I just recently started taking vitamins again. (2 days ago.)

I am currently on One a Day Women's Active - because I am wii fitting and such.
But I also take GNC Nature's Fingerprint Cranberry, Echinacea and St. John's Wort - all holistic.

I am thinking that maybe the One a Day might have too many carbs, or might not be the right vitamin to take. I don't need the over 50 yet, because I am at least 13 years away, but is it possible that there is a better vitamin that I am unaware of?

Nasty takes the Men's Sport vitamins from GNC - and I have looked into the women's from GNC, but there are so many different ones I wouldn't even know where to start.

Any input?

Tam

I take Centrum (for the general coverage), Vitamin D with calcium (to combat my seasonal affective disorder and to get in the extra calcium), and B12 (for depression).

I say stick with a general vitamin (the people at GNC should be able to tell you a good one without hard selling you on stuff you don't need) and any others your doctor might recommend for your body.  I would also include the Vitamin D/calcium combo to offset osteoporosis.

I take Centrum (for the general coverage), Vitamin D with calcium (to combat my seasonal affective disorder and to get in the extra calcium), and B12 (for depression).

I say stick with a general vitamin (the people at GNC should be able to tell you a good one without hard selling you on stuff you don't need) and any others your doctor might recommend for your body.  I would also include the Vitamin D/calcium combo to offset osteoporosis.


Thanks Jess.

I only have one problem with Vitamin D/Calcuim - I get what feels like bone spurs from them. I need a lower dose than what they make available, and cutting them in half doesn't work obviously.

oOo and I forgot that I take a vitamin A every other day for my psoriasis.

If you eat a mixed, reasonably healthy diet with dairy, fruit veg and some meat you should get all you need.  Unless you have a specific problem that prevents you absorbing some nutrients or a particularly restrictive diet (such as veggie/vegan).

Most people do not know this but there are different forms of Vitamin As. Most people are familiar with  Beta-carotene which you usually associate with carrots. I take the Vitamin A from fish oil (NOT Beta-carotene) because of my eyes. There was a study done that the Vitamin A is supposed to slow the progression of the RP. I really don't know if it is or not but I figured it can't hurt. I don't take Vitamin E because that study also said that the Vitamin E counter acts against the Vitamin A.

I also take Acidophilus-not a vitamin but a supplement because of a problem I have with yeast.  8-P



Cat

Maybe try an organic store for one a day I think.

I am currently on One-A-Day, Vitamin B pills(for stress purposes) and Cold Liver Oil(for my mind  ;)) and I rely a lot on One-A-Day pills since it is hard to afford a decent meal nowadays.

Also, try drinking lots of water, it does a lot of wonders to your body and mind.

If you eat a mixed, reasonably healthy diet with dairy, fruit veg and some meat you should get all you need.  Unless you have a specific problem that prevents you absorbing some nutrients or a particularly restrictive diet (such as veggie/vegan).


What she said.  (Karma for evidence-based medicine.)

Unfortunately, even basic multivitamins have a lot more to do with marketing than science.  They won't harm you, but even if you're eating the "average American diet" of Cheetos and Big Macs, most of what you're paying for just gets excreted as expensive urine.  The typical ploy is to take a standard multivitamin recipe and add one or two "special" ingredients that target a profitable demographic.  Then you can sell a bottle "for him" and "for her", and a third bottle "for the kids", etc...

For emergency rations, where you may not be eating anything for a few weeks, generic multivitamins are pretty neat.  Store a bottle of multivitamins for nutrients, and a few pounds of chocolate (fat/sugars), beef jerky (protein), and/or peanut butter (fat/protein) as emergency energy sources.  Add space for a bottle of water purification pills, and as long as you can find a source of semi-potable water, you can live for at least a month using nothing but the contents of a backpack.  If you've got the space and weight allowances, keep some rice handy, as it's a much better source of carbs, although you probably don't want to be carrying that around with you in a survival situation.  Stash the rice somewhere safe, and carry the vitamins and energy-dense foods when foraging.

