A BBC Morning Live doctor has warned that some people may be overdoing certain vitamins and should focus on making key lifestyle changes before turning to certain supplements. In fact, for some, it may be pointless.

That said, vitamin D can still be beneficial - as long as it’s taken in the right amounts. Speaking about one of our previous articles, 'Vitamin D alert as anyone taking supplements warned of 'upset stomach', Doctor Oscar Duke said that people need to be careful not to take too much of the vitamin, or you could very well end up feeling poorly.

Talking to presenters Gethin Jones and Louise Minchin, he said: "In these winter and autumn months, we do know that it's really important to supplement our Vitamin D because we don't get it from the sunlight in most of those months within the UK, unfortunately. Vitamin D, of course, is important for our muscles, our bones, and our immune system as well.

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"The NHS and government recommendation is that we take 400 international units of Vitamin D a day during those autumn and winter months, topping that up. And what this article's talking about is people who are taking too much."

Am I taking too much vitamin D?

The doctor notes that "often the supplements you'll take over the counter will be 800 to 1,000. If you're getting over 4,000 international units, then you're at potential risk of Vitamin D overdose."

Talking about what this could mean, he says that "one of the biggest problems is that calcium can build up. It's pretty rare just from taking Vitamin D, but with all the PR around vitamins these days, people sometimes are taking a lot.

"If you get too much calcium in your body, then that can affect your heart, you can get calcium stones in your kidneys, and it can really upset your tummy. So that's what they're saying in this headline: you get that stomach upset if you're getting too much calcium around. So keep to that recommended amount, and you should be absolutely fine."

Should I take cod liver oil?

Presenter Louise Minchin asked about the benefits of cod liver oil, and the doctor replied that these "popular" fish oils do contain Vitamin D. He urged people to get vitamins through their diet by eating two portions of fish per week - and one should be an oily fish like salmon or mackerel.

If you have heart problems, supplements can be helpful as they can lower blood fats and may reduce the risk of heart attacks. But if you are healthy, there is very little benefit to taking them, he shared.

He explained: "For people with no underlying heart problems, then actually there's very limited benefit. We can see some reduction in triglycerides - some of the fats in the blood - so that can be helpful for protecting the heart, but that mainly seems to help people who have already an underlying heart problem.

"There was one big meta-analysis done looking at over 400,000 people, and they actually found that if you have too much of these fish oils, particularly the Omega-3 fatty acids that are in those fish oils, that they might actually increase your risk of having irregular heartbeats, something called atrial fibrillation, where you might have palpitations and other heart-related problems."

Is it worth taking multivitamins?

"The best place to get these from is always our food", the doctor stressed. "They're natural, they're absorbed better by the body, and for most of us, if we're eating a balanced diet and we're not excluding any food groups, then we shouldn't really need to be supplementing except for the Vitamin D."

Only specific groups like pregnant women, people with restrictive diets, or those with medical conditions that prevent them from absorbing nutrients should consider taking multivitamins. Studies show people feel healthier when they take a multivitamin, but their actual health numbers don't improve unless they were already deficient. It’s mostly a placebo effect, he revealed.

"But remember, a lot of those water-soluble vitamins, your B and C vitamins, they are being flushed away down the loo with your urine if they're going above the normal level."

Is collagen worth taking, or is it pointless?

Doctor Duke notes that even skin experts take it because of the hype, but they admit there isn't actually good evidence that it works for wrinkles. He explained that collagen is just a protein, and when you eat it, your stomach breaks it down into basic building blocks (amino acids).

He explained: "Your body doesn't just send those little building blocks straight back to fill in your wrinkles like some sort of Polyfilla. It's using those protein breakdowns for all sorts of different protein manufacture within the body.

"So there's no good significant evidence to say that collagen really makes a difference to our skin, but of course, collagen itself is vital for almost all the building blocks of our body."

Do you take supplements? Let us know what you take and if you notice a difference.

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