Taking Vitamins

It's basically possible, yeah, but it's dead boring.

Who is suggesting vitamins don't work? who are these people!

I've tried taking them a couple of times, but could never convince myself they did any good (aside from urination fun), so I always quit after a day or two.

I recently discovered that the iron leven in spinach is actually much lower than was assumed. Apparently someone did a misprint which caused people to assume it had massive amounts of iron. I think broccoli is much better, no?

Also, some excessive vitamine amounts (?) do not get flushed out and can cause an overdose. I don't know which though.

It was some prepared spinach (or however you'd call it) from a package. My husband said:"This tastes weird!" I replied that he was silly and that it was so tasty realizing full well that the spinach did indeed taste weird. Stupid me.

Nathalie, eating one bar is not going to supply you with enough. It has been spelled out for us decades ago:

You eat Cadillacs, Lincolns too
Mercurys and Subarus
And you don't stop, you keep on eatin' cars
Then, when there's no more cars
You go out at night and eat up bars where the people meet

If your body rejects the vitamins you don't need, then how do people O.D. on them?

Here is what I take right now:

a multivitamin
a weird multivitamin for hair
vitamin E
lutein (the bottle is the most beautiful thing in my medicine cabinet too)
biotin
fish oil
ginseng
ginkgo biloba

sometimes vitamin C

weren't multivitamins discredited recently?

show me, this stuff is IMPORTANT

i quit taking them pretty much, i dunno. i used to just take multivitamin, calcium, occasional acidophilus. i should be taking the multi though, i don't eat meat much. but srsly that's a buttload of vitamins to be taking dude!

Body will flush out some vitamins that aren't needed (C, for example), but vitamins can be taken in toxic doses, especially the fat-soluble ones (A,D,E and K).

I haven't heard that multivitamins were discredited, but I live on Planet School, so who knows what I could be missing. I am pretty sure that the only reason I haven't gotten horribly ill during several terms of nursing school is that I take two Scooby Doo gummi vitamins a day. (Total placebo effect, doubtless, but I do enjoy them.)

I also do a daily calcium supplement now. Three different classes have had us look at photos of osteoporotic bones, and I figure it's a can't hurt, might help thing at this point.

Some of the B vitamins are definitely toxic in high doses. I think its B6 that can do serious nerve damage in large amounts. at least, so Oliver Sacks tells us.

I'm not sure but I think some vitamins just pass on thru if there's too much (C esp) but yeah - dont overdose on B, or on selenium - selenium is poisonous in largeish amts.

As I said above I dont think vitamins do all that much unless you're *really* deficient in one/more. So like, as a drinker, B group helps for me. It really does - if I stop taking it I become depressed and angry and tired.

But I'm not about to go for the $cientology level of "hey everything can be cured with vitamins whee psychology is all a scam!" shit.

i get B12 shots every month or two; they're ok, right?

they seem to help my energy level and i think i sleep better at night. i used to think they may boost my immune system, but that was shot to shit when i got sick like twice this year after going over two years without the slightest bit of a cold..

B12 shots are probably even neccesary if you're vegan, as you cant get B12 from non animal sources naturally (afaik).

afaik as well

hahaha waht

blood is a small percentage of a small amount of fluid lost during menstruation

yes duh i know

just telling u what i was told

u should have told him "waht"

Yeah I never understood the whole "lol u bleed every month so u'll be aneamic"

OK the sources I've found dont say dont take iron - they just say "dont take a supplement for no reason "just in case"". Because it's toxic in high doses and not many people are seriously deficient - and also that food iron is better than pills.

http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/BHCV2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Iron_explained?open

Iron supplements
Iron deficiency anaemia is diagnosed with a blood test. You may be advised by your doctor to take iron supplements. Points to note include:

* The most common side effect of iron supplements is dark coloured or black stools, so don’t be alarmed by this change to your bowel habits.
* Other common side effects include nausea, vomiting, constipation and diarrhoea. See your doctor for advice but, generally speaking, treatment involves lowering the recommended dose for a short time to give the body time to adjust.
* Iron supplements should be taken on an empty stomach.
* Take the supplements as advised by your doctor. The human body isn’t very good at excreting iron and you could poison yourself if you take more than the recommended dose.

