Vitamins don’t stop infections, but they can increase birth weight
A study out of Aberdeen University confirms what most people already know: vitamins don’t curb infections.
The study authors said: “Regular use of commonly available multivitamin and multimineral supplements is unlikely to reduce the number of self-reported infections or associated use of health services for people living at home.
“It remains to be seen whether those at higher risk of infections, such as older people living in care, would benefit from supplementation.”
So what do vitamins do, then, if not prevent infection? Well, the each vitamin does something different. If you’re interested, this Wikipedia entry is pretty accurate and informative. Overall, vitamins promote all-around well-being. I would be interested in seeing the results of a study that compared healing times once an infection is present in patients who take multivitamins compared to those who do not. I am inclined to believe that the former group would recover faster.
Folic acid, specifically, has been in the news recently because of its links to increased birth weight and decreased incidence of neural tube defects. Along with increasing birth weight and decreasing incidences of NTDs and spina bifida, folic acid also helps prevent some other conditions, including heart disease and some cancers. Folic acid is essential for normal DNA synthesis and gene expression, a deficiency of folate increases the risks of disease caused by impairing these functions. (Such as cancer.)
This link to increased birth weight doesn’t surprise me in the least. When I was born, I was huge, just about 8.5lbs which was large back in 1983. Nowadays new mothers are coming into the pharmacy talking about how big their children are, and some of the weights are staggering: nine and ten pounds more often than not, and the only thing I can attribute this to are prenatal vitamins, and giving up unhealthy habits for the duration of pregnancy. Quitting smoking, drinking, and other habits wasn’t as common back when I was born as it is today, though there is still quite a bit of progress that needs to be made. I do wonder if these children will grow up to be taller than my generation. I think they will, because people are getting taller. Go into an old house and see how low the door handles are. Go to Philadelphia and look at the life-sized bronze sculptures of some of the Founding Fathers, and you’ll see how much taller people are today than they were several generations ago.
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