I used to take vitamins regularly, along with my wife...and then we started reading all these studies and felt like we were wasting money. If you feel they make a difference for you, then you should keep taking them, says the BBS poster who never went to medical school but did stay at a Holiday Inn Express recently.
I could probably cook up some meth too and get a better bump. Says a BBS poster who recently started watching Breaking Bad :grin:
To be fair that article only points to cases of heart disease and cancer, heart disease has a lot to do with exercise and fitness so vitamins alone would be pointless. For cancer, well its cancer, everything gives you cancer these days...
This is the part that was of interest to me from that particular article: On its web site, the U.S. National Institutes of Health advise that doctors should prescribe multivitamins only "for patients who need extra vitamins, who cannot eat enough food to obtain the required vitamins, or who cannot receive the full benefit of the vitamins contained in the food they eat."
You'll find numerous other studies like this by searching PubMed. Vitamins and antioxidants help. Research into therapeutic antioxidants is still relatively young, but scientists are trying to get a better understanding of their mechanisms and how to effectively administer them to get therapeutic benefits.
Here's another article that's more to the point...and comes from professionals who previously suggested you should be taking a multivitamin each day: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3961616...time-kick-multivitamin-habit-studies-suggest/ If you're like many Prevention readers, multivitamins have been a key part of your daily routine since... well, forever. As recently as 2002, no less an authority than the Journal of the American Medical Association recommended that "all adults take one multivitamin daily." We at Prevention have suggested them to you dozens of times over the years as well. And many doctors and nutritionists still urge a multivitamin to any "less-than-perfect eater" to compensate for dietary shortfalls. But today, a tsunami of scientific data has resulted in a reversal in thinking among many experts in the health and nutrition community, including Miriam Nelson, PhD, director of the John Hancock Research Center on Physical Activity, Nutrition, and Obesity at Tufts University. "The multivitamin as insurance policy is an old wives' tale, and we need to debunk it," she says. .. The sea change is supported by two massive studies. The first, a review of 63 randomized, controlled trials (the gold standard research method) on multivitamins, published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, found that multis did nothing to prevent cancer or heart disease in most populations (the exception being developing countries where nutritional deficiencies are widespread). In the second paper, published last year, scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center followed 160,000 postmenopausal women for about 10 years. The researchers' conclusion: "Multivitamins failed to prevent cancer, heart disease, and all causes of death for all women. Whether the women were healthy eaters or ate very few fruits and vegetables, the results were the same," says the lead author, Marian Neuhouser, PhD. Maybe you never expected your multi to prevent breast cancer or head off a heart attack. Maybe you just felt that taking one would make you healthier by boosting your immunity or energy level. But research on those benefits is equally discouraging, especially in specialized groups on which you'd expect them to have an impact. For instance, a British review of eight studies found no evidence that multis reduced infections in older adults. Another study found that the vitamins didn't improve fatigue among breast cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy. And inner-city schoolchildren who took a multi did not perform any better on tests or have fewer sick days than students who didn't take one. "There is even a small body of evidence that may suggest harm from a multi," says David Katz, MD, MPH, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. A 2010 study of Swedish women found that those who took multivitamins were 19% more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer over a 10-year period than those who didn't. A 2007 paper in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that men who took multivitamins along with other supplements were at increased risk of prostate cancer. And other research has linked excessive folic acid intake to higher colon cancer risk in people who are predisposed. "In terms of a risk-benefit ratio," says Dr. Katz, "why would you accept even a tiny risk if you're not getting any benefit?" So why were earlier researchers so wrong? One reason is that they were studying the wrong people. It's now well known that people who take vitamins tend to be some of the planet's healthiest to begin with. Researchers have shown that vitamin takers tend to be leaner, more affluent, and more educated. They drink and smoke less; they exercise and go to the doctor more. In other words, they're healthy despite their use of multis. In addition, the very concept of a multivitamin as nutrient delivery system is limited. We now have a much better understanding of how well whole foods deliver their nutritional benefits. A typical multi contains 10 to 25 isolated nutrients, but fruits and vegetables have hundreds of active compounds with a long list of health properties. "The vitamin C in a multivitamin is likely just not as effective as the vitamin C in a citrus fruit, where it's also surrounded by fiber and flavonoids and carotenoids. All these nutrients working together is what really keeps you healthy," explains Dr. Neuhouser. So even when you're not eating the healthiest diet, there's no proof that a multivitamin is the right tool to fill in the gaps. "And it doesn't make up for the main disease-fighting nutrients the average American woman is missing, like fiber, omega-3s, and vitamin D," says Dr. Katz. For his part, Dr. Katz no longer recommends multis to most of his patients, nor does he take them himself. Neither does Kathleen Fairfield, MD, associate chief of medicine at Maine Medical Center and coauthor of the 2002 JAMA article that recommended multivitamins as a prudent health measure. Many Prevention advisors who specialize in cancer or nutrition research recently told us they've stopped taking and recommending multis as well.
