I eat a good diet. I only take a multi-vitamin if I know I've eaten poorly that day. Otherwise, I'm confident that with a regular diet, which consists of more than just meat and such, I'm getting more than what I need, as has been stated already by some.
Multi-vitamins are a supplement for a poor diet, but the money can be better spent by just buying foods that are rich in what you're deficient in.
I don't know if you can take in high amounts of any vitamin at one time. I doubt it though. It's probably like calcium, where drinking a litre of milk in one sitting is going to be equivalent to drinking just 20% of that amount (200 ml), since your body can't take all of it in at once.
You're partially correct Abstract. Your body can only make use of a certain amount of the vitamin that you take in, anything above and beyond that will be excreted through the urine and feces, and in extreme cases an overdose of vitamins can cause a condition called hypervitaminosis (look it up). .Andy even pointed out that studies have linked a high dose of vitamin E to an increased risk of Lung Cancer, and there are other conditions too! I was given a case of Isagenix multivitamins a while back by my grandmother. They are supposed to be among the best money can buy. Upon reading the back label, I was shocked discover that they consisted of more than 1000X the RDA for each and every vitamin in the supplement. If I'd taken more than necessary, I could have had some real issues.
I'm not saying that taking a Vitamin supplement is bad for your health, taking too many could be potentially damaging, but those cases are extremely rare. What I am saying is that study after study, and even just a basic analysis of American and European average diets show that vitamin supplements are a terrible waste.
And to the individual who claimed that European and American diets are different, believe me they are not. I am an American citizen, I was born here, I grew up here and I'll likely live here for the rest of my life. But I did live in Europe for a while too, in Portugal. I wasn't a tourist, I lived there, rented an apartment, worked etc. I lived in a small town on the outskirts of Lisbon and I can tell you that from my experience there (and I'd wager that they have one of the more nutrient lacking diets in western europe) their diet is not noticeably different than an American's in terms of ingredients used etc. It may in fact be more healthy from a heart standpoint, which would invalidate the use of some sort of dietary supplement even further.
I'm not trying to tell you not to take your vitamins, you of course are supposed to decide what's best for you. I'm just shedding light on the fact that you're spending a lot of money for something that's giving you very very little (if any) benefit.
SLC
