Vitamin pills, am I wasting my time and money?

Vitamin pills – I take one every day hoping it will make me look and feel better, and maybe  live a bit longer than I would without it.

But I recently started to question my reliance on these little blue tablets I use to fill the gaps in my relatively healthy diet.

I am an ideal target for health food pushers, seduced by the rows of multi-coloured bottles promising me all sorts of weird and wonderful extracts and supplements.

Pills to boost healthy hair, tinctures for the skin, gels, powders, Slippery Elm, you name it, I have probably tried it.

Every time a new miracle plant extract comes along I feel compelled to swallow it, convinced by claims it will make me sleep, detoxify my liver or boost my immune system.

How the human race has survived all this time without them I don't understand.

But the growing doubt over these products was fuelled today in a piece in the Daily Mail on the possible harms involved with taking supplements.

Speculation is growing as to whether they actually do any good, that is nothing new.

But it seems not only is this multi-million pound industry conning us into parting with our cash for products we don’t need, pumping ourselves full of them may be doing more harm than good.

Research suggests that high doses they could increase the risk of cancer. The worst offenders are apparently beta carotene (a form of vitamin A) and vitamins C and E. 

A study from 1994 found regularly taking beta carotene increased the risk of death from lung cancer by eight per cent.

 A 2002 study found large doses of vitamin C and E almost trebled the risk of premature death among postmenopausal women.

In 2010, scientists found that taking antioxidant supplements (vitamins A, C, E, beta carotene) could increase bladder cancer risk by 50 per cent. 

But these findings do not seem to have put us off.

Britons spend a staggering  £300 million on supplements every year, probably explaining manufacturers’ efforts to keep us believing we will shrivel up and disappear without them.

And they are not cheap, you can expect to pay upwards of £20 for a month’s supply of a wonder vitamin and anti-oxidant supplement.

The Mail points out that for years we have been told these additions to our diet fight the harmful effects of free radicals –which  have been linked to heart disease, Alzheimer’s, autoimmune conditions, diabetes and cancer.

It is not surprising we start reaching for anything which  promises to fend them off and make us live longer, healthy lives. 

But the human race has survived for hundreds of years without  Aloe Vera, Milk Thistle or Horsetail extract, if anything we have more robust and are living longer lives.

I believe a healthy diet  with moderate exercise is the secret to longevity, but I am starting to doubt the foundations for our obsession with taking pills to make up for whatever we think we cannot get through normal eating.

It really is difficult to know what is for he best with  experts bombarding us with  different messages every day.

One minute alcohol is good, the next it is bad, exercise – should it be long and drawn out or confined to short daily bursts, everyone you ask will tell you something different.

I don’t smoke or drink,  I exercise regularly and I do take a daily vitamin supplement.

But I don’t feel any healthier or happier than the next person who drinks, smokes, eats what they like and recoils at the sight of a cross trainer.

I wonder whether my £20 monthly investment is a wise one.