Well-balanced eating beats vitamin cocktails

WORTH IT? Not all supplements offer all the nutrients we need, says the writer. Photo: Ronstik-Fotolia

WORTH IT? Not all supplements offer all the nutrients we need, says the writer. Photo: Ronstik-Fotolia

Published Sep 13, 2016

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VITAMINS and minerals are essential for keeping us in good health. While eating a varied diet should give us all the nutrients we need, recent diet and health surveys show the typical Australian diet is far from varied – or even close to what is considered a healthy diet.

To the rescue come vitamin and mineral supplements, but can they deliver on their 
promises and are they for everyone?

Who needs a supplement?

When writing about supplements, a glib approach is to state that we can get everything we need from food, so we don’t need them. Eat your veggies. Don’t take supplements. End of story.

That isn’t the whole story. Already, our food supply is fortified with folic acid, iodine and thiamin to prevent serious public health issues related to conditions arising from deficiencies of these nutrients in some groups of people.

There are groups of people for whom supplements would be recommended. Women planning pregnancy can benefit from nutrients such as folic acid and iodine, which reduce the risk of birth defects. People with limited exposure to sunlight would be advised to consider a vitamin D supplement.

Frail and aged people are candidates as well due to food-access problems, chewing and swallowing difficulties, absorption problems and medication. People with malabsorption problems, some vegetarians and people following chronic low-calorie diets all make the list as well. And people with a clinically diagnosed deficiency could all 
benefit from supplementation.

Why nutrients from 
food are better than from supplements

Taking multivitamins as a nutritional insurance policy may be an issue for more than just your wallet. Seeing a supplement as a solution may 
contribute to neglecting healthy food choices, and this has bigger consequences for long-term health.

Food is a complex mix of vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals (plant chemicals). Phytochemicals are an important component of food, and help to reduce the risk of conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some 
cancers.

Vitamin and mineral supplements do not provide the benefits of phytochemicals and other components found in food, such as fibre.

The promise of possible benefits from supplements takes the focus from what really does promote better health and less chronic disease: eating a varied diet with plenty of minimally processed plant-based foods, regular activity, drinking within guideline recommendations and not smoking.

For a healthy adult, if supplements are used, these should normally be taken at levels close to the recommended dietary intake. High-dose supplements should not be taken unless recommended under medical advice.

Although taking too much of certain vitamins or minerals can be harmful, the doses present in multivitamins are typically low. After all, you can only pack so much of each nutrient into a multivitamin pill, and often it is not even close to the recommended dietary intake.

Vitamin and mineral supplements can’t replace a healthy diet, but a general multivitamin may help if your diet is inadequate, or where there is already a well-supported rationale for you to take one. If you feel you could be lacking in certain vitamins and minerals, it is better to look at changing your diet and lifestyle first, rather than reaching for supplements.

l Crowe is the Associate Professor in Nutrition, Deakin University. This article first appeared in The Conversation

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