Too much iron can be harmful
The body stores iron very efficiently and too much iron can be toxic. Haemochromatosis is a condition characterised by excessive iron stores. Some studies suggest that haemochromatosis increases the risk of heart disease and some cancers, such as colorectal cancer. Treatment includes limiting the amount of iron in the diet and regularly removing blood until iron levels normalise.

http://www.popline.org/docs/0530/007963.html

Iron deficiency is highly prevalent worldwide. It occurs in progressively severe stages as prelatent or storage iron deficiency, latent iron deficiency, and, ultimately, iron deficiency anemia. Women sustain substantial losses of iron throughout their reproductive years from menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation. The most common cause of iron deficiency, however, is excessive menstrual bleeding.

cursory search on google scholar would suggest that my guy is right

I imagine just eating more iron rich foods is all it takes (poss. tricky if vegetarian?)

excessive menstrual bleeding /= menstruation in general hov

I've never been told I'm iron deficient from any of my many blood tests, which is odd. I would LOVE that to be the cause of my constant tiredness, so easy 2 fix ;_;

lets not make a fight!!!!

http://www.wolfpack10.com/tuppence/patio.jpg

guys have you seen this btw

http://wolfpack10.com/tuppence.html

OMG

excessive menstrual bleeding /= menstruation in general hov

― WHO DEY and the blowfish (roxymuzak), Sunday, April 5, 2009 7:51 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

oh i know, but my prof's point, as i understood it, is that iron deficiency is more prevalent in women, and the two most probable reasons for that are a) less meat intake and b) menstrual bleeding. even if it's not a significant or excessive amount of blood, it can still be held accountable as a reason for the disparity. i mean, the dude's a doc who specializes in nutrition, i don't think he was on some ewww ladies be bleeding ish

i feel you i feel you

Yah that obv makes sense! :)

ok word we're all on the same page

liver is the solution to all vitamin problems.

huh weird i always heard not to take iron supplements unless you really are deficient (i.e., a dr tells you you are) because too much iron is bad. i think i eat enough dark green vegetables to get iron though anyway. anyway i think i'm gonna quit menstruating, i decided

take depo provera

no i am just doing pills continuously for now! it's sweet

nice

I has an Implanon in my arm. I'm not sure I like it, tbh - but Depo was even worse, turned me into depresso city. This thing's just hurting me arm and making me fattey.

If you read "In Defense of Food" Pollan talks about current research showing fortified foods and multivitamins are essentially useless. Clearly if you're on a six-month ocean voyage some vitamin C tablets will keep you from getting scurvy, but generally if you are eating fortified foods or needing multivitamins, that means you should be eating better food, not upping or broadening your supplement intake.

How the body absorbs nutrients isn't well understood, but it seems that breaking down micronutrients into specific types and then re-adding them to highly processed food (including in multivitamin form) doesn't allow the body to make use of them the way it can from whole foods. Which makes sense, since that's what the human race had been eating up until about 1950.

ugh i dont know how you guys deal with that shit. im depressed, angry and paranoid all the time on any pill. that said ive been anemic a ton so maybe i could stand to quit the blood loss. also i get red meat and prawn cravings so bad all the time.

xposts

but whats the difference

SO TRUE

the only supplements i take on a regular basis are calcium

i always assumed Vegemite tastes so great when you have a hangover because of all the B vitamins it has?

the difference, from what i understand, is that there may be interactions between the nutrients and 'other stuff' in whole food that are unaccounted for in processed, fortified food

wait

i dunno i went off it for a few months and i always notice i'm way more moody, etc. not being on it! weird. xxxxxp

i think i'm gonna take a vitamin right now though

I'd never bother with a multi (they only have small amts of everything, bit useless), and fortified food is just completely o_0 to me. If I need iron or calcium I'll get it from meat and dairy, not bread or cereal or - even worse - orange juice *shudder*

Did u kno, the "omega 3" fortified OJ is made from fish oil extract? Mmm yummy fish oil in my OJ :/

xxxxpost The only time I've ever been anemic (including the years I was a vegetarian) was after I hemorrhaged after J was born and lost a ton of blood. I'm lucky, though; my body seems to cling to iron in general; it seems like a lot of women I know have struggled w/iron deficiency anemia due to menstruation.