But to get back to the question "which multivitamin is appropriate for you", the answer is typically "none of them, because you're already getting everything you need from your food", or "almost any of them, if you're eating less than 1200 calories a day, recovering from certain surgeries or medical conditions, or are expecting to live out of a backpack for a prolonged period of time." 

Vitamin Complex, cinnamon (for glucose control).  Every once in awhile I'll take DHEA.

I take Rite Aid's generic multi, fish oil, 82 mg aspirin, and glucosamine/condritine/msm for arthritis.  Since I started with the G/C/msm the pain level has declined, so I guess it works.  As for the rest, who knows.  It may be a waste but it couldn't hurt, and given the state of our food supply, it may help.

I stay well away from vitamins.  I think they do more harm than good.  It is my opinion that when taking a one size fits all vitamin you are doing more harm than good because your body chemistry could be upset by adding a vitamin that is not necessary.  I am a firm believer that some added vitamins could, over time, cause a toxic imbalance and possibly aid in the growth of cancer cells. 

If you eat a mixed, reasonably healthy diet with dairy, fruit veg and some meat you should get all you need.  Unless you have a specific problem that prevents you absorbing some nutrients or a particularly restrictive diet (such as veggie/vegan).


I am a vegetarian, but do not omit eggs or dairy, so I can still get my vitamin B's in there, yet just not in quite the same way as other sources, such as meat.

On another note, remember your size when taking a vitamin and also remember that many vitamins have to endure one of the harshest places of all in our bodies, our stomach - which churns and mushes and disingrates many foodstuffs or anything we swallow into our digestive tract. Swallowing a vitamin will only give you a true fraction of what you think you're absorbing due to your stomach's digestive enzymes tackling the heck out of that thing. This doesn't mean to take more vitamins, this means to eat more foods that provide a better absorbancy than a vitamin would. My size is a pretty small frame and my doctor said I should take a children's vitamin everyday, such as a Flintstones one, to help balance anything I may be deficient in. Seems to make sense!

A Centrum, once a day, usually in the morning.

If I'm sick, lots of Vitamin C.

Back before I got proper treatment for my liver, I took Milk Thistle and Reishi extract (I hope it helped -that stuff is AWFUL tasting).

Some vitamins are scams (pretty much any "male enhancement" pill), and some are too hard to figure out (e.g., is Coral Calcium ($$$$) that much better than regular?)

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Some vitamins are scams (pretty much any "male enhancement" pill), and some are too hard to figure out (e.g., is Coral Calcium ($$$$) that much better than regular?)


If you see it advertised on TV, it's a fraud.  If someone claims to be selling you secrets that "they" don't want you to know about, it's a fraud.  If Kevin Trudeau had anything to do with it, it's a fraud.

Coral Calcium was all three.  A book, a TV informercial, and Kevin Trudeau.  The fraud was so egregeious that even the generally pro-industry CRN spoke out against it.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not singling you out - but you said it was "too hard to figure out".  I'm genuinely interested in why you thought it was hard to figure out. 

A few minutes of googling any product name with "scam" or "fraud" or "sucks" will expose either (a) nothing, (b) generally mixed reviews and some barking loons raving against it, or (c) well-reasoned arguments that completely expose the fraud for what it is. 

A couple of those links up there contain transcripts of the actual infomercials; what bits about the product pitch strike you as plausible?  Why did you think it plausible?  Any why'd you believe that instead of the Enzyte guys, who are running an identical scam, except that they're not even defining what "male enhancement" actually means? 

You're hardly the first to be confused by these scams, and like I said, I'm not ragging on you.  I watch the same informercials for lulz, taking a drink every time I see an obvious howler or item of complete BS, and I'm usually under the table by the time the tape loops around at the 30 minute mark.  I'm not any smarter than you, and never took any biology or chemistry past high school, so it ain't education either.  I'm genuinely curious; what are these guys doing that's working, and how can those of us in the evidence-based world counter it?

