So going through my daily ritual of green tea, a nutrition bar and a whole cocktail of pills, I thought it would be interesting to gather opinions on all the “stuff” I am taking to see if they are WOO or actually beneficial.
Each day I take:
Core nutrients I believe are definitely NOT WOO
2000mg Fish Oil (820mg EPA/575mg DHA)
325mg Aspirin (grandma lived to 101 and swore by it)
200mg Ibuprofen (read many articles about potential Alzheimer’s prevention)
500mg Niacin
Daily Multivitamin
Other stuff that may be but I take anyway
Resveratrol - keep reading about this as potential life extending by extending DNA telomeres (FYI could not type that without giggling)
CoQ10 - Cholesterol and Heart health
Apple Cider Vinegar - :smack: no idea lol
Potassium Glutamate
So… am I just wasting money? Would to love to read opinions and experiences along with any supplements that are not WOO.
I don’t know about woo, but I see two things that you’re taking that could potentially be dangerous. Daily aspirin- unless your doctor has recommended it, you should not be taking it. It can do more harm than good unless you have specific reasons to be taking it. Also apple cider vinegar- if you are drinking even small amounts of vinegar daily, you could get esophageal cancer from that. It’s very caustic- bad idea.
I take vitamin D3 and think it’s a good idea for everyone.
I haven’t done intensive research into those so I don’t really know, although I have to admit, some of them do sound like woo.
But one I think you should add on is Metamucil. I have posted about it before on the boards, but as far as I can tell, it is safe and effective for regulating one’s stools. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t a laxative and is safe to take daily.
It’s a blood thinner so if you injure yourself while taking it unnecessarily, you could be causing yourself a serious problem for no measurable benefit. It’s also very hard on your stomach, as all NSAIDs taken regularly are. In some people, it triggers asthma. Finally, if you stop taking it suddenly, such as by missing a dose on vacation, you can induce a heart attack.
You can google up the risks of daily aspirin in 10 minutes. I did.
For myself, I take a multi-vitamin/mineral supplement a day, along with supplemental calcium. I don’t kid myself that I am doing much more than vitamin-fortifying my urine, and I try to drink a lot of fluids to prevent kidney stones from the calcium.
It is usually best to get your nutrition from food instead of pills. And anything that has effects has side-effects. There is no such thing as a drug or supplement that has only good effects and no bad ones. As with the rest of life, it is pretty much a matter of making a cost-benefit analysis, and then playing the odds.
The problem with supplements generally is that they are exempt from FDA control and, therefore, they can put whatever health claim they want on the label or in the advertising so long as it’s accompanied by a fine print disclaimer. Moreover, because they can make whatever snake oil claims they want, they have a shitload of money they use to place “objective,” “investigational” articles in newspapers and magazines that promote their use without the appropriate skepticism. Any given health claim about something you’re taking might be true, but there is no way to intelligently evaluate these claims because there isn’t real science being done to investigate them. You simply must discuss them with your doctor.
Also, absolutely ask your doc about the ibuprofen. That stuff can really screw up your stomach lining which is not only terrible in itself, it also means that you can no longer take ibuprofen for fever or aches and pains, which sucks, because it’s a miracle drug.
No, that’s acetaminophen a.k.a. Tylenol and paracetamol. And not so much “over time”, your body does clear it out, but if you take relatively high doses daily it can affect your liver function. Take too much at once and it will destroy your liver and kill you.
As for the OP’s aspirin dose - 325 mg is a pain relief dose, a daily maintenance dose is 81 mg. Taking more than you need (and unless you’ve consulted a doctor about this you don’t even know you need that much) increases the risk of blood clotting problems, excessive bleeding, and gastrointestinal tract irritation.
Personally, I think you’d be better off spending the money on higher quality food.
You say you don’t know why you take the apple cider vinegar, so why take it? I use it on my hair sometimes, I’ve never heard of actually ingesting it aside from presumably cooking with it.
Unless you have severe dietary restrictions, I wouldn’t worry about taking so many supplements. As has already been stated, it’s much better to get all this from food. And real food, not nutrition bars.
I’m vegan and take one multivitamin along with a vegetarian omega fatty acid supplement just to be on the safe side, but that’s it. No need to go overboard.
From my own experience you can build up a tolerance to ibuprofen, so if you’re taking it regularly you’ll need a higher dose for actual aches and pains which can eventually damage your stomach. I’ve also heard of rebound headaches from taking too much ibuprofen (my psych teacher told us this in high school- not sure if it’s 100% true, but putting it out there just in case).
what **cliffy **said, plus taking long-term NSAIDS like aspirin also can cause **other **issues.
case in point: i can no longer take them because they now affect my kidney values - upping the creatinine to not-so-good levels. you so don’t want so see that in your medical report.
because of it i can now only take tylenol. not so good in keeping erosive osteo- arthritis under control, but what is my option? kidney disease? :rolleyes:
I take prescription strength NSAIDs…and a few other things. My doctor tests my liver and kidney functions every three months to make sure nothing is going wrong. And he recently added a script for Prilosec, to protect my stomach.
He re-iterates that he sees no issue with me taking it long term…as long as we monitor it.
A little over a year ago my doc warned me off multi-vitamin supplements. Seems my potassium levels were borderline on the too high side and he absolutely wanted me to stop taking anything that supplemented potassium… including standard multivitamins. If I hadn’t been getting regular check-ups this might not have been discovered until it started causing me serious problems.
Now if I need a supplement I have to buy separate bits instead of a multi-vitamin so I can avoid the potassium. I’m also absolutely supposed to stay away from all salt substitutes. My levels were still high last time they were checked but they’ve edged back down into something more normal.
Over the winter I supplement with C and D, but during the summer with my vampire complexion getting sufficient D is not a problem.
Talk to your physician about taking that much ibuprofen and aspirin daily. You could be setting yourself up for gastrointestinal damage and potentially increased bleeding risk.
As for apple cider vinegar, this falls heavily in the realm of woo.* There is nothing special about apple cider vinegar. Vinegar itself may have some positive impact on health (i.e. slightly lowering blood sugar in diabetics), but the odds of ACV pills doing anything beneficial is near zero. It’s even been found that some ACV pills contain little or no ACV.
*in the world of woo, ACV is reported to be therapeutic for a huge range of disorders, based almost entirely on unsupported anecdotes and claims of ACV sellers.
