I’m having trouble understanding if multivitamins are useful for fitness. Articles online keep saying they’re useful if you want to get all of your vitamin and mineral needs, especially if you can’t get them all in your diet. BUT…then others say that multivitamins rarely give you any benefit and you should stay away from them.
Too many people are saying TOO MANY different things…I’m not sure which side to lean on, are multivitamins useful for your diet when working out in general? What about if it’s a pure cardio workout like Insanity?
At 2-3 cents each for bulk generic USP vitamins, I argue no. At grocery retail where you can easily spend $1 a day or more on a combination of supplements, yes.
Most of the extended arguments I’ve seen (here and elsewhere) posit an economic argument against them - that it’s a waste of money. By the time you’re taking a couple of heavily-marketed brand names like Centrum, it’s easy to hit 30-50 cents a day, and if multivites and supplements are “unnecessary,” it’s all wasted money.
You can get USP multivitamins from US manufacturers for closer to 2-3 cents each, and unless you’re meticulous about your diet 365 days a year, I’d say it’s insurance/health money well spent. Maybe even then.
Most studies on multivitamins have failed to show any significant benefit except in the case of moderate to severe nutrient deficiency. Most (though not all) western diets, even if a “poor” diet, supply enough nutrients to avoid moderate to severe nutrient deficiency.
Amateur Barbarian believes that eating a diet that will avoid any moderate to severe nutrient deficiency requires careful bookkeeping, but I disagree. You can eat 7-Eleven pre-packaged crap all day and get at least enough of all your nutrients to avoid a moderate deficiency. Such a diet will be unhealthy for other reasons (lots of simple carbohydrates, saturated fat, etc.), but those aren’t going to be fixed by a multivitamin.
That’s not to say there aren’t cases where a deficiency can’t occur, even with a well balanced diet. Some women have trouble with iron levels, especially during pregnancy.
I don’t know how strictly buddy431 is defining " 7-11 pre-packaged crap" but they sell vitamin-enriched protein bars at 7-11. And they are certainly pre-packaged. And many people would consider them crap. Not me though. I think they’re yummy.
In addition to the fact that a wide variety of processed foods are fortified with vitamin D, any dairy you eat will give you enough to stave off Rickets (milk is fortified, and cheese has an appreciable amount because vitamin D is fat soluble).
In developed nations, severe vitamin D deficiency is extremely rare. There has been somewhat of a resurgence in rickets cases in the UK (on the order of dozens per year), but those most at risk for this are the very young (especially those breastfeeding) who are exposed to very little sunlight.
That being said, it is possible to have lower levels of vitamin D than recommended, even with proper diet. If this is the case, it might be prudent to take a vitamin D supplement, hopefully on the advice of your doctor.
Vitamin D has become a little bit of a “fad” vitamin in my opinion, with people taking large supplements similar to the vitamin C megadosers of yesteryear. With vitamin C being water soluble, the worst you can do is give yourself some expensive urine. Vitamin D is fat soluble, and so any excess builds up in the body and can cause problems at high enough concentrations (although to be fair, vitamin D toxicity is also rare)
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Boards, Mr.Insaneo, we’re glad you found us. You posted this in a forum devoted to responses to Cecil’s columns; I don’t think Cecil has tackled this per se, so I’m moving this thread to General Questions where I think you’ll get more responses. (If I’m wrong and you were addressing a specific column by Cecil, let me know – email or posting here – and I’ll have it moved back. No biggie, we move threads alla time to where we think they’ll get best responses. And, as I say, welcome indeed!
This. My family (dad, sibs, nieces) all have vitamin D deficiencies verified by blood test, despite eating a well-balanced diet. I take a multivitamin supplement - not because I want all those other vitamins, but because it was the only one I could find that didn’t contain an absolutely massive dose of vitamin D.
I don’t know what kind of supplement my brother is taking, but after four years his annual tests are consistently showing that he’s hovering just below the level that’s widely considered healthy.
