As the awareness of the importance of vitamins and minerals is on a rise, some scientific evidence denies the efficacy assigned to nutritional supplements, particularly vitamin pills in maintaining optimum health. In a few recent studies, taking healthy food has been proved to promise good health while vitamin and mineral pills fail to emulate the dietary role in maintaining health.

Vitamin and mineral supplements have become the need of many health-conscious people, especially those who have learnt about the anti-aging and anti-oxidant effects of vitamins. Of these, Vitamin E and Vitamin C are particularly sought at health food stores due to their heavily advertized claims of effectiveness against ageing and preventing/healing infections. Naturally obtained from vegetables and fruits, these vitamins are sold in numerous supplements, commonly as pills and powder. However, a new research, led by Dr. Jennifer Lin (of the Brigham And Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts), has found that vitamin pills do not carry the health benefits obtained from the dietary sources of those same vitamins. The study was conducted on more than 7500 women and the results came after a follow up stretched over nine years.

Dr. Lin’s research concludes that antioxidant supplements containing Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and/or beta carotene do not offer any significant health benefits like preventing cancer or earlier aging. These findings agree with an earlier research, published in November 2008, involving about 15000 American men who did not show any cancer-prevention effect from the regular use of Vitamin C and Vitamin E supplements. However, the general consensus on eating a healthy and balanced diet stays valid as before. Fresh vegetables and fruits are the best and most health-friendly sources of essential vitamins and minerals.

What is important to remember about these findings? That, more than anything else, it is not a certificate to give up all calorie-rich diets and binge on vegetables and fruits. Strong immunity also requires enough calories to fight infections. Calorically restricted diet may work for some overweight people (though not indefinitely for them too), it gives a person to diseases more easily than those having healthy caloric levels. A recent study led by Professor Elizabeth Gardner, of the Michigan State University, concludes that caloric-deficient people are likely to fall a prey more easily to flu and other viral conditions and would need longer to recover even if they take the healthy levels of vitamins and minerals. This is in line with the term ‘balanced’ so frequently used with ‘diet’.

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