Vitamins are supposed to be good for you. Are they our friend or our enemy? This is the question we ask each day as we ponder over the neverending question of when is it not enough and how much is too much.

There are many sources written on this subject and you just about have to have a Ph.D in Vitamin Supplements to figure it all out. I am not sure the medical industry has a total grasp of it yet. Maybe they do, but health issues and vitamins used to be so simple. Have a cold? You need vitamin C, eat an orange. Need Calcium for your bones, drink milk for vitamin D. What happened?

There are required recommended daily allowances. Because of the fast food industry,(and I am not knocking fast food, I am also guilty of grabbing that fast cheese burger on the run) we seem to fall a little shy of achieving our recommended daily vitamin goals.

Because of this there has been a major increase in vitamin supplementation. When our health awareness started to kick in we made sure we took that one a day in the morning. They told us the recommended daily requirements was really just the MINIMUM recommended daily requirements. This eventually led to supplementing our supplements.

We needed more A, C, B-complex, iron, calcium, you name it, we needed it. So we started taking megadoses of vitamin supplements. Some of these supplements are stored in your body, and are not eliminated before toxicity levels begin to reside in your system. One of the vitamins known for this is Vitamin A. 10,000 RE and over cause these negative effects: Stimulation of cell division, death, liver failure, fractures, birth defects, bone abnormalities, hemorrhages, hair loss, skin rashes.

Also, it is a known fact that vitamin E is good for your skin, but did you know that for every 400I.U.'s of vitamin E, you need 25mcg of selenium for the E to work?

Calcium works best with vitamin C, and the list goes on. So now I feel guilty just picking up my one a day. Like my body is being deprived of some very important nutrients. I think the best solution is to try to get the dietary supplements ingested by good eating habits, and taking that one a day with our 1st of eight glasses of water.