The Facts About Vitamins

There is a lot of information out there when it comes to taking vitamin supplements and this is usually perpetuated by big pharmaceutical companies clever marketing campaigns. Below is professional advice from Alan Katz MBChB MSc CCFP, Director, Manitoba Centre for Health Policy and Professor, Departments of Community Health Sciences and Family Medicine.

Vitamins are essential components of a healthy diet. Our bodies need them because they are needed to support normal metabolism. The problem is that we cannot produce vitamins ourselves, so we need to ingest them. There is lots of evidence that a normal diet contains all of the vitamins we need. There are exceptions though. One is particularly important to us in Canada. We usually rely on sunlight to ensure an adequate supply of Vitamin D which is required for healthy bones and teeth and other enzyme actions in the body. Because we do not expose our skin to sunlight in winter most of us run down our Vitamin stores in winter. So taking a Vit D supplement in winter is a good idea. 

Other exceptions relate to people who limit their diets to certain food types such as Vegans or people who have diseases that prevent normal absorption of nutrients from their gut. While Vegans can get all of their vitamin needs through careful planning of their diets this is more challenging than it is for the majority of us. 
The reality is that almost all of the water-soluble vitamin supplements that we take in pill form is excreted in our urine. 

It is also recommended to consult with your physician before making any changes to your dietary routine.

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