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Should we take vitamins or not?
Should we take vitamins or is a balanced diet enough?
It's very controversial, take sides!
Topics:
Malnutrition nutrition
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Thomas Anderson
We all deserve PERFECT nutrition. If my body needs one more atom of Nitrogen, it should get it! Same for everyone else.
Thank you for the debate but I am going to say that "It should not be debate, we should know by now."
Lucía Pedró
Gisela McKay 30+
We all have inflammatory responses - they are part of the healing process, but can become detrimental when they go amok. We all have cellular decay, telomeres shortening, etc.
We all have different family health histories to work with. Not to mention lifestyles.
On top of that "supplements" is a broader category than "vitamins". You've just expanded the topic to include hormones, pro- & prebiotics, minerals, tinctures, fresh herbs, and more.
There is no one answer that fits every single person on the face of this earth.
Natalie Walker
Gisela McKay 30+
Do you know there is actually a (graduated) border that cuts through the US where those on the north side are much more likely to be vitamin D deficient with all the attendant chronic illnesses? I believe it is at 34degrees north.
timber maniac 20+
Waji KK
NB:No single advise fits to all! so, it depends.
Gisela McKay 30+
1. There is no single regimen that works for everyone.
I want that line to stand out because it doesn't simply apply to vitamins, it applies to ANY aspect of health and wellness, what you need depends on what is already going on in your body and that is affected by your lifestyle. If you don't have a good handle on the impacts of your genes and lifestyle on your blood serum, get it checked before making any decisions.
2. A certain segment of the population looks at multivitamins as magic bullets. A recent study showed that smokers given a multivitamin began to smoke more.
EDIT (added bits):
3. Even within a single type of vitamin there are often a wide range of options and recommendations. Let's take vitamin D for example.
I take 4000 IU daily because I am a black person living in a northern climate and it is winter. I take it as a combination of sublingual drops (rather than as a tablet) and seal oil (also sublingual). I have a family history of colon cancer. A Caucasian person living in a more southern region may not require any at all, because they may be getting enough sunlight to produce their own.
Even in the summer here, unless I am spending time gardening or playing sports outside, I still take at least 1,000 IU. My melanin level means that I have to spend longer in the sun to get the same benefit as someone paler than I am.
And that is just one vitamin.
I take phytoplankton - I picked the brand because they have the cleanest facilities and the environment in which they grow it is contained - yes, artificial, but also segregated from environmental contaminants. There are other brands that are naturally harvest from the wild, which theoretically sounds better, but phytoplankton is sensitive to contaminants.
There are so many factors that making blanket statements is just not productive - regardless if the statement is pro or con.
Colleen Steen 500+
Interesting...."A recent study showed that smokers given a multivitamin began to smoke more".
Did you see my other comment about a documentary I watched recently regarding contaminants/toxins in supplements?
The research indicated that supplements are often processed and packaged on equipment that was previously used for other medications and narcotics. They discovered that sometimes people taking large doses of vitamin supplements sometimes got depressed, or had other symtoms that were not usual for them. When the supplements were analyzed, it was found that they contained trace amounts of antidepressants, antibiotics, narcotics, etc. This apparently was not an isolated situation, but something that was discovered with several different supplements.
I totally agree with you..."There is no single regimen that works for everyone". We all need to have information about the body, know how it functions, and make good choices for ourselves.
Gisela McKay 30+
Still busy, but will fix that post shortly.
Allan Macdougall 30+
http://www.natural-health-information-centre.com/depleted-soils.html
...supported by this information:
http://www.soilassociation.org/futurefarming/policyresearch/resourcedepletion
If vegetables are grown on healthy organic soil, there would be no need at all for supplements. If on the other hand, they are grown on demineralised, inorganic substrates, then that nutritional deficit has to be made up somehow.
Comment deleted
Colleen Steen 500+
To follow up on your statement about calcium, another supplement that people are advised to take are bisphosphonates (Boniva, Fosamax, Reclast, Actonel, etc),which were supposedly meant to prevent bone loss, "treat" osteoporosis, build and strengthen the bones. We found out awhile ago, that these supplements were causing a breakdown of the bone in the jaw. Now, we see that they are causing femur fractures. I believe the femur is the largest most dense bone in the body? And these "bone building" supplements are causing it to fracture? Very interesting.
Years ago, when my primary care doctor advised me to take one of these supplements, "because of my age", I asked what studies were available regarding the long term use of these supplements. She said there are no long term studies. I said I would not take it, she said OK! We really need to look at the information that is available, and if no information is available, why put it in the body?
Zdenek Smith 100+
I don't think the answer is yer or no. It depends. It seems that usualy we should be able to get enough vitamins through good diet. However sometimes this is not possible. For example, the older you get the less vitamins your body will be able to get from a good diet alone. If you are pregnant you might need to take certain types of vitamins to ensure your baby is healthy . Being sick might also affect your body's ability to extract vitamins from food.
