Vitamins can help or hurt depending on use
By Sue Wang
Nov. 13, 2007 9:02 p.m.
What Joseph Lam eats and how much he eats varies with each meal, but there is one thing that doesn’t change: taking a Centrum multivitamin and multimineral supplement after every dinner.
“I take it every day, without missing,” second-year history student Lam said. “Sometimes I don’t eat a balanced meal or what I think is (one), and it’s better to know I’m taking a supplement that adds on to whatever I’m eating.”
Dietary supplements, especially vitamins and minerals, is a billion-dollar industry that is increasing with popularity. While many students take them to maintain a healthy lifestyle, the easily accessible supplements may have potential dangers if taken in excess or without knowledge of the products, said Zhaoping Li, an associate professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
About 25 to 30 percent of college students and over half of the general population take supplements on a regular basis, while over 95 percent of people have taken some type of supplement at least once in their lifetimes, Li said.
Defined by the law as a product containing one or more dietary ingredients in the form of a pill, tablet or liquid intended to supplement the diet, these supplements must be labeled on the front as such.
Supplements are widely accessible, available without prescription in grocery stores such as Ralphs, drug stores, natural food stores and specialty health and nutrition stores. Just walking down Weyburn Avenue in Westwood, one can come across two nutrition stores: GNC and the Down to Earth Vitamin Store.
Yet the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not regulate dietary supplements the same way they regulate food and drugs. Supplements do not have to be proven to work or to be safe in order to be sold.
However, the FDA does have the responsibility to prove that a supplement is dangerous and the authority to take it off the market, said Jill DeJager, the nutrition education coordinator at UCLA Student Development Health Education.
She added that the burden of testing the product’s safety and effectiveness lies on the manufacturer instead.
Because the market isn’t regulated by the government, it is important to really understand what a supplement contains.
The three most common problems are that the quality isn’t there, that there may be contaminants that are toxic and that the supplement does not have the health effects it claims to have, Li said.
The consumer also plays a big role in ensuring the safe consumption of supplements.
Multivitamins and multiminerals are the supplements of choice because the vitamins and minerals have already been combined to avoid the possibility of one mineral decreasing the absorbance of another when taken together, DeJager said.
“One of the most important things is to keep it simple. It’s not good to take a bunch of pills (from) a bunch of separate pill bottles,” she said.
Another danger in taking multiple supplements is that consumers may unknowingly double up or take multiple doses of a certain vitamin because that vitamin was found in more than one supplement, Li said.
“A lot of dietary supplements may have different names but are actually the same thing or contain the same thing,” she added.
While it is difficult to overdose on supplements such as vitamins, high levels in the body can be toxic.
Vitamins A, D, E and K are fat-soluble and are stored readily in the body, which can be potentially dangerous because high levels can accumulate.
On the other hand, water-soluble vitamins such as vitamin C are easily excreted in the urine and not problematic.
“The fat-soluble ones can cause serious problems like birth defects (if there are toxic levels),” DeJager said. “But even if you overdose on vitamin C the worst that happens is something like a headache.”
Nutritionists recommend that one multivitamin should be taken a day, two at most.
“You should look at the label to make sure you aren’t taking “˜megadoses,’ like thousands of the percent you need a day,” DeJager said.
Overdosing does not commonly happen, which students don’t find surprising.
“I know certain levels of (vitamin) B6 are unhealthy, but the doses would be 10 pills a day to be unhealthy,” said Dan Tran, a fifth-year chemical engineering student.
Dietary supplements are not intended to treat, diagnose, prevent or cure a disease, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Nor should they be used as a replacement for normal meals, DeJager said.
“A lot of students perceive they aren’t getting enough nutrients. (The supplements) are an insurance policy,” she said. “A supplement cannot make up for a poor diet because there are antioxidants and other factors such as (effectiveness of) absorbance that they lack.”
Often, people may be fooled into thinking they are healthy because they take supplements and end up leading a more unhealthy lifestyle, Li said.
“A lot of people think they are doing well because of the supplements, so they sit on (their) rear and watch TV all day (and) think they are healthy,” she added.
Nonetheless, if careful attention is paid to the label and the supplements are taken in moderation, they can be a beneficial addition of nutrients to the body, DeJager said.
“Our diet, especially if we live in the apartments, isn’t always complete. So I would recommend that people take supplements,” Tran said.
Students and nutritional scientists agree that education about what one is taking is key.
“As long as it is taken wisely and as long as people know what exactly they’re putting into their bodies, supplements can be really helpful,” Lam said.
