Study says vitamin pills have no health benefits: will you carry on taking them?

Evidence from the study suggested that "supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults...has no clear benefit and might even be harmful", despite one in three Britons taking vitamins or mineral pills. (GETTY IMAGES)

One in three Britons take them, but a new study suggests that vitamin pills could have virtually no health benefits.

Here are the claims by a new study conducted by scientists at the University of Warwick and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, USA:

• Vitamin and mineral pills are a waste of money for well-nourished adults and could even be harmful.
   
• The vitamin supplement industry in the UK is thought to be worth at least £650 million annually. This could be fuelled by unnecessary cures to false health anxieties, the report suggests.
   
• The research involved more than half a million people and found vitamins to have no direct health benefit for the majority of the population, and that only a small actually group needs to take them.
   

Edgar Miller from the John Hopkins school of Medicine said “These companies are marketing products to us based on perceptions of deficiencies. They make us think our diet is unhealthy, and that they can help us make up for these deficiencies and stop chronic illnesses.”

But will the general population listen or have the vitamins become too much of a habit? Take our poll below.

Click here to read more on the vitamin and mineral study