Viewpoint FROM THE CHIEF MEDICAL EDITOR

Vitamins: Too Much of a Good Thing?

Paul S. Koch, M.D.

After 55-year-old Bobby Riggs decisively defeated Margaret Court in the first "Battle of the Sexes" in 1973, he neglected to practice before his match with Billie Jean King. Instead, the huckster dashed about the country gathering cash from personal appearances. When he came to my town autographing giant Sugar Daddies, I stood in line for a half-hour to get mine.

Despite endorsing candy, he was a health-food fanatic (as long as it did not conflict with his cigars and cognac) and ate plates of vitamins. Before the second match he took 450 pills a day to make him big and strong. He should have practiced, too, because even with the extra vitamins, 29-year-old Billie Jean King whooped him.

Other known advocates of vitamins include 92-year-old fitness legend Jack LaLanne, who attributes his health to exercise, diet and his 40 to 50 vitamins-a-day habit. Even two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling is known to have taken megadoses of vitamin C.

Vitamins are also endorsed in eye care. The AREDS formulations are considered so important that we’ll soon be judged via pay for performance on how successful we are in getting our patients to take them.

Everyone knows that vitamins are good, so it would stand to reason that more vitamins are better.

Now comes the bad news. Recently, a new report from the National Cancer Institute was released. After studying 200,000 men, researchers found that one-third of us take vitamins and that 5% take after Jack and Bobby, gobbling more than seven doses per week. In the study, the high usage group had a higher chance of developing prostate cancer.

Everything in Moderation

So now it’s not enough to put our patients on AREDS formulations. We also have to be sure they don’t take more than one dose a day of their multivitamins.

Remember what Mom said, "Be careful what you put in your mouth. It can make you sick." Smart girl, that Mom. But who could guess that this could mean vitamins, too?

Oh yeah, one more thing: Both Linus Pauling and Bobby Riggs died from prostate cancer.