Is it medicine or magic?

'I often felt better as soon as I swallowed my vitamin C, long before it had time to take effect. Medical researchers call it the "placebo effect"; I prefer to call it magic, for it occurs when something – a pill or a word – is imbued with power and meaning, and so it becomes effective.' Kat Duff, The Alchemy of Illness

It seems that hardly a day goes by without a story somewhere in the newspapers about a hospital blunder, a GP abusing his position or patients suing a pharmaceutical manufacturer for damages caused by a therapy that either failed to work or produced unexpected side effects. It is not particularly surprising, therefore, that some consumers have lost faith in conventional medicine and are turning instead, or as well, to so-called 'natural' remedies.

Yet according to a five-year study carried out by Oxford University's clinical trial services unit, taking vitamins C and E and beta-carotene to protect against cancer, heart problems, strokes and other potentially fatal disease is a waste of money. Rory Collins, Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at Oxford who led the study, said: 'Over five years we saw absolutely no effect. Vitamin pills are safe but they are useless.'

It is estimated that around 10m people in the UK alone take supplements every day. Can these people really all be gullible consumers, seduced by marketing hype and with more money than sense? The UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA) goes even further. It says that taking extra vitamins is unnecessary for most people and may be harmful if taken in large quantities, and has issued safety limits for nine commonly used vitamins and mineral supplements, including vitamins E and B6, zinc, copper, nickel, silicon, beta-carotene, boron and selenium. While accepting that supplements are beneficial for certain groups, the FSA says that if people eat a healthy, balanced diet, they should not need to take supplements.

And therein lies the rub – most people in the West don't eat a balanced diet. If they did, obesity would not be one of the fastest-growing, life-threatening conditions of the modern world. To assume that most adults obtain an adequate intake of essential vitamins and minerals through consumption of fruit and vegetables and to use this as grounds for deriding the supplement industry is to ignore the reality of the situation.

The battle to educate the man in the street about diet and exercise is, I fear, probably already lost. There are no short cuts to a healthy lifestyle, but popping a couple of pills each day surely has to be better than nothing.

However, danger lies in the perception of 'the more the merrier'. The benefits of supplements may ultimately prove to be all in the mind, but proper safety studies are essential to make sure we are not doing ourselves more harm than good.