rolling vitamins and supplements thread

here's what i've been taking every day so that i can be a superman:

ginkgo
astragalus
dhea
5-htp
grape seed
gaba
rhodiola extract
lecithin
men power vitamins (which include all your a & b vitamins and minerals and also stuff like beta carotine, betaine, bioflavonoids, boron, choline, fiber, glutamic acid, paba, rutin, silica, alfalfa, nettles, ashwaganda root, pumpkin seed, tribulus terrestis, muira puama, eleutherococcus, spirulina, chiorella, iceland moss, sarsparilla, quercetin, Co-Q10, lutein, pine bark extract, green tea leaf extract, hawthorn berry extract, dmae, and other stuff.)

feel pretty super. but i'm always looking for tips on cool brain drugs i can get at the local health food store, so lemme know if you got any hot ones.

also, do you take stuff everyday and what the hell is it?

fuck this noise man just eat food

not drinking anymore (the occasional tipple, not even once a month though) has made me feel like i should try to be more super.

i eat food too.

i love my leafy greens.

haven't been sick a day this winter. knock wood. knock knock knock.

all right buddy, don't mind me, go with god

it's an experiment! like lance armstrong only i don't have to ride a stupid bike.

riding a bike >>>>>>>>> new-agey rabbit food elixirs

tell that to the chinese! go ahead, tell them. i'll wait here. well, i guess they do ride bikes AND take ancient herbs and spices...but still go tell them that.

i did!

okay, what did they say?

it was gibberish. i take a multivitamin sometimes but it smells awful cuz its got saw palmetto or some shit in it. i also take fish oil capsules sometimes. mostly i eat garbage :)

I've been drinking liquid acidophilus (probiotics) and it's done wonders for my possible IBS.

I take

Magnesium
Alpha Lipoic acid
Digestive enzymes with every meal (I don't have a gallbladder)
Biotin
Zinc
5-HTP
CoQ10
Fish oil

Oh I also take apple cider vinegar, which is kinda like a supplement in my book.

holy toledo what happened to your gallbladder!? if you don't mind my asking...

if its personal, i'll understand. i thought everyone got one.

The most wonderful of those two, that I really notice the benefits of are the 5-HTP and the Zinc. The Zinc has made my skin look incredible. 5-HTP has really made me feel emotionally more stable and less prone to gloominess.

Scott, I had gallstones when I was 20 and had to have it removed!

wow, 20. you would think that would happen when you were old. ouch!

I supplement my diet with B-complex, C, and D, plus I take a multi-vitamin with some trace minerals. That, and the occasional bottle of irish whiskey. I figure my body will discard most of the B, C & D, but I don't mind. I just like to keep its supply topped up.

lion's mane a mushroom for your brane

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-stamets/mushroom-memory_b_1725583.html

ooh, good tip. my brain needs all the help it can get. years of teen drugs and then booze and then oxygen deprivation via uncorrected sleep apnea have made me slow and i want to get a little quicker before its too late.

D vitamins won't be pissed out, it's a fat soluble vitamin.
I'm bad about supplementing regularly, but I take 100,000iu daily when I'm starting to get sick/am sick and it seems to shorten anything that might be wrong.

vitamin d in winter, thats it

anyone try piracetam? my buddy has a scary looking bottle of it. looks super sketch.

I looked at nootropics but couldn't separate the results from placebo effects - except that they all said something about lowering libido and fuck that noise

astragalus is what people i know swear by if you don't want to get sick. and i take it every day like clockwork. and i haven't gotten sick at all this winter. but that might be coincidence. i also got a flu shot, thank god. people in bed for 2 weeks, jesus, i can't afford that kind of time.

can't hurt anyway. i'm in semi-public all day (my store ain't exactly walmart as far as traffic goes, but i get plenty of coughers and sneezers coming in.)

http://www.prisonplanet.com/doctors-confirm-flu-shot-disabled-woman-as-carrey-mccarthy-lend-support.html

rip scott

i got a flu shot this year, hope i get disabled :)

do most ilxors get flu shots? i haven't followed the jenny mccarthy thread lately.

we all got really sick, like, 3 winters ago? i dunno what it was but it was scary. hate when the kids have high fevers. might have been a flu. definitely felt like it.

i take two 5-htp before bed (esp after drinking, really helps w/ the hangover)

