Vitamin overdose

Go easy on the vitamins if you want to stay healthy, warns a report published
last week by the Institute of Medicine, part of the US National Academy of
Sciences. The report reviews all the evidence on antioxidants, mainly vitamin C,
vitamin E, selenium and carotenoids. Antioxidants mop up highly reactive free
radicals in cells before they can damage tissue and DNA. But “very large
quantities” can cause health problems such as diarrhoea, internal bleeding and
hair loss, says Norman Krinsky, chair of the panel. The panel says that two
glasses of orange juice a day supply enough vitamin C,…