http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=109088&d=19&m=4&y=2008&pix=opinion.jpg&category=Opinion
Saturday 19 April 2008 (12 Rabi` al-Thani 1429)
Please Don't Spoil My Relationship With Vitamins
Joan Bakewell, The Independent -
I am one of the 12 million. I am one of those who each morning, line up a
row of assorted tablets to supplement my diet. I am trying to do myself a favor
by staying fit as I get older. They can now flourish threatening headlines in
my face and tell me I may be shortening my life. You just can't win.
Researchers at Copenhagen University have condensed the findings of 67
studies of some 230,000 healthy people and concluded that high doses of vitamin
A supplement can increase the risk of death by 16 percent, vitamin E by 4
percent. Beta-carotene was linked to a 7 percent increase in risk. That's not
all: Calcium in excess can build up in the liver. And there's no proof that
lots of vitamin C helps ward off a cold. You just can't do right for doing
wrong, can you?
It's always been assumed, by me among many others, that vitamins were the
good guys. I had aunts and uncles who grew up with too few in their diet who
then developed rickets that left them bow-legged for life. And whereas "eat
your greens" has always struck misery in the heart of every child, there was a
time when the free distribution of cod liver oil and concentrated orange juice
helped lift a generation of children from the poor diets that their parents
knew.
From then on vitamins were the brave fighters against infection. Surely
you couldn't have too much of a good thing? Now it appears you can. There are
certain issues that have to be dealt with. First, the five doses (sorry,
portions) of fruit and vegetables per day are just not sustainable. There is
only so much spinach and stewed rhubarb the body can stand.
Either we eat this stuff raw, which means cold, and forego the comfort of
warm food entirely. Or we spend time making plain vegetables palatable with
time-consuming recipes that will almost inevitably involve creamy sauces and
butter. How much more healthy is that? Besides, many of us take lunch in
canteens and cafes, and even on the hoof. Five fruit and veg are not going to
make it big in such surroundings. The temptations are too strong, the menus too
full of mouth-watering gloop that tastes scrumptious and kills you too.
Stopping off at a coffee stall before I catch a train, I just
occasionally take the option of an apple, lurking unloved in a basket alongside
the pastries, sausage-rolls and pain au chocolat. I have never seen anyone else
do the same. At best someone might opt for a banana, currently the trendiest
gesture toward healthy living. So government agencies and health pundits are
wasting their time. We've heard the message and we're not voting for it.
Then again, to each his own. We pill-poppers select the particular needs
that help our individual condition. I take cod liver oil, glucosamine sulfate,
folic acid and a single multivit tablet. The medical condition I am treating is
that of old age, the symptoms creaking and stiffening limbs, loss of energy,
and a memory that increasingly forgets names and even facts. I have no control
mechanism to tell me what I would be like without my daily intake, so I reckon
that I might as well give it the benefit of the doubt. What's to lose, except
the cost of pills that might be having no effect at all?
We in Britain swallow 220m pounds worth of pills a year, and there's a
booming pharmacology industry out to exploit our human weakness, play on our
fears and in the end disappoint our hopes.
Excess in all things is bad. But until we are told of dose limits with
exact and scientifically-quantified dangers then simply railing vaguely against
vitamin excess is pointless.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