5-htp gives me A++++ dreams when I take it, don't know if I get any other benefit

I've tried it on occasion, really shouldn't mix it with ssris, though. I had a phenomenal nightmare one of the last times I took it!

take 5-htp and some magnesium before you go to bed and you will have trippy dreams. maybe even lucid dreams. good combo though.

does st. john's wort have any real effect? i usually include it in the battery of vitamins i take but idk if it does anything.

st. john's bunion

oh right i take st. john's wort every day too. forgot that one. i have no idea if it works.

when i would try and stop smoking i would take ALL that stuff. st. johns wort. calmes forte. valerian root. and pot of course. tons of pot. hahahaha!

that last one is very effective

like w/ these "mood enhancing" herbs i'm never sure if they work b/c maybe i am just having a shitty day anyway

oh you had a car accident i'm sorry, take some st. john's wort and some valerian tea and call me in the morning

yeah I've heard this marijuana one has some studies behind it

rhodiola works for a quick pick me up! especially if you take double the amount you're supposed to take.

Yall are scary ignorant.http://consumerreports.org sorts all this shit out. You can see some of the articles for free, though you gotta subscribe to the site to see the ratings: like $6.95 a month, although you can cancel before being charged for the second month--worth it, even with the sometimes cranky search function. They don't rate pot yet, even for medicinal uses, but still.

idk man, I only trust the Good Housekeeping Institute

lol xp

Lest I omit, you could freeze any dietary oil with no adverse impact. This might make sense if you only use your flax, hemp, chia, walnut or evening primrose oil very occasionally.

i see. no bad tastes yet. thanks for all that info, dude

I mostly err on the side of less supplementation.

Def need some kind of extra omega 3s though, especially since I eat a butt-ton of avocado. I love little oily fish, but I don't know where to find them not packaged in tons of salt. (My blood pressure is tending toward high, which pisses me off--I'm not even 30 yet!)

I can say anecdotally that probiotics really helped my post-clindamycin IBS.

Evidence points to GABA (a neurotransmitter) NOT actually crossing the blood-brain barrier, and even if it does, it might be dangerous for someone with depressive tendencies to take, since GABA is a CNS depressant. I got some kind of GABA/thianine/holy basil/magnesium supplement for my panic disorder before I decided to break down and take real medication, but decided it was probably crap and never took it.

Kava kava does, in fact, work fairly well for anxiety, but it's got nothing on sweet, sweet xanax.

So for me it's just an occasional D supplement, sometimes B-complex (it makes me kind of unpleasantly hyper, though, and I don't enjoy the niacin flush), and hopefully some kind of omega 3 thing soon.

All this talk of oils is disheartening. I thought I was doing pretty okay with olive oil, safflower oil & sparingly-applied real butter.

Been taking 5 http the last couple of nights,just based on the recommendations in this thread. Didn't notice anyting different, but yesterday I ate one mid-morning, accidentally scarfing it down with the other vitamins. I was at home due to the non-snowstorm and out of my regular routine. Around two I was completely overcome by the need to take a.nap. When my wife woke me two hours later, I apparently replied with "what the fuck? Am I tripping? Am I tripping?" I did not actually feel like I was tripping on acid or anything like that, it I did have some sort of trouble processing the transition from sleep to wakefulness.

Took a second 5htp at bedtime and had two vivid dreams, one harmless, the other a test-anxiety dream.Had to booths snooze alarm once, but woke up feeling great, so far.

Webmd indicates 5htp maybe linked to some horrible muscle disorder, but I haven't looked into it too deeply yet.

Had to hit the snooze alarm. Sorry.

5 htp can give you crazy-ass dreams

In the benign one, I wrote this song about how there was a lion made out of lights in the hills about Penn State, and every night the President of Penn State would flick on the lights to look at them from his mansion, but Bill from the tv show King of the Hill lived in a little shack right by the lion's nose and it would keep him awake all night.

In the second dream, I didn't study for the final exam in my black history course "because they teach you all that in high school anyway". The test it was way more complicated than I thought and I didn't know any of the answers and had to turn in a blank exam. Walking away, I overheard a controversy on the radio that Condoleeza Rice had named her newborn baby something that translated as "the king and ruler of the Arab world."

So that was weird, but I've been feeling great all morning.

I have added d-chiro-inositol to my regime for my PCOS

i love hearing about dreams.