I haven’t been tested since I was diagnosed in 2010; I guess it’s time to go back to the doc for a checkup…
Tl,DR: multivitamins are a waste of time and money unless you have been diagnosed by your doctor with a specific deficiency. If you have been diagnosed with a deficiency, it’s probably wise to first correct any shortcomings in your diet before considering a vitamin supplement.
This is a bit meta, but be wary of some of the news coverage that say to be wary of multivitamins.
I’ve spoken with a couple of different family members and friends who are doctors about this, and they’ll point out that the general market media often doesn’t take the time / have the level of understanding to really report on some of these medical studies they cite.
One example was about three months ago — there was a round of “MULTIVITAMINS ARE CRAP!” news stories after looking at a study that looked at, as I recall, whether they were good for women who had already had one child and examined whether or not they were sufficiently absorbing one certain very specific dietary need.
That’s good information, but it doesn’t necessarily mean a multivitamin doesn’t add any Vitamin A to your intake if you (errr I) don’t eat enough veggies.
The average American who eats crap still gets no benefit from supplemental vitamins and might even gain some small risk. The above and beyond benefits gained by eating a diet that is high in vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, can only be gained by actually eating those foods. You won’t get scurvy without a multi. You won’t gain the reduced risk of death from cancer, heart disease and stroke, of cognitive decline, and dementia (that you gain by eating a diet high in vegetables, etc.) by taking the multi.
I don’t understand the question, because I don’t see any confusing or contradictory information here.
“Articles online” says that they’re useful if you don’t get the vitamins in your diet.
“Others” say that this rarely happens.
So actually, they agree with each other. Some people do get benefit, but not everyone. All you need to do is to check with your doctor and find out if you are getting enough from your diet. Then you’ll know which (if any) you are low on, and you can get more of those. Problem solved.
My anecdote - I used to get splitting headaches every month or two, until about age 30 when I started taking mulitvitamins. Just the basic Centrum clone, one per day. That stopped them, completely.
My theory is this - There may be some components that help. If you take a multivitamin, and only absorb 50% of it, then likely that was all you need. The rest is the “expensive pee”. (Except it’s not reallly expensive - 300 capsules, $20.) It just guarantees that if in fact you are short of something in your diet, you will get it either fully or partly from the pills.
So the real questions are:
(a) Do you need the components of the multivitamin?
(b) Will you absorb these from taking the pill?
(a) seems to be a given. It is unlikely that we manage to balance our diet that well, especally eating heavily processed foods.
(b) is the question - if the pill has, say, iron or chromium or B12, are we actually absorbing some? Has anyone looked deeply into this? I would not be surprised if a portion is not absorbed, but surprised if all of it did not absorb. Then there’s the question if the formulation of that nutrient is digestible.
The crappy American diet, heavy in processed (but often fortified) foods, is still enough to prevent vitamin deficiencies (with the debated possibility of vitamin D). You have to be on a pretty extreme fad diet or have some specific medical malabsorption state to need them. The issue is that real vegetables and fruits have some secret sauce that gives benefits above and beyond that provided by vitamins and minerals alone. Fiber, phytochemicals, antioxidants, other? Something about how it is packed together that has synergistic effects? All? No one knows but we do know that a multi does not do the same thing. If your diet is low in vitmin A, etc. it means you need to eat better and address your lifestyle, not that you need to take a multi.
I have been taking vitamins for a number of years, generally to help with fatigue, not fitness, and they don’t help me with fatigue at all. I’ve even bought very expensive vitamins. I’m considering not taking them anymore, as perhaps, they could be a cause of fatigue, as the body has to process more. I would say vitamins probably don’t help with fitness. Would fitness be energy levels? I don’t think vitamins can increase energy levels, unless one has a vitamin deficiency. I think “energy begets energy” and exercising more will help with fitness, probably more than vitamins.
Sheldon’s answer was “Vitamin tablets are useless as the body has limited capacity to store vitamins”… You can tell this as it makes for colored urine…
The idea is that food is generally in the form of cells, and the cells take hours to break down and release their contents Vitamin pills should be made slow release… It should be a spec … “8 hour vitamin pills”…
What about if it’s a pure cardio workout like Insanity?
Not me though. I think they’re yummy.