英语听力文摘 English Digest 143、维他命

　　Multivitamin tablets. You can buy them very easily in supermarkets or pharmacies¹. Whether British people take multivitamins every day? No, I don’t take them every day. But I can’t speak for everyone, so let’s meet someone who can tell us more.
My name is Louis Brassy. I’m a so-called general practitioner² doctor in the centre of London. I’m one of two doctors working in our clinic and between us we have, let’s say, 3,500 patients.
It’s a very busy clinic and Dr. Brassy is an experienced family doctor. So let’s hear what he thinks about taking multivitamin tablets.
Is it common? It’s certainly not as common as the Americans. Most American patients that I know would religiously take vitamins every day.
We always make the point that, outside overt³ vitamin deficiencies for specific vitamins, which is kind of rare, just taking multivitamins there’s no evidence they will provide any benefits to your healthcare. And in fact lots of the studies which have been done have actually shown there’s a slight increase in cancers for taking multivitamins.
So what does Dr. Brassy tell his patients?
In the absence of any evidence, we do supply them if people really insist, but we certainly don’t offer them on a routine basis and we don’t really recommend them.
So what can we do, how can we make sure we get all the vitamins we need to stay healthy?
Lots of studies have shown over and over again, that a balanced diet will provide all the vitamins that a human needs under normal circumstances, and really it's only in certain kind of very specific medical conditions that people do need to take vitamin supplements, from our point of view. And a balanced diet means a bit of everything.

1 pharmacies   

药店

参考例句：

• Still, 32 percent of the pharmacies filled the prescriptions. 但仍然有32%的药剂师配发了这两张药方。 来自互联网
• Chinese herbal pharmacies, and traditional massage therapists in the Vancouver telephone book. 中药店，和传统的按摩师在温哥华的电话簿里。 来自互联网

2 practitioner   

n.实践者，从事者；(医生或律师等)开业者

参考例句：

• He is an unqualified practitioner of law.他是个无资格的律师。
• She was a medical practitioner before she entered politics.从政前她是个开业医生。

3 overt   

adj.公开的，明显的，公然的

参考例句：

• His opponent's intention is quite overt.他的对手的意图很明显。
• We should learn to fight with enemy in an overt and covert way.我们应学会同敌人做公开和隐蔽的斗争。