I've reorganized and significantly enlarged a collection of research (presently ~1900 papers, many referenced by Dr. Greger, many originally behind paywalls) on diet and disease, and thought I'd share. It covers a few supplements, but the main focus is food and chronic disease.

One result of all the abstract reading (digesting it all will take some time) is that I'm probably going to amend my B12, D & DHA regimen mentioned above. Vegans have lower taurine than omnivores, and taurine functions as an inhibitor of the endogenous glycation reactions (slow motion versions of the Maillard reactions in the browning of meat or toast) which cause much aging related decline, like loss of skin elasticity and cataracts. Plus, its relatively cheap ($22/yr at vitacost).

plus it's in delicious Red Bull

Yes, I try to only take the absolute necessary supplements, and nothing more.

So, I just take two multivitamin gummies a day. I use this brand: http://www.nnpvitamins.com/vitafusion/multivites.php

I always have them in the morning with breakfast.

just a multivitamin, but for a long time a CVS orange-flavored chewable tablet. But the last time I went to buy them I saw these gumball-shaped adult chewable vitamins that looked more fun and are yummy. It's nice to take once after some bitter pills each day.
http://www.centrum.com/sites/default/files/public/products/main/product-description-flavor_burst_fruit_1.png

I've not looked into it, but a couple of people who've studied nursing and are keen on all-things medicine tell me the gummie form is good if you are prone to developing kidney stones, gallstones, etc. My apologies if this is incorrect, I don't mean to spread misinformation. But if you're in this situation, you may want to look into it.

Multivitamin/multimineral supplements have used in dozens of studies, and the conclusion is they give you more expensive pee.

Multivitamin-multimineral supplementation and mortality: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
Antioxidant vitamins and mineral supplementation, life span expansion and cancer incidence: a critical commentary
Multivitamin/mineral supplements and prevention of chronic disease
Clinical trials and observational studies to assess the chronic disease benefits and risks of multivitamin-multimineral supplements
A systematic review of multivitamin and multimineral supplementation for infection

As far as reducing kidney/gall stone risk with gummy vitamins go, there's nothing in the literature. Comparing the "inactive"/filler ingredients between Centrum Tablets and Centrum Flavor Burst reveals these differences:

Centrum tablets: Calcium Carbonate, Dibasic Calcium Phosphate, Microcrystalline Cellulose, Pregelatinized Corn Starch
Centrum gummy: Sucrose, Corn Syrup, Hydrogenated Coconut Oil, Maltodextrin, Acacia

So, most of the tablet is a chalk based calcium supplement, which could conceivably increase kidney stone risk. There are plenty of multivitamin capsules that also don't include chalk fillers/binders.

sanpaku, are there reputable brands of vitamins/supplements, or are they more or less the same quality?

When I worked the supplement counter at a competitor of Whole Foods (Sun Harvest, also from Austin) 20 years ago) I thought pretty highly of Twin Labs - they had well thought out formulas and packaging.

Thing is, none of the vitamin purveyors have complete control over their supply chains, most source a good deal of their ingredients from Chinese and Indian manufacturers, so episodes like the tryptophan contamination of 1989 or the 2007 melamine contamination could happen to any of the brands.

Presently I get what few supplements I use from Vitacost, which has an no-nonsense in-house brand (used to be called Nutraceutical Sciences Institute). Prices are well below what I see at Whole Foods, but its pretty much the same original sources. The case of algal DHA is probably typical. There are precisely 2 manufacturers worldwide, most goes into infant formula, and its repackaged sold under at least 10 different brand names I've seen.

Been drinking kava tea sometimes. May be mellowing. Also bout kava drops. Same effect, bigger dose, though maybe the grain alcohol is the drops causes the mellowness.

bout/bought

I've seen and participated in a kava ceremony on vacation in Fiji. Its a local anesthetic (my mouth went numb) and herbal valium. Probably also a hepatotoxin, given all the cases of liver damage/failure with kava use.

Yeah, I'm hoping low dosage and occasional use will keep me safe (and mellow).

Dunno if kava teas/extracts are well labeled, but try to make sure the product only uses the roots. The hepatoxic culprit may be from the aerial portion of the kava plant.

What is the verdict on pure ginseng root?

