Dr Sarah Jarvis Vitamins
Almost half of us take at least one vitamin or mineral supplement, but do we really need them?
Let’s start at the top with vitamin A. It has several important functions, including supporting vision in dim light and keeping your immune systemy healthy.y
Liver, dairy foods, oily fish and fortified spreads provide all you need – but if you don’t have much of these, add yellow fruit (like mango, papaya and apricots) or carrots, peppers and spinach to your diet.
Unlike other vitamins, there are different subgroups of f B vitamins. B1 (tthiamine) helps the b ody break down and re elease energy from fo ood and keep your nervous n system healthy. h Good sources in nclude peas, fresh fruit, f nuts and wholegrain w foods. B2 ( riboflavin) helps your body release energy from food and is crucial for your eyes, nervous system and skin. Dairy foods, mushrooms and eggs are high in B2. Meat, fish, wheat flour and eggs contain B3 (niacin), also important for your nervous system. B6 helps store energy and is found in nuts, soya, oats and wheatgerm.
Folic acid, which prevents anaemia, is plentiful in veg and beans. However, all women who are planning for a baby should take a supplement from before they start trying until 3 months into their pregnancy.
If you’re vegan or eat little or no meat or dairy, it can be hard to get enough vitamin B12. Our bodies need this to use folic acid in red blood cells and deficiency can lead to anaemia. Consider a supplement if your diet is low in meat and dairy. Your body also gets less efficient at absorbing it over time, so it may be worth considering a supplement if you’re over 50.
Citrus fruits, fruit juice and leafy veg are high in Vitamin C. Shortage leads to “scurvy”, with bleeding from skin and gums. The British Navy got the nickname “limey” after a British doctor worked out that a daily ration of lime juice would prevent this. It’s water soluble so you need to top up your levels with vitamin C-rich foods every day.
Vitamin D is the one vitamin I recommend everyone in the UK takes as a supplement. Known as the sunshine vitamin, the vast majority of the vitamin D in
IF YOU DON’T EAT MEAT, YOU ARE AT RISK OF IRON DEFICIENCY – TRY PULSES, WHOLEMEAL BREAD AND DRIED FRUIT
our bodies is made in our skin when we’re exposed to sunlight. Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin, which means your body can store it and doesn’t need sunshine every day. However, the UK sun isn’t strong enough to allow us to make vitamin D between October and March – that means many people are short of vitamin D, especially in winter.
One of the main roles of vitamin D in our bodies is to help us absorb and use calcium, essential for strong bones. So keeping your intake of vitamin D up can reduce your risk of osteoporosis, or thinning of the bones.
There is also some research that suggests keeping your vitamin D levels topped up might reduce your risk of heart disease, depression, multiple sclerosis
and even cancer.
In recent years there has been a lot of interest in the role vitamin D plays in helping keep our immune system healthy – and possibly even guarding against, or reducing the severity of, COVID-19 infection. Although the jury is out, I recommend all my patients take a supplement of at least 10 micrograms (equivalent to 400 IU, or international units) every day during winter.
For most, I also recommend keeping this up all year round, especially if you don’t get outside much. You can take at least twice that much without coming to harm, although you shouldn’t take more than 100 micrograms a day.
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