Those who follow our posts know that we have written a number of articles on the issue whether taking supplemental vitamins helps or hurts.

We have been following the Vitamin D story for many years, initially very excited at the prospect that taking loads of Vitamin D might actually prevent some serious diseases, but as time went on the evidence seemed to mount against that hope.

A recent study in the New York Times (https://nyti.ms/2ojZyhO) provides enough evidence for us to conclude that Vitamin D is like all other vitamins (with one exception, see below), taking more than you need for nutritional purposes offers no benefit.

What Makes A Chemical A Vitamin

The word vitamin has to be the most successful marketing word ever coined in the fields of chemistry, nutrition, and biology.

Just say it aloud, it sounds like Superman, or Vitality.  But strange as it may seem, vitamins are chemicals, too.

Vitamins are defined, for each animal species, as the group of those organic chemicals that the species needs but cannot make, and so has to eat.  For us humans that includes the following chemicals:  Vitamins A, B (1,2,3,5,6,7,9,12), C, D, E, and K.  There are no B4, B8, B10, or B11 vitamins.

Another way to remember human vitamins is that Vitamins A, D, E, and K do not dissolve in water, only oil.   All the others, except C, are water soluble.  That’s what makes a B vitamin a B vitamin.  Vitamin C was discovered before the B system was in place, so it has retained its own name, even though it is easily dissolved in water and so really is a B sort of Vitamin.

The Function of a Vitamin

All these chemicals in humans Vitamin A, all the B’s, C, D, E, K, each have a specific function.  For example, Vitamin K is the chemical from which a number of proteins that help the blood clot are made from.

And it is the case that if you don’t eat enough of any one of these vitamins a very specific deficiency disease will appear.  For example, even today, if you don’t eat enough Vitamin C you will develop scurvy.

If you don’t eat enough Vitamin B1 you get beri-beri,  for B2 that would be pellagra, and for D that would be rickets, which was once epidemic in the American South in the early 20th century.

We don’t hear much about scurvy, beri-beri, pellagra, and rickets in the US anymore.  This is not because we are such wonderful modern people, but only because all the vitamins I listed are loaded into all our cereals, crackers, pretzels, and breads.  This step was consciously taken by the United States to eliminate all the vitamin deficiency diseases.

And it worked.  In all my years in practice I have never seen a case of scurvy, beri-beri, pellagra, or rickets, and it is almost certain I never will.

What Can A Vitamin do For Me if I Take A Lot?

This essay would end here but for the conjecture of a great man.  Dr. Linus Pauling is ranked as one of the top 20 most influential scientists of the science-rich 20th century.  He is the only person to ever win two Nobel Prizes in two unrelated fields, all alone for both.  He came very, very close to solving the puzzle of how DNA works.
He is a great man.

In his later years he simply stated that if you eat loads of Vitamin C you will never get cancer, especially good to prevent stomach cancer, and your colds will vanish too.  He had no evidence but since he was Linus Pauling, everyone got excited.  Ironically, he and his wife died of cancer and one had stomach cancer.

Over the last 60 years since he made this claim, millions and millions of people have been studied, to see if eating loads of Vitamin C would prevent cancer or colds.

The verdict is very clear:  Vitamin C does not prevent or treat cancer or colds, of any sort, to any degree.  Linus Pauling was a great man, but this claim turns out to be really not true.

Sadly, the frenzy for the idea that taking extra vitamins could make you healthier caught on anyway, and we have seen all the vitamins take center stage over the last 60 years, each vying for the special chance that that vitamin might improve health.

Every single vitamin that has reached for this distinction has failed, with one exception (see below).  For awhile Vitamin E was supposed to be a great antioxidant that would lower the risk of cancer and heart disease.  All of them have had their craze.

But again, keep in mind each vitamin does a very specific job in the body, and if you don’t eat enough you will develop  scurvy, beri-beri, pellagra, rickets, or whatever condition happens when you run out of that vitamin.