The pros: possibly reduces blood glucose levels, may help in weight loss. Unknown mechanism, but the steroidal saponins are possible active agents. Side effects include insomnia, diarrhea, and hyperactivity. Cautionary articles include this one where stress hormones rose and testosterone fell and this one where American ginseng increased oxidative stress.

Then again, the usual rule in herbals probably applies: if it doesn't have side-effects, it probably also doesn't have medicinal ones. My read is that its one of the most oversold herbals out there.

Note also, there are some wildly different results from Panax ginseng (Chinese ginseng), Panax quinquefolius (American ginseng), and Eleutherococcus senticosus (Siberian ginseng), as well as weird threshold effects, which lead me to believe it may act mainly through hormesis (great word, which I just learned this week, and a pretty active field of late).

OK I take nothing. I think it's time I start.

I am a lacto-ovo veg who occasionally (like once a month or less) eats fish. I am tired all the time.

Where should I start?

coffee

amphetamines

According to WebMD, the only supplement with good evidence WRT fatigue is magnesium. Here's a Google scholar search for the studies on magnesium and fatigue. Note that most of the studies used IV injections.

The list of foods highest in magnesium is topped by seeds (pumpkin, sesame, sunflower), and nuts (cashews, almonds). There's evidence that the magnesium content of nuts may be responsible for their cardiac and longevity benefits. NutritionFacts had a few videos on this: How Do Nuts Prevent Sudden Cardiac Death? and Mineral of the Year—Magnesium.

Scanning my files (this is the new correct link), there are isolated studies showing benefits from garlic, creatine (fish), l-ornithine (mushrooms), and l-carnitine (duh, look at the name). This article includes recent reviews for creatine & carnitine.

The body can theoretically produce all the "carninutrient" modified amino acids (carnitine, carnosine, creatine, taurine) from vegetable protein, and I'm presently digesting which ones might be worth adding back into a low-fat vegan diet. So far only taurine seems to make the grade for me (mostly for its role preventing the endogenous glycation in so many aging processes), but mind, I've been vegan (+ B-12 & D) for 3 years with no fatigue issues.

x-post Thanking u 4 the sage advice.

Go get your thyroid checked, too, E.

You posted on the severe anxiety thread earlier. It is possible that your fatigue is coming from the adrenaline dumps. Panic attacks are exhausting! Try seeking different treatment for those & the fatigue may lift. Magnesium is supposed to be good for anxiety, too.

Thank you, E.

XXP Eazy: I have it on good authority that the kava sold by Gaia Herbs has pretty stringent quality control, and is sourced only from the roots.

Herbal Supplements Are Often Not What They Seem

Just want to point out a couple excellent free resources I've come across:

Examine.com has some in-depth reviews of medical research and grading of hundreds of supplements. It's a good first stop for info.

Mark McCarty's Medline syntheses are a bit more speculative, but do a remarkable job of summarizing 30 years of delving into the literature on diet/lifestyle and supplementation. I especially recommend these: Low-Fat, Low-Salt, Whole-Food Vegan, Full-Spectrum Antioxidant Therapy,Practical Strategies for Preserving Good Cognitive Function into Old Age

Anyway, PipingRock had a sale, so I'm doing a n=1 experiment with α-lipoic acid (↑ ­­Nrf2), Andrographis (↑ Nrf2), aspirin(↓ CVD, ↓ cancer), B12 (vegan support), benfotiamine (↓ glycation), berberine (pluripotent: ↓ glucose, ↓ cholesterol, ↓ obesity, ↓ inflammation, ↓ cancer), Co-Q10 (↓ CVD), D (↑ bones, ↓ CVD, ↓ cancer, ↓ MS), DHA (↓ CVD, ↓ cancer, ↓ inflammation), niacin (↓ cholesterol), n-acetylcysteine (↑ glutathione) and taurine (↓ glycation, ↓ CVD) at the moment. I'll try to let you know if my liver implodes, but a month in I'm feeling fine and lost another 10 lbs.

Only the aspirin, B12, D, fish-oil and niacin have the highest level of epidemiological support (multiple large randomized controlled trials), the others are more speculative. Most of these are cheap, but I'll drop a few (ALA & Co-Q10) when the bottles run out, and might add others from that 2nd McCarty monograph.

Thanks for the McCarty, some great reading in there. Funny he suggests the fasted cardio, I just got into that

So shouldn't the headline be 'why megadoses of C and E don't belong in your workout'? Seems overly broad. Something I'm missing?