(Or is that the part of the scam that works?  The quacks like Barefood and Trudeau actually mention body parts and use medical language - even though it makes as much sense as Star Trek characters "reversing the phase-polarity of the quantum deflection grid", it sounds good... whereas poor old Enzyte's Smilin' Bob can't even talk about his genitalia, but instead only makes vague waffling claims about how some undefined quality called "maleness" is "enhanced" in some equally-undefined way by the taking of his sugar pills :) 

If you see it advertised on TV, it's a fraud.  If someone claims to be selling you secrets that "they" don't want you to know about, it's a fraud.  If Kevin Trudeau had anything to do with it, it's a fraud.

Coral Calcium was all three.  A book, a TV informercial, and Kevin Trudeau.  The fraud was so egregeious that even the generally pro-industry CRN spoke out against it.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not singling you out - but you said it was "too hard to figure out".  I'm genuinely interested in why you thought it was hard to figure out. 

A few minutes of googling any product name with "scam" or "fraud" or "sucks" will expose either (a) nothing, (b) generally mixed reviews and some barking loons raving against it, or (c) well-reasoned arguments that completely expose the fraud for what it is. 

A couple of those links up there contain transcripts of the actual infomercials; what bits about the product pitch strike you as plausible?  Why did you think it plausible?  Any why'd you believe that instead of the Enzyte guys, who are running an identical scam, except that they're not even defining what "male enhancement" actually means? 

You're hardly the first to be confused by these scams, and like I said, I'm not ragging on you.  I watch the same informercials for lulz, taking a drink every time I see an obvious howler or item of complete BS, and I'm usually under the table by the time the tape loops around at the 30 minute mark.  I'm not any smarter than you, and never took any biology or chemistry past high school, so it ain't education either.  I'm genuinely curious; what are these guys doing that's working, and how can those of us in the evidence-based world counter it?

(Or is that the part of the scam that works?  The quacks like Barefood and Trudeau actually mention body parts and use medical language - even though it makes as much sense as Star Trek characters "reversing the phase-polarity of the quantum deflection grid", it sounds good... whereas poor old Enzyte's Smilin' Bob can't even talk about his genitalia, but instead only makes vague waffling claims about how some undefined quality called "maleness" is "enhanced" in some equally-undefined way by the taking of his sugar pills :) 


Coral Calcium is the ONLY one I thought *may* have some validity. I didn't think it was worth the price, but I did think it *could* be better than regular calcium by being more soluable. I didn't really persue it anymore than the passing thought, because at like 50$ a bottle I didn't care if it prevented osteroporosis and gave me an extra 3" down there, 'cause I wasn't buying it.  What I really meant by 'too hard to figure out' was that I wasn't going to do the research to find out if the claim was vaild nor be a guinea pig for a Grant.

BTW, "Head On" for quickie lulz. Not only does it fail, but one would look idiotic applying it.

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What karen and FooBar say. If you eat a healthy balanced diet you don't need vitamin pills, you can actually over dose on some types of vitamin and do more damage than good. 

I just recently started taking vitamins again. (2 days ago.)

I am currently on One a Day Women's Active

I have been taking One A Day Women's Vitamins for about 7 years now.  I can't really tell whether they do anything for me or not.  I've also been taking a Calcium supplement (doctor's recommendation) to try and help prevent Osteoporosis.

Coral Calcium is the ONLY one I thought *may* have some validity. I didn't think it was worth the price, but I did think it *could* be better than regular calcium by being more soluable. I didn't really persue it anymore than the passing thought, because at like 50$ a bottle I didn't care if it prevented osteroporosis and gave me an extra 3" down there, 'cause I wasn't buying it.  What I really meant by 'too hard to figure out' was that I wasn't going to do the research to find out if the claim was vaild nor be a guinea pig for a Grant.


Cool.  So one claim on bioavailability sounded not-implausible, and I'll grant bioavailability isn't an intuitive concept to begin with.  Working for the scammer was a relative lack of interest in the product and a desire not to do the research.  Working against the scammer, was the price. 