Tibor V. Varga
I read a lot about these and I think they carry more benefit than harm. Apes and human lost their ability to produce vitamin C on their own, so they need to take care of that from other sources. Sadly, our vegetables and fruits contain less and less antioxidants (such as vitamin C) from year to year, and based on graphs which calculate our need for vitamin C based upon our average bodyweight we d need to consume around 5 grams (or more, I don't remember the exact value) of vitamin C a day. Albert Szt. Györgyi, who received a Nobel price for describing some basic metabolic pathways (Szt. Györgyi - Krebs cycle) was the first one who first described and isolated vitamin C (fun fact: from pepper). He took 10000 mg s a day from vitamin C and told people should sell vitamin C like flour, in supermarkets.
Science is full of conspiracy theories - here is one: The levels of advised daily intakes of vitamins are established by evil pharmaceutical companies: as the anecdote says: "these levels of vitamins are exactly enough till you arrive to a pharmacy and buy your drugs".
I think we all agree that this may be an exaggaration, but seriously - I'd rather take vitamins, than drugs...
David Hamilton 50+
Vitamins supplement the horrible eating habits of lazy consumers... but, they also create jobs, and people would likely eat horrible food anyway...
If you eat at McDonalds a couple times a week... I reccomend vitamins... If you take your rights as a consumer seriously, and only eat local fruits and veggies, home cooked, with small portions of meat... Don't waste your time on vitamins.
It's up to you in a capitalist society. What we make more popular wins... Bad food + supplements, or good food... RIght now, eating bad food, with supplements is winning. This also happens to be the philosophy that creates the most jobs. I don't agree with this in theory, but I have shopped at a fast food restaurant before, which offered me no nutrition... So do I really disagree? Or, am I just trying to sound like I care about my health, because no rational person wouldn't?
Are people good, or are they evil? Would people rather have 2 jobs that cancel each other out, or 1 job, that actually earns a wage? Do we want to eat food infused with poison, and then buy the antidote, or do we want to stop eating food with poison in it? That's up to consumers in a capitalist society... We're not making smart choices... So, should we take choice away?
Tibor V. Varga
David Hamilton 50+
Personally, I would love to see a similar subsidy program here in the US, but instead we subsidize corn, and soy... But, the real question, is... Why?
We have figured out that corn syrup, and soy products provide the best calorie, per cent. So, our subsidies feed, way more people than your subsidies, but the people we feed are less healthy, and require big pharma, to bail them out... So, would an EU influenced program in America, actually starve the third world by decreasing our calories per hectare?
The moral issue, as with many, in the end comes down to economics... Which strategy is cheaper? If the cheaper strategy feeds more people, it would be difficult to argue, that it was an immoral strategy... To be fair though, the USA has a lot more land to grow corn on than the EU.
Frans Kellner 100+
With vitamin C they showed that if you took more than necessary it was contra productive on muscel building. So the view that if it doesn’t help it doesn’t harm also isn’t true in the end.
They found that with the normal variety of food there was no need for supplements. Advice was to eat all that people used to eat in the fifties the time as everything was fresh and little was fabricated.
Colleen Steen 500+
The FDA supposedly is starting to investigate the contents of supplements, and various other pills on the market, like diet pills. What researchers are finding, is that some of the over the counter pills contain ingredients that are toxic to the body. There are no rules or regulations for using pesticides in some countries for example. The plant material is imported, put into pill form here in the US, and because there are no laws governing supplements, we are often getting toxins in pills that are advertised as having "all natural" ingredients!
Another issue that was brought forth in the documentary, is that the pharma companies often process supposedly "natural" supplements on equipment that was previously used to process other drugs, like antidepressants, antibiotics, etc. So often, products that are marketed as "natural", have traces of other drugs in them. When we take supplements, we think we are doing something beneficial for the body, when in fact, we may be doing just the opposite!
Tibor V. Varga
- eating your own food products is the best possible solution (or making small communities which redistribute goods).
- having a freezer and keeping stuff there - again, really nice effort!
- being cautious about vitamins and supplements - clever, you have to be cautious, never trust drugs
On the other hand:
- What will happen if our foods cannot supply us with the necessary nutrients anymore. We have to keep up and supply ourselves, but our regular foods just won't do... If you produce your own goods, meat and vegetables come straight from the garden then you will be the last one who suffers from this problem, but what should others do who will show sings of malnutrition because they do the shopping in the local supermarket (let's say they can't have access to farmer markets or they simply cannot afford buying healthy food - the cheap foods are generally energy dense with a high amount of refined carbs, high fructose corn syrup and saturated fats and generally low in vitamins)?
Colleen Steen 500+
Julija L. 30+
But one article brought some confusion and disappointment actually. I searched for it in English and I found this in video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH6N7tHGsi8
Frans Kellner 100+
Trust your body's capacity to stay healthy and don't worry.
More people get sick by stress than by any deficiency.
andreas westberg
NO PILLS.