foods contain vitamins, but it is not necessarily true that the vitamins you take are actually FROM foods (vitamins can also be made synthetically in a laboratory just as drugs are manufactured). And it is true that NO vitamin is really “natural” once it has been REMOVED from its original source—the food that once contained the vitamin.
Excess intake of vitamin C from food can block the production of vitamin own something like this happens to sex hormones when taking artificial hormones - steroids.
