When I’m training quite hard and also dieting very strictly to lose weight (or just avoid gaining), I take a good ‘everything you really need’ vitamin supplement just to make sure I’m not missing any essential vitamin or mineral.
But I’ve heard two conflicting schools of thought.
Every professional fitness instructor I’ve ever worked with, and every nutritionist or dietician, has advised that although vitamin pills and supplements obviously can’t take the place of a proper, well-balanced diet, they ARE worth taking to ensure nothing is missing. Other people I’ve spoken to say not so, and are dismissive of the whole ‘vitamin con industry’. They seem to suggest that (a) the body doesn’t absorb vitamins and minerals from pills or tablets the same way it does from food and (b) these ‘all in one’ supplements are a scam, they aren’t as complete as they pretend to be, and your body needs lots of stuff it can still only get from ‘proper’ food, especially fresh fruit and green veg.
So, question: are vitamin and mineral pills worth taking, or am I just falling for a scam?
Those fitness instructors are not basing their advice on any actual evidence. Remember all those football coaches who had their players refraining from sex for one or even a few days before a game? It turns out that it was based on no evidence. Probably based on the belief that sex “drains your bodily fluids”. Essentially a religious prejudice raised to the level of a principle. Eventually someone studied it and it made no discernible difference.
I used to take vitamins A (beta carotene actually; at least overdoses are not poisonous), E, C, plus a B complex. With my doctor’s approval. First he told me to drop the A, then the C, and finally the E, since in each case careful trials had demonstrated a higher mortality in people taking them that in people not. I am still doing the B complex, although only one of them, folic acid, has actually been shown to have positive results. That one is even more important for pregnant women since it halves the rate of spina bifida. And although the rate is not high it is a very bad thing (permanent paralysis). The moral is that until these things are tested, they are just guessing.
Just eat plenty of dark colored vegetables. Lots of broccoli, brussels sprouts, collards (all the brassica, in fact, although I wonder about cauliflower and light cabbage), yuppie lettuce (mesclun), sweet potatoes, etc.
Ianzin:
Both groups are right (depending on who you ask). In my case I was not getting enough of lots of different vitamins because of a long history of junk-food consumption. I was told to take a multivitamin. After this multivitamin was not having any effect after a couple of months (I was still experiencing fainting, fatigue and other wonderful symptoms that prompted me to get the vitamin recommendation to begin with) I asked a friend of mine and she recomended going to a health food store and getting a water-soluable vitamin. You can check these by putting them in a glass of water for around 30 minutes. If most of it has desolved by then, then it’s pretty likely that a good portion of that vitamin will be absorbed into your system.
After 6 months of extreemly great but extreemly expensive vitamins, I quit taking them. I took the money I would have spent on the fancy botique vitamins and hired a nutritionist for 6 sessions. I’m actually saving money!
A multivitamin/mineral tablet can do no harm, and it is good insurance. The fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K) have to be taken with food to be absorbed. Since those vitamins are not water-soluble, it is possible to overdose on them, especially A and D. However, as someone has noted, beta carotene, which is a precursor of A, is not toxic even in megadoses. In any event, a multivitamin pill will not have enough to cause any harm. Any excess water-soluble vitamins will be excreted.
I have not read any literature showing that. I think that’s a lot of bullshit. I take a gram of powder C every morning in my OJ. It is not very easy to get E from food, and a supplement of E, IMHO, is a good idea. Pregnant women should definitely take a folic acid supplement to prevent spina bifida in their children.
In the past, many nutritionists, dieticians, and doctors have stated that you don’t need a supplement; however, when asked if they took any supplements, practically all of them did. More recently, the establishment is coming around to recognizing that a supplement is a good idea.
These people can explain the scam to you. It is both a scam, and not a scam. The scam is that often, vitamin pushers sell you something you don’t need, using scare tactics and other scam artist tricks. The truth part of it is that you do need vitamins in your diet, and if they are not there, then supplements can help replace that. Hence, iodized salt, fortified bread, vitamin D milk, etc…
Oddly B-carotene is probably bad for you “Supplementation with ß-carotene was associated with increased mortality rates for CHD (11 percent) and lung cancer (18 percent), as well as an increase in overall mortality (8 percent)” from second link above. This seems a pretty consistent message
One problems with taking massive amounts of say single vitamins is that you unbalance your bodies chemistry. whish was designed to cope under a normal metabolic level of these chemicals. To much vitamin C has been found to damage DNA. As well, by taking viatmins from pills instead of natural sources, you are missing out on hundreds of other natural antioxidants, fibre etc, that also prevents cancer and other illnesses.
Don’t forget, that while extra antioxidants may help prevent DNA damage and prevent cancer, once the cancer has started they may actually help the cancer cells metabolism as well as your own. This may in part explain some of the contradictory results in B-carotene studies.
That study involved only those who smoked cigarettes. It has no validity for others. I generally agree with your other statements, except that too much C can damage DNA. Do you have a link for that? I also disagree with your unbalancing statement in general. This is true for the B-complex of vitamins, but not for the others. Excess water-soluble vitamins are excreted. Excess A or D can be bad, but not because of any unbalancing.