Answers For History of vitamin supplements

Okay. We've looked at the history of vitamin supplements and thought about why people take them. We've also considered the reasons why some health professionals are critical of the vitamin supplement industry. Now work with a partner and discuss the key issues.

Lucy: Sam, shall we work together?

Sam: Sure. Let's go over the history.

Lucy: Well before the 19 hundreds, when someone became weak and tired and it wasn't clear why doctors assumed they were suffering from an infection like a virus.

Sam: 1Or they'd been in contact with something poisonous or harmful. Something they'd handled or eaten. Doctors had no other explanation for it.

Lucy: But in the early 1900s, that changed. That researcher in the US -Joseph Goldberger, -- 2he realised people who basically lived off corn -- they were getting ill because they weren't eating anything else.

Sam: Exactly. And other researchers were realizing the same thing. Like in places where people only ate white rice, they were suffering from a disease called Berry Berry.

Lucy: So the researchers concluded that there must be something missing, that they stuff some people were eating had no nutritional value, and from there, researchers began to identify vitamins like A and B for the first time.

Sam: A huge scientific breakthrough.

Lucy: So doctors, the public, everyone got to hear about vitamins. First, that they existed. And second, you needed them to be healthy.

Sam: But it was governments that were really worried about vitamin deficiency. Certainly in the US and in the UK, at least.

Lucy: What do you mean?

Sam: Well, 3in the 1930s, those governments were worried about people's general health because everyone was suddenly buying canned fruit, artificial butter meat in tins, that kind of thing. It became very common. And so newspapers were featuring lots of government reports about how serious this was.

Lucy: I see.

Sam: And then some people saw a business opportunity.

Lucy: Naturally.

Sam: In the 1940s, companies started making and selling vitamin supplements in bottles, and they decided the easiest way to market them was to target housewives.

Lucy: Why was that? Because housewives were responsible for keeping families healthy?

Sam: I'd say so. 4In the weekly magazine's, Housewives read, the companies made exaggerated claims about what the supplements could do. And they showed pictures of rats in a laboratory before and after they were given vitamins. The before pictures showed the rats looking very sick.

Lucy: So they scared the housewives into buying their product?

Sam: Apparently.

Lucy: But vitamins were still expensive, weren't they? It wasn't until the 1950s that more people could afford to buy them.

Sam: Why was that?

Lucy: 5Well, manufacturers had discovered how to produce vitamins artificially and in enormous quantities in their factories.

Sam: I suppose that's what goes on with any product. It starts expensive until manufacturers adapt their technology. Were there any developments in the 1960s?

Lucy: Companies changed their promotional strategy to increase their sales. 6They used movie stars to say how effective the supplements were.

Sam: That's still true today. Celebrity endorsement really seems to work. Someone on the TV says vitamins have made them healthier, and immediately more consumers go out and buy them.

Lucy: So apparently the number of Australians taking vitamin supplements has doubled in the last decade.

Sam: Incredible. I suppose so many fitness related articles recommend them.

Lucy: I wouldn't say that that's the reason. 7According to the research I read, many Australians are just taking a more active approach to staying well. They don't want to rely on their doctor for everything, so they're turning to vitamins. They can take those themselves and feel they're doing something positive. So it doesn't have anything to do with the fact the price is dropped because so many companies are making supplements.

Sam: I doubt it. Even people in lower socioeconomic groups are buying them apparently.

Lucy: Most of my own research has been about the US vitamin supplement industry. 8Did you know the industry is under no obligation to prove that their supplements actually work? I don't think that's right.

Sam: How do you mean?

Lucy: Well, in the US, the Food and Drug Administration Department regards vitamin supplements as a food with medicine. Manufacturers have to demonstrate that their products really can improve people's health before they go on sale.

Sam: But you said vitamins are classed as a food.

Lucy: Yes. So the industry can sell whatever vitamin supplements they like. You know, this one will improve your brain function, even if there's nothing to support their claims.

Sam: That Danish experiment thousands of people took part in that.

Lucy: Yes. The scientists wanted to see if high doses of vitamins really could prevent medical problems like heart disease or just reduce the chances of people getting a simple cold.

Sam: But the high dose people were just as likely to get sick as the people not taking any vitamins. 9That's not to say that scientists now know everything about vitamins.

Lucy: No, like you say, investigations and long term trials need to continue before they can be certain about what taking vitamin supplements can actually achieve.

Sam: But in the meantime, do we need stricter regulation of the supplement industry? Do you think people would stop buying and taking vitamins if they were told it's a waste of time?

Lucy: 10Hardly. No one likes being told what they can or can't buy, especially where health is concerned.

Sam: Fair enough. I guess if the government made it harder to get certain products, like, say, fish oil with vitamin D, people would protest.

Lucy: They certainly would. What I think is that they should start to.....