Do you believe vitamins work

overthehill I would have thought soil far less deficient now than it was in the 1930s. These days agronomists carefully monitor how crops are growing and supplement any minerals that are missing. Result is that yields are much higher. Suspect this a "golden age" myth.

Thanks Bags. I'm hoping I can sort it myself before it gets to that stage. I've been neglecting myself lately, and my diet has been very poor.

This was some research done a short while back, I am sorry but don't remember the source.

Another thing to take into consideration is we are all different, some have arthritis for instance, circulation problems perhaps, diabetes, some like me prone to chest infections so what extra help vitaminwise is needed by one person isn't necessarily needed by another.

I am happy to accept Galen's summing up - if your doctor has diagnosed a deficiency he will prescribe what you need. If not, you might be paying for the placebo effect but if that helps you - it's your money!

I'm a vegetarian and I'm not deficient in B12. I had it checked when I had some blood tests late last year just to check because I have been deficient in the past.

Can't agree with thatvGreatnan I have no confidence in a GP who prescribes WD40.

WD40? Do tell.
Reminded me of my first GP who, if someone mentioned contraception, would say "Wilkinson's garden shears!" (both things you keep in the shed)

I think some of you will know why my view of certain medical professionals is rather jaundiced!

To answer the question about whether, over time, the soils we grow our food in have become depleted in trace elements that reduce the nutrient value of, mainly, fruit and vegetables. The answer is yes and the following link to a reputable peer reviewed journal
hortsci.ashspublications.org/content/44/1/15.ful

It is one of a number of such articles confirming this.

This abstract seems to be saying not that the soil is deficient but that with some high yield crop varieties (fast growing ones) there is a lesser concentration of nutrients in the veg.
Well, yes, that might make sense. Anyone who has compared commercial strawberries to backyard ones will know that the shop ones are much more water-laden so I could well believe that they were generally - more dilute.
There is also no reason to suppose that people were better nourished or healthier in the 1930s. Quite the reverse.

There is a difference between being well or badly nourished and whether the food we eat is more or less nutritious. There is very little evidence that people today are better nourished than they were, research this week shows that calorie consumption is falling but obesity and associated diseases are rising.

What we do know is that in the past most food reached the consumer in its unrefined state, lumps of meat, veg straight from the field, butter and dairy products unmodified, while today much of what people eat has been packages and processed, added to and taken out of and that many of the ingredients in food are there to keep it soft, or fresh or emulsified or improve its colour etc etc and use additives that our grandmothers wouldn't recognise.

It is undoubtedly true that people were healthier on wartime rations than they are now.

Depends what you mean by healthier flicketyb - there was desperate poverty in the 1930s and wartime rations were an improvement for the poor. But there were still a lot of infections (including TB, polio, diphtheria and rheumatic fever) around that we don't have now. Heart disease probably quite high too, given the popularity of smoking.
There is more cancer now because it is primarily a disease of old people. Life expectancy has increased a lot since the war.Less Type 2 diabetes maybe as there was, I'll grant you, less obesity but healthier - I cannot agree.

Raw and untouched food not always better e.g. more vitamin C in freshly frozen veg than that which has sat in the greengrocer's for a week, baby milk formulas much better now than then.
Just written a blog on vitamins bit.ly/190CNou

I don't know the statistics on child health in the 1940's, but I do remember school friends who died of asthma and TB and several who had polio. My brother nearly died of scarlet fever (what happened to that?) Those with TB were sent to clinics in Switzerland.

Undoubtedly, we who where children in the 1940s did have a balanced diet because we never could have had too much of anything. Rations in fact gave us the right amount for proper nourishment and were supplemented by orange juice and cod-liver oil and free school milk. What was different, as Greatnan says was that most of us lived in homes where one or both parents smoked; that viruses such as polio and measles, which are now controlled by vaccines, still accounted for much ill-health and even death of children; that the streptococcus bacterium which caused scarlet fever, which is rare now because of antibiotics, also accounted for serious (or fatal) illness. I spent three weeks in hospital with pneumonia which, only a few years later would have been treated at home with antibiotics. I very much doubt that there was more type 2 diabetes at that time though. That is a disease of over-consumption, by and large, although there are exceptions. As a child, I seem to have spent far more time in the fresh air than my grandchildren now do with their computers and tablets to keep them engrossed.

Sorry, JessM, I attributed your post to Greatnan. I also got your sentence about type 2 diabetes twisted in my poor head.

I take supplements,
vitamin D when we are not away,
Omega 3 2000 mg and
glucosamine 2000 mg daily

After the menopause my GP recommended them, I do not have arthritis and my hair and nails are in good condition.

I do !

Jeannie and Nonu - have you read the whole thread? Not much point in any of us repeating all that we have said.

I know vitamin D works. I had severe muscle pain and some immobility and a blood test revealed my vitamin D was a poor 25 (should be between 50 and 150 apparently ) After being given a massive dose and taking tablets for a year it is now 75. Not brilliant but some improvement. Although mobility has only slightly improved ,the pain has almost gone for which I am very thankful. I could not pick up an iron with my right arm but now I can.

Just re-affirming what others have said above. But do seek a blood test if you feel you may have a deficiency. It is an expensive test according to my GP so not randomly given . Mine was recommended by a consultant.

Gorki - I think it is obvious that you need Vit. D supplements if you have a deficiency - but I don't see the point in taking anything that is not essential. You are just filling the coffers of the manufacturers.

Of course vitamins work, i.e. are essential to human well-being, or deficiency diseases such as scurvy and beri-beri wouldn't exist. Vitamin supplements are mostly bought by the worried well, are usually easily and harmlessly excreted by the human body and support big pharma. Sometimes, supplements are necessary.

Btw I have forgotten who made the earlier post, but TB is on the increase in Britain.

Absent - it has all been said but if people won't read the threads before they post we will keep going round in circles.

Agreed. My sons take a vitamin C supplement because they work in offices and feel they must try to prevent themselves from getting and spreading colds but I don't think it really works. With air conditioning and close proximity to others, I don't think they stand a chance.

This is rather a long thread .Perhaps it is time to end it.