Yes, I have read about vitamins in general over the last couple of years. Because I was against more drugs than I already had to take, for instance things to prevent infections that could come with colds and the like, I looked into both prevention and cure. I looked at scientific evidence from both conventional medicine and homoeopathy and found very much the same. First thing is that too many people either concentrate on supplementing, boosting or concentrating a single vitamin. It appears that is of little use. If anything vitamin D is far more important than C for many people.Vitamin C has low toxicity and does not normally cause serious adverse effects with high intake. The most common complaints if that is the case include diarrhoea, nausea, abdominal cramps and other gastrointestinal caused by unabsorbed vitamin C in the gastrointestinal tract.
Gastrointestinal activity limits the intake of most vitamins, however humans, unlike most other animals, are unable to synthesise vitamin C so it is an essential dietary component. Citrus fruits, tomatoes and tomato juice, red and green peppers, kiwis, broccoli, strawberries, brussels sprouts and potatoes are major contributors of vitamin C, other vegetables and fruit have a certain amount. It is not present in any meat, despite what some people may claim. About 90 to 100mg a day is all we need, beyond that it is no longer absorbed or, if it is then we are likely to have gastrointestinal problems. In both fields the whole question of vitamin absorption has been very carefully examined.
Homoeopathy has, if anything, proven fairly conclusively that the obsession with multivitamin supplements is a lazy and inefficient way of dealing with our need anyway. Eating more food that contains vitamins is the real answer. There are two reasons. First it is broken down and digested, thus the excess usually carried away naturally. Secondly, having neither been extracted and processed or synthesised into pills, powders and so on, it is far easier for our bodies to absorb since it is simply part of the digestive process. Vitamin C deficiency and the list of ailments collectively known formerly as scurvy are now rare with deficiency symptoms occurring only if vitamin C intake falls below approximately 10 mg per day over several weeks.
Vitamin C alone is not very helpful, D and E are important. If taking multivitamins the check to see what type of vitamin E they contain. Make sure you get D alpha tocophero, but not DL alpha tocopherol which is the synthetic version of vitamin E which does not absorb as efficiently as natural vitamin E. That is good for your skin which is a very good monitor of your general health, so that if a vitamin C deficiency causes any kind of pellagra it will show better and faster. Research has shown that those with the lowest vitamin D levels are over half as likely to be at risk of dying from heart disease. Vitamin D (mainly D3) is produced by our bodies by receiving UVB radiation from the sun. It is the same radiation that can cause skin cancers, so needs to be done cautiously - for instance by not burning ourselves lobster red and hoping to be chestnut brown after a week on the beach. That all depends on our natural melamine hormone and those who have been wrapped up against sun for the first 10 or so years of life are unlikely to produce it sufficiently. However, if you are fair skinned going outside for about 10 minutes in the midday sun in shorts and tee shirt but with no sunscreen be enough radiation exposure to produce about 10,000 units of the vitamin. Darker skinned people and the elderly also produce less vitamin D therefore should get this nutrient from dietary sources like fatty fish such as sardines, herring, mackerel and salmon. People who eat fish at least once a week have a significantly lower risk of suffering dementia and between 200-400g of oily fish twice per week appears to help prevent sudden death due to myocardial infarction by preventing cardiac arrhythmia. Oily fish liver and liver products, for instance cod liver oil, contain vitamin D is the form of omega-3, but also an active form of vitamin A which at high levels can be dangerous. So, a spoonful a day if you must. After years of debate it appears that full fat milk, butter and cheese are good for Ds too.
Taking large amounts of a single vitamin appears to have a knock on effect on other ones. The ascorbic acids in vitamin C can apparently reduce the usefulness of Es. So there needs to be a balance. I have great respect for what Suzanne Humphries says about synthetic against natural vitamins and use of homoeopathy and naturopathy against drug use. She is heavily opposed by pharmaceutical giants quite clearly. However, she is in a minority of one on both sides with very good longitudinal research on vitamins not agreeing. Indeed, since ascorbic acid may cause indigestion and other digestion problems, especially when taken on an empty stomach, also nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, flushing of the face, headaches, tiredness and disturbed sleep, in children skin rashes, there is also evidence of over production and absorption of iron, research has shown that large amounts and even overdosing vitamin C is possible and to be avoided.
So, the solution is to find out and then eat and behave in a manner that provides us with needs. I basically began doing that as a vegetarian many years ago with omegas lacking, so used lots of soya and cooked using rapeseed oil (canola) and linseed oil, sesame oil is reasonably good too. Beans have some, seaweed products enough, leafy greens like spinach, cabbages and berries some too, wild rice rather than white, melons or mangos are the ones I remember for omegas. The rest is quite easy. Just use a balance but remember that most of the things you eat and drink also give you other nutrients such as proteins, sugars, trace elements and fibres that we cannot do without. None of the vitamins is much use if we neglect the rest. That, certainly from serious homoeopathy rather than conventional medicine which is under the thumb of pharmaceutical giants, is the better choice than multivitamin supplements.