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.
What do you mean with “work”? Do they supply the advertised vitamins? Most likely yes. Do they do something good for your body? Most likely, speaking for the general population, no.
Nutritional deficiencies are not as common as marketing agencies want you to believe. There are some special occasions though, for example if you’re a vegan you should supplement vitamin B12, either through dietary supplements or through vitamin b12 enriched food.
Most of the scientifically backed marketing claims for vitamins and minerals relate to “contributing to the normal function of xyz”. That means, for example, vitamin C is necessary for your immune system to work. However, that does _not_ mean that it makes your immune system stronger, makes you more healthy or less susceptible for becoming ill.
Here is a list of all the scientifically backed health claims for dietary supplements:
[https://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/labelling_nutrition/claims/register/public/?event=search](https://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/labelling_nutrition/claims/register/public/?event=search)
So vitamin pills are just useful if you are in need of that certain vitamin.
However, as someone who worked in the field of dietary supplements I have to issue a warning here: dietary supplements are _not_ medical drugs. They do _not_ need regulatory approval, like meds do. They are _not_ regularly tested (sometimes they are tested but that’s pretty rare for smaller companies). There is no official control over dosage and quality. Literally anyone can sell dietary supplements, there is no required quality test or something. People often don’t know that and think that the quality control is the same as for medical drugs. It’s not.
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