Human beings quite often complain that chemicals invaded our environment. In early spring, when our organism needs help to survive the stress, the solution is vitamins, which are mainly synthetic. Can this source of health harm what it is aimed to improve? Has chemistry integrated too deep in human organisms? Here are some ideas of Russian scientists on this issue.

When you eat complex vitamins and minerals, you do not harm your health. This means said complexes do not cause any mutations and are able to protect from external mutagens, when ingested for quite a long time, Russian geneticists, medics and pharmacologists say. The idea of said research appeared, when scientists paid attention to rapidly expanding consumption of vitamins, complex vitamins and minerals, vitamin-rich dietary supplements and food products.

Pharmacies sell a lot of various popular complex vitamins, and people often take excessive doses of these food supplements, however, eating too many pharmaceuticals is not always good. Medics have data on consequences of vitamin overdose, however, these data are sparse and contradictory. For instance, researchers found information on mutagenic, co-mutagenic and anti-mutagenic properties of vitamin C, but sometimes results of experiments, conducted on animals, cannot be extrapolated on human beings. Russian medics conducted their own experiments and found out how a mighty complex of vitamins and minerals affected mutation frequency. Object of interest consisted of following vitamins: A (beta-carotene) Ñ, Å, Â1, Â2, Â5, Â6, Â12, D and Ê, niacinamide, biotin (vitamin H) and folic acid (vitamin B9) and minerals: chrome, calcium, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, molybdenum, nickel, potassium, selenium, silicon, vanadium, manganese, phosphorus and zinc, as well as ginkgo biloba, garlic extract, coenzyme Q10, grape seed extract, ginseng root, guarana, coneflower (Echinacea), spirulina, royal jelly, alfalfa powder and chlorella. Fifteen healthy volunteers have eaten this mixture twice a day. “Healthy” in this case means that these people weren’t exposed to X-rays for several months, haven’t suffered from viral diseases and had no contact with harmful chemical factors. During the experiment volunteers led their usual life and ate food they were used to, but submitted their blood for analysis three times: before the research started, in two weeks after the start and in 30 days after the start. Scientists tested blood samples for vitamin content and cultivated blood cells.

 

 

Thirty days of consuming vitamins resulted in growing concentration of these substances in blood, but not all of them, only antioxidants, which are vitamins C, E and carotenoids. No additional spontaneous defects in leukocyte chromosomes were detected during the course of vitamins, thus researchers concluded that investigated mixture of vitamins and minerals wasn’t mutagenic. Moreover, scientists suggest that long-term ingestion of vitamins and minerals can protect an organism from mutagenic impact of such chemicals as cadmium chloride and dioxidinum. Such a suggestion appeared after researchers added chemical mutagens into leukocyte cultures. Cells of volunteers, who took vitamins regularly, showed less chromosome aberrations than before the experiment started.

Researchers recommend taking more mixture of mentioned vitamins and minerals for improving human resistance for environmental mutagenic loads. Protective effect depends both on ingestion period (the longer, the better) and dose of a mutagen.

Source: Russian Science News

Kizilova Anna