A 2013 Gallup poll found that about half of Americans regularly take a vitamin supplement. These supplement-swallowers tend to be older and better educated, yet many doctors believe a multivitamin is a waste of money.
So what are vitamins, and are we in danger of not getting enough?
The story starts with food. Ancient doctors knew nothing about vitamins, but they did know that when people strayed too far from a healthy diet, disease would result.
Sailors and scurvy is a good example. Until the 1500s, scurvy was a rare disease. But as Spanish, British, and Dutch colonists took to the high seas, fresh food was often hard to come by, and many sailors succumbed to a scurvy epidemic. Crews would develop symptoms of bruising, bleeding, and tooth loss, and the condition often turned fatal.