Indirectly, you've answered the question as to why I immediately picked up on it as a scam.  The chemical that coral organisms use to build up their colonies' infrastructure is calcium carbonate, better known as limestone.  Gobs of it in every tablet of Tums.  So I was actually cheating - I dredged up the missing link from remembering some trivia from my public school environmental science classes ("...coral reefs are pretty, but they're dying out and not sure why.  coral reefs are made from calcium carbonate, which is secreted by coral..." -- lol, it was so long ago that we didn't have the data that supports the hypothesis that it's due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere and the ensuing acidification of the oceans -- but back to our scam here, it's just calcium carbonate), linked it with my chemistry classes and said "Dude, WTF?  You're selling Tums for $50/bottle!"

One of the most fundamental facts of chemistry is that atoms (and we'll ignore isotopes at the moment, since we're talking chemistry, not nuclear physics) are interchangable.  Molecules, composed of those atoms, are also therefore interchangeable.  It cannot matter whether a given molecule of calcium carbonate was synthesized by a coral or in an industrial plant, because there's no test that can tell the difference between the two.

(For anyone who didn't know that every molecule of every chemical ever synthesized is interchangeable with every other molecule of the same chemical ever synthesized, you'll get a kick out of DHMO.  Dihydrogen Monoxide is found in every cancer cell.  It's responsible for thousands of deaths per year.  Mayors of several municipalities have issued proclamations against it...  Make sure to use only the natural stuff (and even that's dangerous), not the artificial DHMO, etc. etc. etc.)

Problem for you was that, even though you probably did know that one molecule of calcium carbonate is identical to every other molecule of calcium carbonate on the planet, you had no way of knowing (other than remembering a bit of random trivia about what coral reefs are made of) that the product being advertised on TV was calcium carbonate.  It was, after all, only sold as "calcium".

Thanks.  I know this post doesn't sound like it, but your post was a helpful bit of intel about how these guys operate.  They're usually smart enough these days not to lie, but what they don't say is as just bad as what they do say.  The best cons rely on the victim to jump the logical gaps on the con's own behalf, and your post provides a bit of info into exactly what sort of gaps they're exploiting.  Knowing what those gaps are is useful in helping fight the scams.


BTW, "Head On" for quickie lulz. Not only does it fail, but one would look idiotic applying it.


Good thing they don't make hemmorhoid cream!  (Why yes, someone did make the obvious Photoshop, using go*youknowhow*se guy as the source image.  And no, I'm not going to go find it again.  That which has been seen, cannot be unseen...)

You're overthinking it, Foo Bar.  ;) I wasn't aware that coral calcium was calcium carbonate, which is pretty insoluble in water and weak acid solutions (like bile). In that respect, it's like you said - a 50$ bottle of Tums. Doesn't matter if it was dredged from the shores of Japan or any else such nonsense.

I've seen spoofs on DMHO - one was a petition on a college campus to ban it. I was surprised at the number of people who signed the ban against water.

Getting very off topic here for a moment, I was thinking that perhaps coral calcium was something other than calcium carbonate, something that could have higher bioavailability (which isn't intuitive but a cool concept - but let's call it solubility for now), like CaO. Drinking quicklime wouldn't be good; it's pretty caustic stuff... anyway, just because the body can absorb it faster doesn't mean it's good for you. CO is something like 800x more accepted by hemoglobin than O2, but anyone breathing the former "for better health and more oxygen" must be planning on pulling a Jerry Hunt.

It's been too long since I took nuclear theory, but iirc giving large quantities of regular iodine is a way to treat exposure to I-137 (or maybe it's I-131 and Cs-137...).

And, they are lying, it's called "lying by omission". Had they come out and said "Coral Calcium is calcium carbonate, the same thing you find in an 89c pack of Tums at 7-11", how many 50$ bottles would they have sold? Hint: the answer is greater than zero.  ;)

I will find that image: I found out who the man behind the behind was a few days ago. If any man has a chance at natural childbirth, it's him.

Back on topic, I would like to hear from anyone on 'energy pills', good or bad experiences welcome.

