Many people are “taking too many vitamins”, a leading dietician has warned. 

The popularity of multivitamins has grown in recent decades as a simple way to boost a person’s immune system.

Expert Sarah Keogh said “most of them can actually be fine” but cautioned you can have too much of a good thing.

“What I would see as a dietician [over the] years is people taking too many,” she told Moncrieff.

“People not reading the instructions, people just taking something because they think they should - without ever thinking about maybe what they need.”

Ms Keogh said she was aware of an individual who accidentally overdosed on Vitamin A because they were taking too much of it.

“Most vitamins will pass through your system and you’ll be fine,” she said.

“But there’s definitely been a case in the past in Ireland where someone was taking huge amounts of Vitamin A.

“They were taking five different supplements with five different names on them and didn’t realise what they were getting this and ended up giving themselves liver damage.”

The individual was taking all these supplements over a lengthy period of time and was completely unaware they were making themselves ill.

Ms Keogh said many of her patients have the opposite problem and simply “forget to take their vitamins after two weeks”.

Vitamin D

One supplement she highly recommends is Vitamin D which helps to regulate the amount of calcium in the body.

Studies have shown many people in Ireland have low levels of Vitamin D and the HSE recommends those who do take it as a supplement in the winter.

“I know the official recommendation is through the winter but in summer… we need to be wearing sunscreen to protect against skin cancer and once you have your sunscreen on, your Vitamin D production in your skin goes down,” Ms Keogh said.

“So, you know what? It’s something I do take all year round.”

Main image: A photo of vitamin tablets.