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Do vitamins work? And if so what kind?

shpongle1987

shpongle1987

Bluelighter
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Feb 22, 2011
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NY
I know that sounds kind of stupid but ive been told by a few docs and other people that have knowledge in the field of medicine and they say that taking multi vitamins and other vitamins of the sort, do not work. Your body cant process them? Im not sure exactly what they said but for example for vitamin c, this doc told me to take rose hips rather than ascorbic acid for your vitamin c because its natural and your body and process it. Ive been taking vitamins for the past 6 years, but have reduced to only taking fish oil because I dont want to take a "vitamin" that does nothing but tax my liver. What kind of vitamins work for general health?
 
Its complicated.

Some vitamins can be toxic when you get more than enough. Many vitamins you can not really get more benefit from by taking extra because once the body senses you are getting enough, pathways for getting more sort of shut down. In some situations doing megadoses is a recognized therapeutic method. Mega-doses of riboflavin and magnesium are used for migraine, I'm not saying its the primary treatment nor recommending self diagnosis or treatment.

Mega-doses of vitamin C seem to double one's chances of developing kidney stones by more than one study. (Mega doses being multiples of a gram of ascorbic acid by what I remember) Iron is technically a mineral not a vitamin, but my advice is to never do supplemental iron unless advised to do so by a physician. It can really do you harm if your doing more than you need.

I'm not anti-supplement. I think that indiscriminate supplements are potentially dangerous and often an unnecessary expense. Take supplements because you have something specific you want to optimize or better, and do it with knowledge of potential problems. Be a sniper with a clear goal rather than a shot gunner who is going to hit something just cause they are hitting everything.

A varied diet with lots of fruits and vegetables is almost always more healthy and less expensive than doing lots of supplements.

Edit: If so what kind? It all really depends on what your health problems are and what sorts of health goals you have. Nutrition and supplements do involve a great deal of bona fide science and solid evidence but there are enough areas of contradiction and fuzziness that it can almost seem like competing theologies. Specific questions about particular vitamins for specific goals, could be answered by someone with data that might be refuted or might be well supported. A general question about people in general and vitamins in general, very hard to say much.
 
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My Doc says that one multiple is fine and eat right. But through experience Vitamin E has kept my skin soft along with Fish oil. If I take either away there is a notable change in a month. Noticed first was the oil to my hair. Then toes followed by back
 
^ If you read medical studies about vitamin E, I mean a good number of studies-then you'll see the benefits of vitamin E are really unclear. Vitamin E supplementation seems to up some cancer risks, lower others, and having conflicting data about more than a few kinds of cancer. If you have felt specific benefits I'm not going to knock them. YMMV, individual results may vary, etc Vitamin E, definitely has benefits. For a particular person-to take vitamin E or not- its not usually an easy call.
 
best vitamins = natural food sources and natural biological functions. (example oranges=vitC, banana=potasium, Sun=vitD...)


maintaining baseline levels and not dipping into deficiencies is probably the first goal with vitamins.
An active life, a life with seasons(winter), drug/alcohol/caffeine use, sex, stress, etc.... are all type of things that can cause deficiencies if you aren't obtaining enough vitamins.
know your needs, find out the best sources
 
so essentially im looking at a bottle of "stress b-complex caps" and one serving size includes 2941% b2,2500%b6 and 4166% b12, among other huge doses of vitamin c thiamin, ect. Now im under the impression once your body gets 100% the daily value of a certain vitamin, the rest is excreted. So is this just total bogus as far as stress relief is concerned? Seeing the body cant absorb the amount that is thought to possibly have a "stress relieving" effect....its essentially the same thing as if i took one daily multi vitamin that had 100% b2,b6,b12.
 
shpongle1987, I can tell the difference in energy between low potent b-vitamins vs. high potency b-vitamins like B-150.

I can also tell the difference in B-12 shots that have 8,000%+ daily value. When I take one, I get a little energy. If I take 4, I get a little amped up.

I use to take 300% daily value of vitamin A, and it would clear my face up. 100% wouldn't do it. Although, It's not recommended it take large doses of vitamin A.
 
Good thread imo. I am a huge fan of supplements and for the past few days I have been re-evaluating my supplement intake. Like the OP, I have read articles that there are different information if taking supplements really work or not. I am currently consuming omega, vitamin c and a multivitamin everyday and also eating very healthy. I "knock on wood" have never been sick with flu/colds since i started taking my supplement regimen but i have also been exercising quite a lot so maybe it's a combination of eating really healthy, supplementation and exercise.
 
I take an Animal Pak daily after a workout/before bed with a protein shake. Tbh i cant really tell a difference from taking it or not but with all the vitamins that are in there im sure something is getting absorbed and not wasted.
 
I don't find vitamins too absorbable. I've tried the naturally sourced ones but even those are not that amazing. Products like centrum are pretty useless... most of their vitamin content is industrially sourced and is not very bio-available.

I'm finding that tracking down nutrient dense foods is a better approach. In today's market place we can find most things we need in food form to get our regular dose of stuff.

I also suspect that the RDA of vitamins is over-stated. The average person probably doesn't need as much as they say we need. I find for instance that if I try to get the RDA of zinc every day, I start to feel unwell.
 
