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There is a growing body of evidence that the specialty vitamin trade is not actually all that good for our health. People are taking amounts that the body cannot handle and there are increases in some cancers because of it. NPR has reported on it a few times here.
Nutritional suppliments are not regulated in the US, unless they make a specific health claim. It actually can be dangerous to over do the vitamin load and many folks hear "take more vitamin X and you will have more energy, better sex, longer hair" whatever the claim and off they go. The human body needs a certain amount of each vitamin and mineral. Those amounts were determined a long time ago when we could not eat the equivalent of 8 cantelopes (one of the examples on the NPR program I heard) which makes me think we don't need a vitamin that gives us the nutritional load of 8 cantelopes each day.
Eat a healthy, well balanced diet and you are going to be fine. You don't need broccoli based vitamin suppliments if you eat your freaking broccoli.
That said, the reliance on medicines in the first world is insane. You probably don't need blood pressure meidicine and insulin if you eat your freaking broccoli and exercise. So I am not a big fan of big pharm or the natural vitamin approach. Both are an over response and have made us more dependent on them and less dependent on actually payign attention to what we eat, how much we eat, and how much we exercise.
We need to get off our asses and move and eat food that is good for us and not in sizes that could feed a small dinasaur.
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