Vitamins are vital for health and arthritis. But multivitamins can sometimes pose health risks.
By Dawn Flemming
Multivitamins are a billion dollar industry. The general idea is that to be healthy, you need to have a healthy level of vitamins in your system. Current research also holds that vitamin deficiencies are contributing to the development of autoimmune diseases like arthritis. These include vitamins E, D and C.
The problem with multivitamins is that it is easy to overconsume them. Most multivitamins are already high enough so they may pose some serious health risks. Some multivitamins have 10 times the amount of nutrients that are actually needed and may potentially make your arthritis worse.
The Arthritis Foundation warns us of the following:
Certain vitamins — such as B and C — are water-soluble. If you take too much of them, your body simply flushes out the extra. Other vitamins — including A, D, E, and K — are fat-soluble. They aren’t good to consume in high doses because your body holds onto the excess. Minerals can be problematic in large doses, too. Too much iron can be toxic, causing symptoms like fatigue, joint pain, and depression. High-dose calcium supplements have been linked to an increased risk for heart disease as reported in a the National Institutes of Health-AARP diet and health study published in the JAMA Internal Medicine in 2013.
Multivitamins can also interfere with the medications we use. This is especially true when it comes to vitamin E with blood thinning medication and calcium with antibiotics.
Another problem is the effectiveness of multivitamins. Vitamins in foods work synergistically, meaning that their effects are produced in interaction with other nutrients in the food. Taking them in in isolation may not afford us with the benefits that we seek.
For this reason, we would recommend that vitamins be taken through food and multivitamins should generally be taken under the advice of a doctor.
Dawn Flemming is Director of Business Services at Geriatric In-Home Care in Fresno, California.