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Multivitamins
Mai-Kero
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, I'd like to know if these are worth purchasing. Will they make me healthier? More disease-resistant? Make me feel so energetic? Not as a replacement for eating healthy and getting exercise. Are these worth purchasing? Does brand matter, or can I get the $3 generic bottle and have the same effect?
Mai-Kero on
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Nothing's going to make you into superman, taking a vitamin is more about avoiding deficiencies. They're the kind of substances you don't really notice until they're not there and you're sick. The B vitamins are good for a bunch of stuff, and chromium (a mineral, not a vitamin) aids in blood sugar regulation, which is important given that a lot of us are used to it swinging all over the place in response to sweets and baked goods, etc. Vitamin D is produced by the body in response to sunshine, so deficiencies are common in winter, in cold countries, etc. Iodine is freakin' vital to developing children and fetuses, and IIRC is still pretty important for adults - deficiency causes retardation. Since its mostly in seafood, a lot of people miss out on that one. Omega-3 fatty acids are important for the thinkin' too, and are found in fish oil supplements, which aren't usually bundled into a multi.
Really, I'd advise you just to wiki around common ingredients and familiarise yourself. If you notice a number of substances that are common only in foods you don't eat much, it'd probably be a good idea to get a supplement. Quality does vary with price, I've noticed - supps with chromium seem to cost more, for instance, but you can get good deals at big-box chemists. Don't buy them at the supermarket, you'll get ripped off.
Women need approx. 50% more iron then men, so if you're a girl, multiply the RDD by 1.5.
Omega-3 is super important. It has an insane number of health benefits.
Take your folic acid if you're pregnant.
Multivitamin brand doesn't really matter. Compare the daily values and make sure you're not getting ripped off. I get mine from a supplement store, as the stuff in drug stores tends to be overpriced.
It help you maintain health, but I don't know that it will actually change anything now. I would be careful of the multivitamin though. I take individual pills (Vitamin B Complex, E Complex, and C separately) along with an iron-free multimineral.
As was stated, be careful of the fat-soluble vitamins, although it still usually takes high doses to become a problem. However, be careful of the water soluble vitamins, too. While it is true that you will piss away the excess, if you aren't drinking enough water with them you might wind up with kidney stones.
So drink plenty of water if you don't already. I've actually found that I just feel better when I'm well hydrated, have more energy, etc.
Really? Every night before bed? I usually take one right after I wake up. What's the difference?
I don't think there is, but I don't know that much about it. However, I do know that a couple multi-vitamins I've taken have suggested you take it after you eat dinner or the like.
I'd also like to add that the concentrations of vitamins in multivitamin tablets are notoriously inaccurate and can vary from the listed price by over 10%.
I'll echo ege and reinforce the fact that you shouldn't take any more than the recommended dose. Drink plenty of water too, this goes for virtually everyone.
Source please?
I found this(apologies for format) on a quick Google search, doubtless there're a hundred metastudies out there with very similar finds.
Multivitamins, like herbal remedies and almost everything under that umbrella have safety controls which aren't anywhere near as strict as the ones you'd find with pharmaceuticals, for instance, if they have them at all. Companies producing this stuff are usually left to police themselves and so there're very frequently discrepancies between the listed concentration and the actual concentration.
http://www.thelostworlds.net/
I've found that, generally, I can "feel" when i'm a little off in the morning -- either a slight headache, or general fatigue, or whatever. And I take one, and I feel better. Placebo? Perhaps, but my diet is healthy without focusing on filling in gaps. So I don't exactly know if I'm deficient in certain things, so I typically err on the side of taking a vitamin unless I'm having some cereal that morning (I usually take it to work in a ziploc bag, as a morning snack, as I eat it dry).
Don't take megadoses of anything. Multivitamins that have 1000% RDA of a given nutrient are wastes of money at best, harmful at worst.
Don't pay a premium for special fancy vitamins. Grocery store vitamins are fine. Don't take vitamins with shit in them that aren't nutrients. This includes vitamins that contain herbal supplements. (That said, I don't follow my own advice - I take a men's multivitamin from Trader Joes that contains dietary supplements, but only because I used to take those exact same dietary supplements anyway as separate pills.)
Omega-3 is important. Take it.