My husband runs marathons and was totally convinced he was anemic because he is tired a lot. His proposed pathophysiological cause for this was "foot strike hemolysis" - i.e. red blood cells bursting on his feet from his running so much. His iron is FINE, and he was disappointed to find out that he's so tired because he doesn't sleep enough.

btw, iron supplements are no fun at all; constipation is a major side effect for a lot of people. I think I'll pass.

btw, iron supplements are no fun at all; constipation is a major side effect for a lot of people. I think I'll pass.

― Sara R-C, Monday, April 6, 2009 12:24 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

there's a joke here, but i'm too tired to even try

maybe you're anemic!

i just started taking multivitamins.
i didn't read the bottle to find out that i should not take them on an empty stomach.
i puked up vitamin.

learn somethin new every day!

so i'm looking into taking vitamins -- i don't feel like i'm getting enough vitamin c or calcium for instance -- does anyone take any over the counter vitamins? any suggestions? ian?

I eat a much better diet than the average US citizen. I also take vitamin supplements daily. I supplement my diet with a mulit-vitamin, Vitamin D3, and Vitamin C. I'm also 55 years old and live in a place with heavy cloud cover much of the year (hence the D3). If I were a woman, I'd almost certainly take calcium-magnesium, too.

I recognize that a fairish amount of what I take will be excreted away and wasted. The difficulty is knowing which vitamins my body is currently in need of and which it is well-supplied with. So, I let my body decide. It knows this stuff perfectly well, but not in such a way that my brain can easily access that knowledge. Luckily, my brain is not required to know.

As mentioned above in the thread, it is important to distinguish between water-soluble and fat-soluble vitamins, and between vitamins and trace minerals, because it is quite possible to poison yourself with mega-doses of "healthy" substances.

half of y'all should be on iron pills imo

― i like to fart and i am crazy (gbx), Monday, April 6, 2009 8:42 AM (11 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ie - ladies

― i like to fart and i am crazy (gbx), Monday, April 6, 2009 8:42 AM (11 months ago) Bookmark

this would be a great pick-up line

I think I'm gonna start taking a b12 vitamin pill since I don't eat much meat anymore. but it's really tough to find just a b12 pill here - most of em are multi-B complexes. and the GNC b-12 one provides something like 10,000% of your RDV? no way dude.

also I'm kind of distrustful of vitamins = good health in general...vitamins are just those substances which we've been able to figure out cause a certain disease/diseases when we're deficient in them. there are thousands of other substances in the food we eat that also contribute to overall health and wellbeing, some of which we haven't been able to link to a specific disease/condition yet, some of which work in concert with other substances to produce good effects, some of which whose effects we just haven't been able to isolate at all. eating only instant ramen and popping vitamins is nagl imo.

i keep a spreadsheet of my vitamin intake

you really do?? that's so cool

i just started taking omega 3

i took vitamin D tablets this winter for the first time, i think it helped a bit? maybe a placebo tho who knows

Don't discount the placebo effet -- a lot of people are starting to say the placebo effect works better than actual medicine:

http://www.wired.com/medtech/drugs/magazine/17-09/ff_placebo_effect?currentPage=all

Fascinating article.

'Tain't nuthin' new about big-upping the placebo effect. Physicians have relied on it for centuries, sometimes wittingly, sometimes unwittingly. Best recommendation for it - no harsh side effects.

I love raspberry flavoured soluble vitamin C tablets. They taste awesome.

I still take my mega multi-B as upthread, and also a tablet with milk thistle, dandelion and some other herbs they say is good liver proctection/cleansing. God knows if it works. I'm suprised I still HAVE a liver.

BTW I was wrong upthread about omega 3 in juice being fish oil, aparrently they can make it from some plant now.

o really i thought it was always fish oil