wait..let me be clear. i'm not suggesting that vitamins, themselves, aren't good or don't promote health. i'm suggesting that these studies are indicating that if you want those effects from those vitamins, you need to get them from your diet...not from multivitamins. that multivitaimins don't seem to carry the effect that eating these vitamins as they occur naturally does. every nutritonist in the world will tell you that vitamins are good for you....i certainly wouldn't argue against that.
The idea is that you fill a nutrional hole (TWSS) in your diet. Ideally we could all eat perfectly and have no need for a multivitamin. The problem with the expensive multivitamins is a lot of the ingredients go to waste. One side of them is yellow urine. That's just the undigested portion of the vitamin that people are flushing down the toilet. Some people feel a difference from the multivitamin because they have supplements like NO in them. Others feel a difference because they really were malnourished because of their diet.
That's true. Getting vitamins and nutrients from fresh food will be much better than taking a multivitamin. You'll be getting the real natural, unprocessed vitamin from fruits and vegetables in addition to supplemental chemicals that act synergystically as opposed to the processed product. One thing I'll mention about these trials is that they are hard to control. A lot of these clinical trials are purely survey-based and can't take into account different diets, lifestyles, exercise, etc. as much as they try to accommodate for them. In addition, store-bought multivitamins rarely contain the recommended dose necessary to get therapeutic effects. That's why they are mostly supplementary. Studies on specific cell lines do show that vitamins and antioxidants are effective in preventing cancer. Animal models have shown it, too. Translating that into human studies is monumentally more difficult because of the lack of controls. That's why it is difficult for these studies to definitively prove that taking these multivitamins will prevent cancer due to all the other factors.
Not all multivitamins are created equal... I was doing some research and found a greatly beneficial reviews on Amazon when choosing a multivitamin from a chemist who really goes into detail about why he reviews the products the way he does. This was his review for the Mega Men multivitamin and Men's One a Day. He basically craps all over both: GNC Mega Men Spoiler Men's One a Day: Spoiler I ended up going with his recommendation: http://www.amazon.com/Rainbow-Light-Mens-Counter-Attack/dp/B00024028Y/ref=cm_cr-mr-title His review of this product Spoiler
I use CVS brand Men's Daily. I'm pretty sure it's the same thing as Men's One-a-Day. I also take B-12 and Fish Oil Daily, and Glucosomine when I have shoulder issues. I clearly can tell a difference with the B-12. The rest, not so much.
I've been under the impression that the body really can't absorb much from vitamins, so they are largely a waste. Especially multi-vitamins. Most of it really needs to come from food. If you are having specific health problems or really feel you are missing something, I think the more specific/individual vitamins are probably better. The only thing I take is B-complex, just to be sure that I'm getting enough.
+1. i also take 2000IU of vitamin D. i had my vitamin D level checked after i got a small patch of flaky skin on my face. thanks to my darker complexion and not being outside..my vitamin D level was really low.
the problem with vitamins is that they pack so much into a tablet with such a small surface area. Powdered vitamins are the best, but they are far more expensive. Vitamins as a whole are useless. Take small supplements of antioxidants and important trace minerals most people are deficient in. If you are a male, you should take zinc. Really boosts testosterone levels, ejaculate contains about almost half of the average daily intake.
