Dietary Supplements

Hooraydiation

I'm a vegetarian and, because of this, my mom worries about my health a bit. Recently she sent me a ton of dietary supplements to compensate for the deficiencies she imagines I suffer from. I appreciate the gesture, of course, and I probably even need a few of these. Nonetheless, she seems to have just grabbed whatever looked good, so I'd appreciate an informed take on what is and isn't necessary considering my diet.

There are four bottles in all.

The first is a Flax Seed Oil supplement 1g of Flax Seed Oil and 0.5g of Polyunsaturated Fat.

The second is a Vitamin C supplement (Can't I just drink orange juice?) containing 1000 mg (1667% DV) of Vitamin C, 94mg of Calcium (9%), and 50mg of Citrus Bioflavonoids Complex.

The third is a GNC MEGA MEN SPORT Dietary Supplement for active men (I'm not that active) containing what seems to be everything.

The final bottle is a GNC Big 100 Dietary Supplement containing 100mg of Thiamin (6667%), 100mg of Riboflavin (5882%), 100 mg of Vitamin B-6 (5000%), 400mcg of Folic Acid (100%), 100mcg of Vitamin B-12 (1667%), 100mcg of Biotin (33%), and 100mg of Pantothenic Acid (1000%).

Now I eat a mostly balanced diet on my own consisting of what, by my basic understanding, contains all the essential vitamins and enough protein and fiber as well. I also recently participated in a medical study and, following the frequent physical exams and blood work that came with that, was led to understand that I was in perfect health. Furthermore, I kinda think that 5000% of anything seems like a bit much.

Still though, it's not like I bothered to look up any of the essential information when I made the switch to vegetarian two years, so I know literally nothing about Daily Values and the like. If my diet has been lacking because of this, I'd very much like to know.

Hooraydiation

Crap, this was meant for Help and Advice.

Feral

The GNC Big 100 is probably overkill. Unless you're fighting a metabolic disorder or your diet is incredibly poor, there's typically no need to take 5000% of anything.

The MEGA MEN SPORT looks pretty good, although I'm concerned about how little calcium and magnesium are present in those, because a lot of people actually get less of those two minerals than they think they do. How much spinach do you eat?

Hooraydiation

Feral wrote: »

The GNC Big 100 is probably overkill. Unless you're fighting a metabolic disorder or your diet is incredibly poor, there's typically no need to take 5000% of anything.

The MEGA MEN SPORT looks pretty good, although I'm concerned about how little calcium and magnesium are present in those, because a lot of people actually get less of those two minerals than they think they do. How much spinach do you eat?

I eat a small bowl everyday, ideally.

Feral

Then you're probably in good shape. You'd probably need the personal consultation of a nutritionist to tweak your intake just right, because it sounds like you've got the basics down. (Anybody who tells you that you really need to take megadoses of vitamin [whatever] without actually sitting down and talking to you in detail about your diet and activity level and health is trying to sell you something or has been hoodwinked by somebody trying to sell him something.)

BTW flax seed oil is really good. Most Americans get way too many omega-6s and way too few omega-3s. You're at a little less risk of that due to being vegetarian, but it still couldn't hurt.

Oh, and do you take your supplements with food, preferably with a small amount of fat? The bioavailability of a lot of supplements is really, really low unless taken with food, particularly the fat-soluble vitamins like K.

Hooraydiation

Feral wrote: »

Then you're probably in good shape.

BTW flax seed oil is really good. Most Americans get way too many omega-6s and way too few omega-3s. You're at a little less risk of that due to being vegetarian, but it still couldn't hurt.

Oh, and do you take your supplements with food, preferably with a small amount of fat? The bioavailability of a lot of supplements is really, really low unless taken with food, particularly the fat-soluble vitamins like K.

I usually take them when I eat because they're in the kitchen, so I guess I'm set in that area.

Thanks for the tips.

Tube

Flax seed oil is great. The rest you can dump.

Dalboz

The flax seed oil is good for you, vegetarian or not. It's something I would recommend to nonvegetarians, too. You can get you're omega-3 fatty acids through oily fish, but people still don't enough of it, so flax seed oil is good. Even better is getting the flax seeds themselves and grinding them in a coffee grinders so you get more fiber along with the.

The Vitamin B and C stuff shouldn't be bad, and especially with cold and flu season coming up may not be a bad idea. Just be sure you drink plenty of water with them to flush out the excess; otherwise, you could risky kidney stones.

The Mega Men's Sport is crap. It has the stuff in the other pills, gingko biloba which doesn't do shit, and if you're getting other sources of protein you don't need the other stuff.

Long story short: Flax seed good, vitamin B and C stuff won't hurt you, Mega Men's Sport bad.