Vitamania: The Sense and Nonsense of Vitamins

At 12, Cian Moore loved playing football

until his eyes started to hurt

He had trouble focusing, reading, even kicking a ball.

He withdrew from people

Cian was going blind.

I was terrified because I don't want to go blind.

For three years, his mother took him

to many doctors, trying to find out why.

Those three years were the worst of being told

"There's nothing we can do," so it's like okay, he's blind,

he'll be blind.

What no doctor thought to prescribe through all of those

consultations was these, just two capsules a year

can save a child's sight.

It can even save their life.

In fact, this remedy has already saved over five million

lives, but this isn't a medicine, it isn't a drug.

This is vitamin A.

But why was Cian so low in this vitamin?

Well, since he was six year olds, he lived on bland

foods such as chicken and chips, he wouldn't touch any

fresh fruit or vegetables.

He'd starve, he wouldn't care or if you would make him

he would vomit it.

Hundreds of thousands of malnourished children

are on the brink of going blind because they lack vitamin A.

Most are in developing countries, and caught early,

their sight can be restored.

For Cian, high dose vitamin A supplements saved the sight

in his right eye, but he's permanently blind in the other.

Vitamin A literally has the power to make the blind see,

yet here's the rub.

Taking extra vitamin A will not offer any benefit if you

already have enough, and too much is toxic.

It can kill you.

In 1913, Antarctic explorers Douglas Mawson and Xavier

Mertz were fighting for their lives.

With most of their food gone, they faced a stark choice.

Eat their dogs or die.

After reluctantly eating their dogs, the men fell ill,

burning with fever.

Within days, Mertz was dead.

Mawson, against the odds, made it back to camp.

Ho!

So what was the mystery illness that

killed Mertz and nearly cost Mawson his life?

Well, when they ate their dogs, they weren't just eating

canine flesh and fat, they also ate the dog's livers which

contain high levels of vitamin A.

So basically, they overdosed.

Mertz went mad, his condition known as hypervitaminosis A.

Hypervitaminosis A is rare, but deadly, and today, we know

it can be caused by overuse of high dose vitamin A

supplements, the same kind of supplements that can save

a child's sight.

This power and complexity lies at the heart of the great

vitamin story.

I'm embarking on an epic, world spanning investigation

of vitamin science in history.

That is one big fish.

I want to know how we discovered them.

You sure this is safe?

What they actually are.

The 13 vitamins can be divided into two teams.

How we learnt to build them.

Tonight, Walgreens and Target have pulled

the products nationwide.

And how safe they are.

All vitamins, all nutrients,

they are toxic in high amounts.

We gotta start taking these seriously as we should with

every chemical we put into our bodies.

You shouldn't assume it's safe and you shouldn't assume

it's beneficial.

Currently we don't know about the long term ethics

of diet supplements.

I'm a scientist.

I'm also a father and I want to know how do I do the best

for my son, and one day, might he be taking vitamin pills

to Mars?

Across the word, some experts claim that taking vitamins

can be life savers, whereas others argue that it's just

a waste of time or even dangerous, so how are we supposed

to know whether the take them or not?

Over a billion of us take at least one vitamin or supplement

hoping to keep as healthy as possible

for as long as possible,

but most of us know nothing about them.

This ordinary meal contains almost every single essential

vitamin and nutrient we need.

There are vitamins A, B, and K in the lettuce, lots of

vitamin Bs in the chicken, vitamin C in the tomato, K in

the cucumber, vitamin D in the egg yolk?

There are even vitamins in your coffee and that's before

you add the milk.

In fact, this meal contains every single one of these but

what are these exactly and what are they doing to

our bodies, and how much do we actually need?

Around 100 years ago, we didn't even know that vitamins

existed.

We knew we needed protein, carbohydrate, fat, and minerals

and some suspected there were other vital substances

in food but they had no name.

And then in 1911, a Polish chemist began some important

experiments with some unfortunate pigeons and he changed

the course of history.

His name was Dr. Casimir Funk.

At the turn of the 20th century, millions of people were

suffering from diseases rarely seen today, things like

beri beri, pellagra, rickets, and scurvy.

Now, the thinking at the time was that it was the

presence of something bad that made us sick, germs and

toxins were all the range.

When Funk fed his pigeons white rice, starch, or sugar,

they became ill.

But fed brown rice, they recovered.

So Funk wanted to identify the substance in the brown rice

that cured them.

Now, Funk didn't know where this mystery substance actually

was but he invented a word to describe it, from the Latin

vita, meaning life, and amine, containing nitrogen.

Later, the E was dropped in English, so the word

became vitamin.

Dr. Funk invented a catchy word that captured a fresh idea.

There was a new family of nutrients, the absence of which

caused disease.

Soon it became evident that they were not all amines,

but the name stuck and the word vitamin

became famous, taking on a life of its own.

Over the next few decades, all 13 vitamins were identified.

Soon, they were synthesized and turned into pills.

Little did Dr. Funk realize, his vitamins would spawn

100 billion dollar a year industry.

Vitamania had begun.

I've come here to one of the largest nutritional trade

shows on Earth.

They're expecting tens of thousands of people, all buying

and selling the latest and greatest in vitamins and dietary

supplements.

I want to see what's on offer.

After about four days, you really feel all the brain

health benefits, so cognitive support, memory support,

amazing sleep.

Historically, silver's known to be antiviral, antifungal,

antibacterial to build your immune system by potentiating

your white blood cell count.

They're organic botanical source vitamins and instead of

putting them in isolated sugar syrups, we put them

in more food.

Vitamins have managed to develop this halo around them

where everything the word vitamin touches seems like it

should be both miraculous and safe.

Science journalist Catherine Price spent

five years investigating vitamins.

We tend to think of vitamins and supplements as this kind

of home grown industry of people gathering herbs in their

backyards and boiling oranges

for vitamin C and it's actually

a 40 billion dollar a year industry

in the US and 100 billion dollars

around the world and it's growing rapidly.

Who is taking vitamins?

More than half of Americans are taking some kind of

supplement and ironically, that half is often the healthier

half of the American population.

You have to have a certain amount of awareness and interest

in health to go out and buy these products.

It has omega-369 and it's the only sauce of omega-7

in the plant sauce world.

All of our multi-vitamins have a base of omega-3

fish oil, multi-vitamin as well as vitamins E12 and D3.

C, D, E, all your B vitamins.

Folic acid, you name it, it's in there.

Most vitamins are self prescribed.

They're not recommended by a doctor.

So we should know that the biggest category for

vitamins is multi-vitamins.

Most of us, not all of us, have been taught from a young age

they're something that you take just in case.

Just in case you don't get enough fruits and vegetables

from your diet, just take the multi-vitamin.

And I think when you talk about vitamins, a big part of the

psychology is hope.

What you're looking at right here is a powdered magnesium

citrate formula.

We have an adrenal fatigue formula that has a very heavy

B-complex.

These are biological response modifiers.

Are there like vitamins in here?