Vitamins: More is not better

Taking more pills is not synonymous with care. The supplements are not a panacea for all ills and taken in excess can be harmful.

All we can buy like candy at any pharmacy or herbal market. We take them when the season changes, we are somewhat low energy or even every day to fight aging. But vitamin supplements are not always useful, and abuse can be bad for your health. Enterría Pilar Gomez, coordinator of the Nutrition Working Group of the Spanish Society of Endocrinology and Nutrition (SEEN) claims to be considered as a drug "and, as such, should not be taken without consulting a professional."

One of the main negative effects they can have is to interfere with other medications the patient is taking, "especially Sintrom anticoagulants such as" -indicates Gomez, whose effect is counteracted by vitamin K. Others, such as calcium or iron interfere with the absorption of thyroid. According to Gomez said Enterría, supplements can be harmful even to healthy people, and he cites the vitamin A with beta carotene and iron "seems to increase the risk of lung cancer in smokers and former smokers." Therefore, take supplements only when you have confirmed the lack of one or more micronutrients, either vitamins or minerals for example, a woman of childbearing age needs iron from blood loss in menstruation.

Balance

Another specific situation in which I should take them is in case of allergies involving an unbalanced diet, but it is always the physician who must decide lack. In the XI Congress of the European Federation of Societies of Nutrition, experts broke the myth of eternal youth achieve with supplements and noted that antioxidants have to be balanced with oxidants to be beneficial to the organism. The trend is, increasingly, let the body exercising establish that balance-oxidants which generates and adequate food with antioxidants.

The risks of excess ons

Their lack can harm the body, but too well. If you take too many water-soluble vitamins no problem, because their urine, but the minerals and fat-soluble vitamins are stored in the body and have detrimental effects:

1.Vitamina A: may promote the development of osteoporosis and, in pregnant women, cause birth defects in the fetus.

2. Vitamin D toxicity, nausea, vomiting, confusional states.

3. Vitamin E: increased risk of bleeding.

4. Vitamin C: promotes the development of kidney stones.

5. Iron: their excess accumulates in the liver and heart, and could affect normal operation.

6. Zinc: may decrease the production of good HDL cholesterol, cause nausea and severe headaches.

7. Iodine: causes increased thyroid gland and cause goitre and hyperthyroidism.

Vitamin D lifelong

For decades many parents gave their children 20 daily calcium to build strong bones. Ideally, vitamins and minerals come through proper nutrition, says Dr. Dalmau. In the case of calcium, two servings of milk or yogurt a day is enough. According to this expert, "If children eat a piece of fruit after every meal and eat vegetables every day, your needs are covered." Therefore, the pediatrician should evaluate each case for supplementation temporarily. However, vitamin D is an exception, because the body makes when we take the sun. However, as we must now take the sun with solar Protective, is not more include foods supplemented with vitamin D to children under two years and adolescents, says Dalmay. These are the two times of greatest growth and development. "