Kind: captions
Language: en
if you eat just one carrot every day
that provides all the vitamin A you need
to survive but in some parts of the
world that's not easy to come by there
are an estimated 250 million preschool
age children who are vitamin A deficient
most of them are in Africa and Southeast
Asia like here in India of those about
250,000 to 500,000 are severely vitamin
A deficient when that happens they get
night blindness which means as the Sun
Goes Down they lose their ability to see
now if you catch the condition at that
point and give a child just a few high
dose vitamin A supplements their sight
can be restored within 24 to 48 hours
it's like a miracle cure but if you
don't where the condition can continue
to worsen until they're completely blind
and of those children who are completely
blind
roughly half died in the following 12
months these are all things I learned
while working on a new feature length
90-minute documentary called vitae mania
all about these scents and nonsense of
vitamins and I am not only the presenter
of this documentary I'm also one of the
co-executive producers and you can watch
this documentary right now it is live on
the web for everywhere in the world
except France and Germany because it's
coming to your TVs but I will put a link
to it vitae mania the movie in the
description and right here and I want to
show you a trailer for this film so you
get a sense of what it looks like what
it's all about something I've been
working on for two and a half years so
I'm really proud of it and I just when
you go and check it out so here is the
trailer
in 1913 Antarctic explorers Douglas
Mawson and Xavier Mertz were fighting
for their lives with most of their food
gone they faced a stark choice eat their
dogs or die
[Music]
after reluctantly eating their dogs the
men fell ill burning with fever
within days Mertz was dead Mawson
against the odds made it back to camp
so what was the mystery illness that
killed Mertz nearly cost Mawson his life
well when they ate their dogs they
weren't just eating canine flesh and fat
they also ate the dog's livers which
contain high levels of vitamin A so
basically they overdosed
it's a condition known as
hypervitaminosis a hypervitaminosis a is
rare but deadly and today we know it can
be caused by overuse of high-dose
vitamin A supplements the same kind of
supplements that can save a child's
sight
[Music]
this power and complexity lies at the
heart of the great vitamin story
[Music]
I'm embarking on an epic world-spanning
investigation of vitamin science and
history that is one big fish I want to
know how we discovered them you sure
this is safe what they actually are
the 13 vitamins can be divided into two
teams how we learnt to build them
tonight Walgreens and Target have pulled
the products nationwide and how safe
they are Oh
which means all nutrients they are toxic
in highlights we go to stop taking these
seriously as we showed with every
chemical we put into our bodies I'm a
scientist
I'm also a father and I want to know how
do I do the best for my son
and one day might he be taking vitamin
pills to Mars
[Music]
across the world some experts claim that
taking vitamins can be lifesavers
whereas others argue that it's just a
waste of time or even dangerous so how
are we supposed to know whether to take
them or not
[Music]
so I hope you enjoyed that trailer if
you want to check out the film you can
click right here or the link down in the
description I really hope you liked it
let me know what you think in the
comments below