Does it actually work or is the whole thing a placebo
In: Biology
It’s actually not studied that well. Please note I’m not saying it’s not studied at all, I’m saying it’s not studied that well. I’ll be using just vitamin C here as an example, but this applies to all vitamins.
There is no medical reason to just give people ridiculous amounts of vitamin C, nor is there a medical reason to give people other controlled amounts of vitamin C that are higher / lower than recommended daily dose. We’d be putting people at risk for no clear benefit. Also vitamin studies require strict dietary control which is going to increase the cost significantly. And even if there are huge benefits, there are no companies that stand to profit off of this. I’m sure there are more angles I’m not considering here which also increase difficulty. Which ultimately means we can’t know if there is benefit to having more vitamin C than the recommended daily dose. It’s possible the daily dose is too small (or too large).
In general we can consider the recommended daily amounts as safe and good for you. It’s possible more/less is better for you. Then we also need to consider that more/less could harm you. And we need to consider the daily dose is an average, which means itll be too much for about 50% of people and too little for 50% of people.
So in the end taking vitamins could actually work for you. Or it could be a placebo. There is no firm answer as there aren’t enough studies and everyone is different.
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