It all started when Polish biochemist, Casimir Funk, made a connection linking polished/white rice with the neurological disease beriberi circa 1911. He determined that the grain in its entirety (brown rice) contained some compound that could reverse a condition which could lead to heart failure, loss of muscle function, psychosis and even death. Funk hypothesized that other conditions could be prevented by eliminating deficiencies in what he termed vitamins. Here lie the origins of the great debate. Not only did his colleagues try to ban the word vitamin, the medical community had this to say:
“The Journal of the American Medical Association noted that although “the expression 'deficiency disease' has become popular”, the concept is a “vague explanation that is readily accepted by the uncritical.”
Arguments are still raging today. As science has evolved our understanding of vitamins, debate too has evolved over the years and remains at the frontier of the known and unknown. While perhaps there is agreement that food is the best source of vitamins, the use of nutritional supplements remains intensely debated. For instance:
“Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and other institutions proclaimed with certainty that the US public should “stop wasting money” on vitamin supplements. They argued that research has found no benefits, in part because most people in industrialized nations are well-nourished.”
Meir Stampfer, researcher at Harvard, had an interesting response to this paper (referring to it as garbage) which you can read in the full article. Paul Coates, employed for the NIH, notes that we simply just don’t have all the answers. With lack of answers, opinions will always remain fiercely divided. The rest of this article discusses in detail the clashing that goes on among scientists. Opinions are so varied. They range from: most studies are flawed, hardly any supplements show consistency in results, we have no idea how much we actually need for some vitamins, some people are absolutely deficient in some nutrients and could benefit from multivitamins, nobody in developed countries actually needs supplements, it is irresponsible to proclaim people do not need supplements etc etc. The article continues on with this debate and is a superb resource consumers of supplements can benefit from.
So without getting too long winded here, the market for vitamins and supplements is around 68 billion. With this number in mind, the main conclusion about multivitamins is they might be useful, they might not be useful or they might even be harmful in some circumstances. For more information, check out the full article!!!