There are many important supplements that benefit people with specific deficiencies or certain health conditions; but research shows, and experts say, that some synthetic vitamins might do more harm than good.
“Everyone is always searching for that magic pill that will give them great health, but dietary supplements just aren’t it because the benefits often don’t outweigh the risks,” says JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.
That’s not to say that some groups of people don’t need to supplement certain nutrients at certain points in their life; only that most people don’t need to supplement all the vitamins they may think they do.
“Generally, I don’t suggest the use of vitamin supplements unless there is a specific reason to do so,” says Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.
Such advice is especially pertinent to fat-soluble vitamins.
