High doses of vitamins are dangerous, UK report
 

High doses of which vitamins?
 

I tend to agree with some of the commentary in the report--this is part of the growing concern among the medical professionals that they may not make enough money off of people who self-supplement, and the push to make all vitamin supplements prescription items. Then, of course, the medical establishment can profit from it.

Certainly, many of these substances must be used in moderation. Overdosage of calcium can lead to magnesium deficiency, for example. High (very high) doses of Vitamin A can be toxic. But there seems to be no distinguishment in this report. B12, for example, has no known toxicity level, and must often be megadosed for those who malabsorb. There is now a huge volume of evidence that most people at high latitudes have suboptimal vitamin D levels, and need supplementation, especially in fall/winter.

To those reading this, I suggest looking at our own Vitamin/Supplement forum to see some documentation that this report paints with too broad a brush. Look especially at the Useful Sites section, and the B6 and B12 threads. I also highly recommend looking at Braintalk's Vitamin forum, especially Ted Hutchinson's hugely amassed material on Vitamin D.

I'm far more concerned with the way they adulterate food with this stuff than that it's available on the market. People need to use a great deal more common sense when taking any supplements or vitamins though. It makes no sense to take dozens or hundreds of times the RDA of something. One doctor had me on 50,000% RDA of B-6. I took a quarter tablet and got a headache. I kept taking less until it was just a flake before the headache wouldn't start up with it.

Vitamin E is great for some unimportant things but causes my arthritis to flare up. I don't even take it in small quantities any more but what's available on the market is usually 8X RDA.

None of this stuff is even close to being as dangerous as the Rx's. You just have to be careful with anything you add to your regimen. If it's not helping or is hurting talk to the doc about it or if it's a supplement stop it.

I suspect the concern may have to do with the amount of vitamins/minerals taken radomly in isolation. This should be made clear.

What is known is that antioxidants demolish free radicals. Vitamin C eg demolishes the free radicals that caus inflammation. However when an antioxidant nutralizes a free radical it becomes itself a free radical. If you consume a range of antioxidants you have more of a balance so thaa cycle so to speak is set up . The best way to do this is with food as food has unique combinations of nutrients which often work synergistically (that is the benefit together is greater than the sum of its parts).
If you are unable to manage a very nutritious diiet, I think a wise way to go is to seek advice and not just choose random supplements. This is just my thoughts. Personall I've developed an "eat smart" plan to help me with symptoms of CRPS/RSD.
jeisea
http://www.crps-rsd-a-better-life.blogspot.com