The doctor’s office is the one place where I do not want to hear interesting news. In the doctor’s office, interesting news generally means the tests or scans revealed a problem or a physician managed to notice the little problem of your arm being chopped off a la the black knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.So you can imagine the sudden ball in the pit of my stomach when I heard the voicemail from my doctor. Fortunately, the news was just the iron levels in my blood were a bit high.But what struck me was one of the questions I was asked: was I taking any vitamins that contained iron?It turns out that for the most part, we get the nutrients we need throughout the day without multivitamin supplements. So as hale, hearty young college students, why should we even consider taking vitamins unless we actually find out we need them?Sure, we’re always inundated with these new beverages, meals, diet shakes, protein powders and other “health supplements” on television – and sure, people are conscious of their weight, health and appearance.So we buy into these products containing antioxidants and eat the things that are supposed to prevent cancer. But we need to ask ourselves the ultimate question: does any of this stuff work?According to some recent studies, the answer may be “not really.”The New York Times reported in November 2008 that a large clinical study of nearly 15,000 male doctors through the past 10 years showed vitamins C and E have no effect on cancer rates, including prostate cancer, nor did they affect the incidence of heart disease or stroke.And this comes a month after researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York found vitamin C may actually reduce the effectiveness of chemotherapy on certain tumors.Translation: if you down ridiculous amounts of megadose vitamins and have cancer, you may be defeating the purpose of your chemotherapy treatments and your cancer may get worse. And if you don’t have cancer … well, you may end up like the orange guy from the first episode of House, M.D.For me, I add up the facts: my doctor tells me I shouldn’t take vitamins with iron because I tend to get enough of my nutrients from what I eat anyway and several scientific studies show extra vitamins may not really prevent me from getting cancer or heart disease.Ergo, 2+2=4, thus I’m not going to take vitamins unless my diet changes or several doctors tell me to gin, checkmate and Yahtzee.Pretentious phrases aside, I say save your money. Don’t buy ridiculous amounts of multivitamins and don’t put so much faith in modern medicine. History will show you (as will a medical sociology course) that modern medicine isn’t responsible for reducing transmissible disease — sanitation and an increased standard of living are — and high-tech surgery can’t compete with simple lifestyle changes in dealing with chronic illnesses. The bottom line: keep it simple, stupid. All those things your doctors will recite about eating properly, exercising regularly, reducing stress and avoiding risk factors for chronic disease are more proven than taking a multivitamin. And unlike any other health product, these simple steps all come with a stamp of approval from any doctor.Send Paul your thoughts on health supplements to [email protected].