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/26/why-antioxidants-dont-belong-in-your-workout/

Vitamins C, E, and (for-UV generated singlet oxygen) the carotenoids are the only dietary antioxidants that are well-absorbed and constitute meaningful amounts of antioxidant capacity in the body. However, even they are relatively minor contributors compared to endogenous antioxidants like urate (in plasma) or glutathione (in cells) or antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase and numerous others). The vast majority of so called "antioxidants" measured in foods don't appear to be either absorbed well, or function primarily as antioxidants in vivo. Indeed some (like flavonoids and other phenols) appear to stimulate endogenous antioxidant responses via prooxidant reactions.

The emerging consensus is that some reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (esp. superoxide and nitric oxide) have important signalling roles, and large doses of exogenous well-absorbed antioxidants like vitamin C & E interfere with this signalling. The advantage of most food "antioxidants" is that they're not anti-oxidants at all: in the limited amounts they're absorbed in they're actually stimulating endogenous antioxidant responses by through sulfhydryl reactivity, but the non-absorbed fraction of phenols may be more important via modulating gut microbiota and intestinal permeability to endotoxins and the like.

For the curious, more on RNOS in normal signalling, antioxidants (including their pro-oxidant and adverse effects), some issues with vitamin C and vitamin E, and several real mechanisms underlying phenolic "antioxidants" in Nrf2 activation and reducing metabolic endotoxemia.

Sanpaku, here is a question for you.

If someone is sensitive to (cooked or raw) ginger (not allergic) and takes something like this: http://www.vitacost.com/vitacost-womens-once-daily-multi-vitamin-with-cultured-nutrients-organic-herbs

Would something like that, which includes a ginger extract (if I'm reading it properly), have the same (negative) effects?

Just curious what your thoughts on that are

Supplement extracts typically attempt to just grab the bioactive compounds (for ginger, this might include zingiberine, AR-curcumene, alpha-bergamotene, gingerol, zingerone, etc) using some solvent extraction, leaving the water, fiber, carbs, and most proteins behind. Ginger extracts exist, and if you're sensitive to ginger, it might be to a ginger protein which will be lower (one hopes) in the extract, or it might be to one of the bioactive polyphenols, which will be higher.

As far as I can tell, the multivitamin you're looking at doesn't use ginger extract, just a miniscule and largely pointless amount of cheap powdered ginger as filler/label padding. If you can handle a pinch of ginger powder (20 mg is roughly 1/100th of a tsp), this likely won't be an issue. I view all the 15-40 mg portion herbal additions as label padding, as there really aren't any herbs that make a difference at those doses.

On the whole, I've a fairly positive view on ginger for those who aren't sensive, 2800 mg/d dried ginger had one of the most positive effects in [this study](http://www.mccormickscienceinstitute.com/Report-Landing/~/media/Mccormick%20Science%20Institute/Reports/Percival_JACN_312882012.ashx) which looked at inflammatory cytokine and DNA strand breaks in ex vivo blood samples.

ya, it's for my girlfriend. she moved to north america and is just finding that she is very sensitive to many fresh/raw produce (some fruits and veggies), whilst back home, she had no trouble consuming them raw or steamed.

cheers for that. i bought her this one as well in case those vitamins give her bad symptoms: http://www.vitacost.com/vitacost-synergy-r-womens-twice-daily-multi-vitamin

My caveat on the high dose B-complex supplements like that latter product is riboflavin [is a photosensitizer](https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-2XWDkPfB2OWlhIRS1MaE5GMWM&usp=sharing). Take at bedtime, and try to pee off the excess before entering sunlight.

i'll have a read later. that first file/article? isn't showing up, though

Should be fixed. The key review is this one. I'm not a fan of high-dose multivitamin, or still worse, multi-mineral, supplements.

well, that scared the shit out of me. i guess i'm cancelling the women's twice daily multivitamin

thanks

i don't understand the point of the high dose vitamins - i can't remember what the dosage is on the one i'm taking now, but the last one was a gel cap of complex b vitamins and it was something like 1000% of your RDI.

mine has 1.7 mg ribo, I think i'm ok with that

magnesium oxide, super b complex, d3. murphy who

whats the deal w/ isotonix? just like powdered multivitamins w/ extra marketing? I cant even tell