我们一天需要吃多少维生素?

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Hello, I’m Elizabeth Vargas and welcome to 20/20 in touch.

Trying to find a way to cut back on your spending, maybe you can save on all those vitamin supplements you’ve been buying. Doctor Tim Johnson has a new prescription for your physical and financial health.

24-year-old graduate student Ashley Mason is the picture of health. She does everything possible to stay that way. She watches her diet, exercises everyday. And she takes supplements to prevent health problem as she gets older.

Stop wrinkles before they start. Take these pills before you get sick. And it all sounds like a very good idea to me.

In fact, Ashley takes nearly a dozen different pills everyday.

Every week, I sort them into this sorter.

But Ashley is not a finale. Millions of people follow a regiment like this. Last year American spent 22.5 billion dollars on dietary supplements, hoping to buy a protection against the whole range of illnesses. This is what Ashley is counting on to keep her healthy. A multi-vitamin, fish oil, flaxseed oil, calcium, B-vitamins, magnesium, glucosamine and vitamin E. It’s expensive, but she believes it’s an investment in her health.
 
It’s a lot of money for a graduate student to be paying every month for medication, while it’s not even really medication, I’m not sick.

Physically, Ashley feels fine. It’s her pocketbook that hurts. A student on a tight budget, she's scraping together a thousand dollars a year for all her supplements. And since the manufactures don’t have to prove to consumers that any of this stuff actually works, 20/20 set out to see if taking all these pills is smart medicine.

Doctor Eric Rimm of the Harvard School of Public Health says a simple multi-vitamin can provide a sort of safety net against the less-than-perfect diet.

If you’re really on a generic mouthful vitamin which I think is probably enough for most people if you’re taking a supplement. The only thing where I would think there may be benefit would be taking from...er, will be taking vitamin D.

Vitamin D, the so-called sunshine vitamin because it’s made when sunlight gets your skin.

Every tissue and cell in your body needs vitamin D for maximum health.