Vitamins?

[Kpt._Rob]

I've spent a sizable portion of the year or so of my life trying to find ways to live healthier, and the thing that I have found so discouraging is how complicated it is. That I need daily exercise is obvious, but what exercises should I do? Of course I should eat healthier, but what is actually good for me to eat? These are complicated questions with complicated answers, and living in an industrialized country seems only to make them more complex.

Probably one of the areas which I've had the hardest time figuring out how to investigate in the first place though is the seemingly simple question, "vitamin supplements, good or bad?"

I've been told for most of my life that when ingested in supplement form our bodies often don't absorb the vitamins that we eat. That is to say that vitamin supplements are a scam, an easy way for companies to sucker fools out of their money for useless pills. And I've even heard it claimed that taking vitamins can be detrimental to your health.

But I've also heard people praise the abilities of vitamin supplements. Obviously, if you're eating a diet of processed foods you're not getting all the nutrients you need no matter how much you eat, and if taking a vitamin could help then it'd be a wonder why anyone wouldn't take them. I also found a statistic claiming that "72 percent of physicians and 89 percent of nurses used dietary supplements and that 79 percent of physicians and 82 percent of nurses said that they recommend dietary supplements to their patients."

TLR Whether or not I should be taking vitamin supplements is a big question, and since I'm just at the start of diving into it, I thought it might be helpful to ask others what they know? Do you take vitamin supplements? If so, what do you take? Are you adamantly against them? Do you know any good books or other sources I could investigate for answers?

 

[Eumersian]

After my surgery I had to take maybe 2 tablets a day. They said it would help the healing process and I just took them, since I figured the doctors wouldn't prescribe something that would kill me. I think if you take too many vitamins they can be bad. I learned in Bio this year that there is some vitamin that, if it hangs around in your bloodstream long enough, becomes toxic. So if you take too many, they don't all get processed and you die. Maybe I'm making that up. Not sure.

 

[PeePantz]

I wouldn't take vitamins; it's just a waste of money. When a vitamin is taken in pill form, by the time we break it down, it's already turned into waste and cannot be absorbed into the body. Your best bet is to take injections like B12 or get something like isotonix (which is similar to emergen-c or alkaseltzer). This is the best way to take a super concentrated vitamin that will get absorbed into your body.

However, this gets very expensive and is probably not worth the money when you can just eat properly. A well balanced and specific diet will load you up with all the nutrients that you need.

 

[PeePantz]

After my surgery I had to take maybe 2 tablets a day. They said it would help the healing process and I just took them, since I figured the doctors wouldn't prescribe something that would kill me. I think if you take too many vitamins they can be bad. I learned in Bio this year that there is some vitamin that, if it hangs around in your bloodstream long enough, becomes toxic. So if you take too many, they don't all get processed and you die. Maybe I'm making that up. Not sure.

I've also read about a survey that proves taking women multi-vitamin pills will drastically increase the chance of getting breast cancer. There are too many unnecessary risks involved in taking artificial vitamins.

 

[Marowit]

If you really do eat a well rounded healthy diet there should be no reason, especially if you're young (and not preggers) to take vitamin supplements.

So far as the points you raise earlier, eating health and exercising aren't really that complex questions to answer. Did your meal have raw veggies in it (or at least not completely over-cooked veggies)? Did you not char your meat? Was that meat produced by non-factory/industrial means? Did you do an activity that got you sweating for 30mins+? Yes? well you're making healthy life decisions.

I know two years ago I decided I was going to eat less meat, not because I don't like meat, but because I like good food and it's too expensive for me to eat good meat more than twice a week.

The more you over analyze your lifestyle decisions the more likely you're going to be to pick up information that is not true. Where are you reading these statistics? Are they from peer-reviewed papers published in academic Journals...or are they from AOL news? Academic papers are constantly being published that counter the previous ones (like moderate drinking being bad for you). There are so many variables present in our environment that you can't account for them all, as most experiments are done in a vacuum so that one mechanism can be studied. So, trying to keep up with what's the new, great thing for you to do, is in all likelihood not doing anything positive or negative.

Personally, if you want to spend money on supplements, do it; if you don't don't. I know I'd rather eat something delicious than take a pill, but that's my choice. The only supplements I am aware of that actually have clinically significant positive effects are glucosamine and fish oil. The latter you can get by eating something delicious (as you can probably tell my preferred way of getting the good things for me).

 

[Good morning blues]

As far as I know, vitamin supplements won't harm you, but aside from vitamin D they won't help you at all, either. If you want to spend money without getting any benefit from it, donate to charities instead.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

vitamin supplements won't harm you, but aside from vitamin D they won't help you at all, either.

Vitamin C really helps with cold symptoms. Yes they do. *sniff*

OT: It is actually a coincidence I chanced upon this thread as I am sucking on vitamin C tablets as we speak.

I don't think it is really useful unless you are sick. (Vitamin D being an exception)

Exercise by doing pushups till you can't no more, sit ups till you can't no more, jumping jacks till you can't no more and running laps around your block until you can't no more.

Don't eat out regularly. Eat lots of veggies, fruit and grains with meat as a secondary concern. Don't drink excessively, don't do drugs...

Well, that is all I know about health. You can look up an experts advice but to be honest there is a lot of bullshit circling around the issue of healthy living now.

 

[IcyEvils]

I usually don't take vitamin supplements, but I have Vitamin C tablets on hand whenever I start to feel run down with a cold or flu. It's probably just the placebo effect, but it makes me feel better. Otherwise just take a well balanced diet.. it's not too hard.

 

[s0m3th1ng]

I take liquid gelcap vitamins.
I have more energy...especially during work-outs and such.

 

[Megalodon]

Vitamin supplements are pointless, assuming you're eating properly to begin with. The main vitaminthat's bad for you in large doses is Vitamin A, which you can overdose on and die.

 

[RobJameson]

The only time you'd ever need vitamin supplements was if your normal diet was severely restricted (e.g. you are put on a drip/can't ingest solids etc) as you easily get everything you need by just eating normally. Vitamin tablets are generally ridiculously excessive (e.g. 1000mg Vit C etc) and expensive compared to just eating a normal diet.

If you are worried about eating healthy just eat lots of fruit/veg that are high in zinc/magnesium, eat spinach and liver for iron and folic acid.

On a side note just because a doctor prescribes something to somebody does not necessarily make it a brilliant thing. If you really want to check whether it's worth it get a subscription to a scientific site which holds abstracts of trials and tests which will give you the data that can show whether they are more effective than a placebo or even slightly harmful. Double blind trials are your best friend.

Bear in mind that the NHS gives out homeopathic remedies (water on a sugar pill) and that thalidomide was used as a perfectly ok drug because of its poor trials and the lack of controls.