Vital vitamin tips

IT is not uncommon to see patients armed to the teeth with a wide array of vitamins in the belief that vitamin supplementation will improve their health. For most city-dwellers who generally have good nutrition, the question is whether vitamin supplementation is beneficial or harmful.

In looking at the evidence for vitamins, it is important to distinguish between epidemiological studies which look at trends and can produce different outcomes when compared with well-designed trials where participants are randomised to the vitamin or placebo (randomised controlled trials or RCT). RCT is considered as the "gold" standard of clinical studies.

Vitamin A and beta-carotene