Foreigner said:
I don't find vitamins too absorbable. I've tried the naturally sourced ones but even those are not that amazing. Products like centrum are pretty useless... most of their vitamin content is industrially sourced and is not very bio-available.
Click to expand...

I'm with you on your skepticism of both conventional and 'natural' supplements. Here are some articles that I've been meaning to check out. I'll pass them on to you.


Robert Thiel, Ph.D. (Naturopath)

The Truth About Minerals in Supplements
The Truth About Vitamins in Supplements

This individual also has some YouTube videos on the same topic: https://www.youtube.com/user/DoctorsResearch/videos


And fulvic acid is something to look into, a key substance allegedly deficient in mass-produced foods. See the documents listed here: http://www.motherearthlabs.com/resources/
 
Check out this book: the 3 Season Diet



dont think of nutrition as a "daily" intake, as that wouldnt have been even remotely possible for the long period of evolution and adaptation until modern civilization's age of abundance. instead, think of the nutrition you get over the span of the year, and how you store nutrition and energy for various seasons in your body.

with the exception of certain medical conditions, all your vitamins should just come from food.

the "essential vitamins and minerals" is a list of things the body needs yes, but the authoritatively reccomended amounts and frequences are based on a system that predates modern understanding of human physiology. the nutritionary profiles on the labels of foods represent a scientific framework from a bygone era. its from the same era as measuring calories in foods - its merely a number that represents the amount of heat produced by combusting food in a vaccuum - hardly representative of human digestion. you dont need 123mg of "Vitamin X" on a daily basis, but you probably need to replenish stores of it at regular intervals, and moreso in some times of year than others. our understanding of how our past has shaped our present need for energy and nutrition has progressed long past the 100 year old nutritionary profile, yet multinational corporations have quite a lot invested in markets where peoples consumption behaviors are predictable within this framework. the human body isnt adapted for the extreme abundances many people experience in the modern world, and vitamin supplements are another artifact of this strange and temporary time period in our natural history. its great they exist, but you dont need them at all. eat wholesome, whole, organic, local, in-season food, and you will have everything you need.

on the other side, few industrially produced vitamin supplements absorb well into the body. many harden the arteries, stiffen the joints, and clog the various filtration nodes throughout the body. many include trace elements from industrial manufacturing processes that are harmful to the body. many are synthetic chemicals regarded as "nutritionally equivalent" which are actually costlier for the body to use. vitamin supplements arent worthless or all without benefit, but the average person has no explicit "daily intake" for any of them. in fact, the average person has no explicit daily intake for food at all, and some modern people might be surprised ot learn that the body is actually designed to go without food intake for several days on end, on occasion.

this doesnt even touch on the many thousands (potentially tens of thousands) of nutritional, chemical compounds derived from food that arent listed in the medical-industrial-complex's tiny list of "essential" nutritients...

to maintain health, energy, or any of these other concepts - eat well, rest well, and manage stress well. everythign else is a tedious game of managing imbalances.
 
This looks like a good place to pimp soylent.

From personal experience, I'd recommend being cautious about vitamin or herbal supplementation, past conservative multis or vit D when sun exposure isn't feasible. Lab tests could help with determining some deficiencies, of course. In short, I had presumed luck (by OP) with liver loads when supplementing. Other health issues can arise with things such as sleep, appetite, allergies, mental state, likely countless others.

Whole food is ideal, but it's like impossible to get RDA levels of nutrients through food intake. Well, maybe with enough time and money dedicated to a strict and somewhat elaborate diet... There's also disagreement on whether RDA/DRI/etc. guidelines are suitable for all individuals, some of which was already mentioned.

A few of us are lazy with cooking, yes. :p
However, if someone has made whole food meal plans which could fulfill "optimum" nutritional requirements, I'd also be grateful to read about them. May look into the book above, but a basic rundown would be appreciated.
 
If you eat a balanced diet and already get the maximum amount of vitamins your body can process then taking more will not make any difference. Realistically most people don't though and a simple multivit will help top up where their diet is falling short though.

Overloading on vitamins can be useful if you are suffering from a deficiency of something as your body will adsorb more of it than it normally would do if it was running at a good level. Overloading on Omega 3 oil can be useful all the time as well and can be beneficial.

I just take a basic multivitamin with iron, a calcium and magnesium supplement, and a max strength fish oil. I take them as a back up really just because I know my diet is not quite what it could be.
 
The info I posted in post #11 says that the minerals in most supplements suck. They can be loosely described as semisynthetic derivatives of industrially processed rocks, which isn't necessarily an indication that they're bad, but the literature says that they're fundamentally different than what you find in plants. I haven't really studied it, gave the stuff a cursory read, and I don't have a science background and I was hoping Bluelighters would chime in about it, but apparently no one's interested.
 
My doctor was amazed at how low my vitamin D level was, amazing I was able to function at all. I was so tired, my bones hurt, just felt awful, for years and years and years before I went to the doc. He gave me a super-duper prescription dose of vitamin D and I felt better and ever since I take a supplement and really it was a life saver, saved me from suicide. I also take a multivitamin to make up for anything I don't get in food on any given day.

Say you have only potatos or rice to eat, well I reckon your chances of surviving are better if you take a multivitamin.
 
people that dont take vitamins wont notice a different when they start taking vitmains..vitamins arent meth lol..it cracksme up when people i know have stared taking vitamins and within a few days claim they have tons more energy..im like ummm ok....
 
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