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You're overthinking it, Foo Bar.  ;)


Yeah, but that's half the fun of it.  (The DHMO one is always fun to play, because it's so prespammersite, but it relies on the same combination of lies-by-omission and straight-up fearmongering that the infomercial guys use.  It's just that you're using the scare tactics to illustrate a point for good, rather than evil :)


anyway, just because the body can absorb it faster doesn't mean it's good for you. CO is something like 800x more accepted by hemoglobin than O2, but anyone breathing the former "for better health and more oxygen" must be planning on pulling a Jerry Hunt.


Exactly!


It's been too long since I took nuclear theory, but iirc giving large quantities of regular iodine is a way to treat exposure to I-137 (or maybe it's I-131 and Cs-137...).


The deal on potassium iodide is actually perfect for this thread.  This is one example where the body's tendency to turn surplus quantites of trace nutrients into "expensive urine" can be both harmful and helpful.  The thyroid works on chemistry, not nuclear physics, so it doesn't care what kind of iodine it gets.  Any surplus is excreted via the urine. 

Harmful, because I-131 is only released into the environment in very unpleasant (but equally unlikely) circumstances, like some jerk with a poorly-designed reactor decides to tinker with the controls, or some other jerk dropping a nuke off your doorstep.  For the next week or two, you'll take in a relative boatload of I-131 from the fallout, and the ratio of I-131:I-127 in your bloodstream may tip 10:1 in favor of I-131.  Sure, you excrete the excess harmlessly, but 9 out of 10 molecules taken in by your thyroid are still gonna be radioactive.  The iodine decays, damagine thyroid cells, and (with a half-life of about a week, 45% of the iodine your thyroid absorbed last week has turned into xenon) takes in more iodine from the nearest available source -- which, more than likely, is still going to involve the remaining I-131 in the local environment.  I-131 has a short half-life, about a week, but in heavy fallout, you'll run out of thyroid tissue faster than the local environment will run out of I-131.

Helpful, because in the unlikely event of exposure to I-131, you take potassium iodide, where the iodine is the stable I-127, and which dissolves easily (it's a salt).  The thyroid only requires trace amounts of iodine to function; any excess is excreted.  By temporarily loading up on iodine, you ensure that, say, 99% of the iodine in your bloodstream is the stable I-127.  Therefore, that 99% of what your thyroid picks up is harmless.  Everything else (most of the I-127 you took in the pill, but also most of the I-131 to which you were exposed) is excess, and is excreted via the kidneys.  You've got maybe 100 times as much iodine in your bloodstream as usual, but your kidneys are fine with that, and you make "expensive urine" out of the excess.  As long as you keep taking in far more I-127 than your thyroid can possibly use, you're going to excrete almost all the I-131 you accidentally pick up in the meantime. 

A 32-day supply of pills covers about four 8-day half-lives, so after the first month, 15/16ths (93.8%) of the local I-131 will have decayed harmlessly.  A 64-day supply means 99.6% (255/256ths) of the nasty stuff is gone; effectively you can stop worrying about the I-131 content of any remaining fallout after about a month.

Bad news is, none of this will help you with the cesium-137 or strontium-90.  They'll substitute for calcium in a lot of chemical reactions, including the ones that secrete milk, and build bones.  They also have half-lives measured in years/decades.  The good news is their long half-lives mean they probably won't kill you outright.  The bad news is that anyone who regularly drinks milk from cows from that region gets an elevated cancer risk for a lifetime.

So, potassium iodide tablets work for the same reason most vitamin supplements are unnecessary: 99% of what you take in, you never use, but if you've just taken in a boatload of I-131, it also helps you excreting the stuff you don't want your body to use. 

(And conversely, the people selling potassium iodide as "radiation protection tablets", as though they somehow conveyed protection against the other isotopes present in radioactive fallout, are lying by omission.  All things said, if you expect to be nuked at some point in your life, or if you have the poor fortune of living immediately downwind of a graphite-moderated Russian reactor that lacks containment facilities, a month's supply of potassium iodide tablets is a great thing to have in the fallout shelter.  But for any other purpose, greatly overpriced and overhyped. :)


Back on topic, I would like to hear from anyone on 'energy pills', good or bad experiences welcome.


And now that we're back to supplements, I promise only to debunk the ones that are expensive caffeine :)