geb@cadre.UUCP (07/31/84)
Vitamin crazies are quite common. In my opinion much of it stems from a reaction to the natural aging process. A person goes through a lot of undesirable changes after age 50 or so and it is clear what direction this is inevitably leading. When something simple like vitamins is held out as a panacea a lot of otherwise quite rational people will bite. The people I have encountered that are the vitamin nuts are usually more intelligent than usual, but often less educated, or at least, not educated in scientific fields. They are uncritical of the claims made for the vitamins and the poisons in the environment. Another large segment used to be counter-culture people, although they were less prone to take the pills (Shaklee et al, which are mostly used by the Seniors) than to go for vegetarianism and other organic diets. It quite often does take on religious aspects, and often the same people who are fanatical on vitamins become similarly so with religion. It does have an unhealthful psychological air to it all, but usually physically it is harmless, as long as excesses of fat soluable vitamins aren't consumed (A,D,and E), since the excess vitamins are passed in the urine. Scientifically, there is some questionable value to taking more than what a normal person would get of vitamin C (still quite in doubt), but most evidence would suggest that evolution has adapted the human (like the pig) to be able to get by very well on just about any kind of diet we can get. The worlds major nutrition problem is lack of calories, secondly lack of protein, not vitamins. In the U.S., it is clearly excessive amounts of calories. I think the best way to deal with the vitamin nuts is not to challenge their elaborate belief systems, but also to make it clear that you will choose your own diet and ignore the vitamins they foist on you with each cold.