If you are diagnosed with a disease or start taking any medication - including (especially) antibiotics - ask the prescribing doctor if you need to change your multivitamin regimen. Some vitamins can interfere with some drugs or aggravate some diseases.
Take your vitamins with a meal, or immediately before or after a meal. Fat-soluble vitamins won't be properly absorbed unless paired with dietary fat. Don't take your vitamin in the morning if you plan on skipping breakfast.
Use common sense. If taking a vitamin causes your body to change somehow, like say your urine turns a different color, or your stomach gets upset, stop taking it. Switch brands or ask a doctor. If you still feel like shit despite taking your vitamins, talk to a doctor.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
don't freak out if you piss bright green, it's a side effect of too much
b12? I think
also to clarify Feral's statement: store-brand pills are just as good as anything else, but you'll still likely find cheaper equivalents in chemists. Even the non-bigbox ones.
6 bucks for a year's worth of daily vitamins.
I love it when people drink those juices with 1000% or something vitamin C in them, thinking it will protect them from the flu better!
It may not be harmful, but it's a total marketing gimmick and it's hilarious how well it works.
It's even more hilarious when people start taking vitamin C after they get sick. It's like waiting until you have a heart attack to start a low-cholesterol diet.
Re the Iodine thing - In NZ iodine has been added to standard table salt for quite some time (decades), to serve as the main source of iodine in the average diet. Which was easy to do as there was one main producer of salt in the entire country. However over the last decade or two salt consumption has decreased due to health concerns while the popularity of (often imported) rock or other speciality salts (not usually treated with iodine) have massively increased. So the Health Ministry has been investigating what should be done, if anything. No idea if they've decided on a course of action yet though.
I was wondering about that. Because I know here in Canada, and as far as I've seen most parts of the US, have Iodine in all their salt. But I also know that iodized salt is pretty uncommon elsewhere. So it's probably not an issue here in North America, but elsewhere I can certainly see it being a problem. And besides, one of the side effects of iodine deficiency is really nasty looking.
Another things that's cropped up here that I'm curious about - these multivitamins you can buy for dirt cheap, is there a risk at all for using a cheaper one over a more expensive one? I can only imagine where these companies cut corners, and I would assume that one of them is the sources of the minerals and vitamins themselves. On top of the actual amounts being inaccurate, is the quality a legitimate concern?
You should eat something around the time you take a multi-vitamin. I know whenever I haven't eaten something when taking a multi-vitamin I start to feel like I need to vomit, and it doesn't end until I do eat.
So, I was curious about the Iodine and Salt thing, and apparently, there's such a thing as "The Salt Institute" and they have a list of countries and whether or not they mandateiodizing salt.. Also, if you use, say, Sea Salt instead of normal table salt, it may not have Iodine added. It should say one way or the other on the package.
Selenium, too, if anyone is interested, which is why they import all of their wheat from Australia.
On topic, most studies show little to no benefit in relation to overall mortality, although there are obvious situations in which you should be taking one (e.g. pregnancy). There is probably no harm in using them if you have your heart set on them, though.
If you are going to take minerals as well, be sure that if you are taking calcium to have it paired with magnesium, and vice versa. Calcium can cause constipation, and magnesium can cause diarrhea, so taking them together keeps things in balance. This usually isn't a problem as most of the time they are both present in supplements, but sometimes they aren't, so check.
Second, regarding Omega-3 fatty acids: Be careful of taking fish oil capsules. The heavy metals in fish come out in the oil, and there are only a couple of companies that put their oil through a filtering process to remove the metals. Nordic Naturals is one. I can't remember the other. It makes it more expensive, but safer. For my Omega-3s, I just buy bags of flax seeds and grind them up in a coffee grind about 1/3 cup at a time, then put two tablespoons on my cereal every morning. That's enough omega-3s for the day and I get extra fiber to boot. But you have to grind them up because the good stuff is on the inside and you can't digest the husks, which is why the cereals that contain flax seeds are a joke since they use whole flax seeds.
There's healthy vs unhealthy, which deficiencies and thus supplements would have a part in.
Being healthier however, will pretty much come down to a good diet, avoiding stress, and getting exersize. They all have effects much greater than any vitamin tablet. But im guessing you knew that already
So feeling fine doesn't mean you're not deficient or that you might have problems later.