For a vitamin to prove it does more than that, it now becomes a drug like any other, and the question must be put to it:  Does it work at the doses beyond the dietary need, does it harm at those dosages?

Vitamin D

Sometime in the 1990’s or so, Vitamin D took its turn on the stage.  It began with the exciting news that some studies showed people with higher Vitamin D levels had less chance of developing colon cancer, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis.

Imagine!  Just take a bunch of Vitamin D pills and your chances of having colon cancer, diabetes, or multiple sclerosis begin to vanish!

I was skeptical that one chemical, even though a vitamin, could do all this, but papers came out purporting to prove it.  I wrote then that it might be worthwhile to take until more evidence comes in.

Well, in 2010, the Institute of Medicine, America’s most prestigious group of health experts, published an important paper on Vitamin D.

http://www.nationalacademies.org/hmd/Reports/2010/Dietary-Reference-Intakes-for-Calcium-and-Vitamin-D.aspx

The paper stated very clearly that Vitamin D plays its role as a vitamin in the diet to prevent rickets, but as long as you have enough not to have rickets, taking any more offers no benefit to your health in any way.

When this was published, I wrote that I no longer recommended anyone take extra Vitamin D, with the possible exception of breast fed infants because human breast milk has very little Vitamin D in it.  But I did state that I awaited more evidence before concluding the Vitamin D story was really over.

Now in 2017 come two studies, with thousands of subjects.  One shows that taking extra Vitamin D offers no protection at all for heart disease, and the other that it fails to offer any protection against cancer.

The evidence is now sufficient for me to be very comfortable in stating:

Vitamin D, like all but one vitamin (see below), needs to be eaten or made by sunlight exposure in sufficient amount to prevent its deficiency disease, but taking supplements of Vitamin Dis a waste of time, a waste of money, offers no further health benefit, and may be harmful.

The Power of A Fad

Despite all the piles of evidence that Vitamin D does nothing beyond its work as a nutrient, it is red hot.  Medical centers across the country feature doctors who tout the powers of Vitamin D to prevent dire diseases, promote health, slow aging.  Millions and millions of Americans get their Vitamin D level checked in their blood when they go to their doctors.  At least half of all Americans pop Vitamin Dpills daily  with the hopes that their bones will get stronger, their cancers won’t happen, and all sorts of other hopes.

All this despite the evidence proving Vitamin D does nothing beyond its role fulfilled by the usual intake in regular eating and sunshine.

And now, The One Vitamin that Does Something in Big Doses

Anyone know which one it is?

The answer is:  Vitamin B9, known the world over as Folic Acid.

If you take 400 micrograms of Folic Acid before and during pregnancy, the risk of spina bifida drops, dramatically.  For some women, early data suggest taking 800 micrograms of Folic Acid before and during pregnancy can drop the risk of your child developing autism five-fold.

But that’s it, no other vitamin has yet been shown to offer any benefit it taken beyond usual dietary means, that is food.

BOTTOM LINES

1. Vitamins have a great name, but they are simply another group of chemicals.
2. Nearly every human vitamin has been promoted as having special medicinal properties, meaning if you take loads of that vitamin, some wonderful health benefit will happen.
3. So far every vitamin has failed this promise but Folic Acid which definitely prevents spina bifida and may prevent autism, in higher doses than what we eat.
4. Most cereals, breads, and crackers are now loaded with all the vitamins, explaining why deficiency states such as rickets and scurvy are now almost never seen.  This means that unless severe malnutrition is present, in which case food is the answer, no American is short on vitamins.
5. Vitamin D is now officially found to be of no benefit beyond levels necessary to not have rickets.  If you don’t have rickets, popping a Vitamin D supplement has been proven to be of no health benefit, despite cascades of claims.  One day the Vitamin D fad will pass, and the current fad of getting Vitamin D levels and takings loads of D will end, D as a drug will be known as a dud.

The good news is that a healthy body is a wondrous thing, that vitamins are abundant in our food supply, and that our vitamin status if not severely malnourished is very good.

To your Health,
Dr. Arthur Lavin