There is no doubt that vitamins are essential to our health. And it’s still possible that high-dose vitamin supplements could one day be shown to protect against diseases like heart disease and cancer. But definitive evidence for these claims has remained largely elusive so far. The more we learn about certain vitamins, the more we realize that taking them in large doses can have unintended and sometimes dangerous consequences.
Are vitamins good for us? Are they even dangerous? We spend £300m a year on vitamin supplements, but are they really good for us? Some believe they hold promise for preventing and even curing some of the world’s biggest killers, such as heart disease and cancer. Others claim that taking large doses of certain vitamins can be harmful in certain circumstances. So what are the facts?