Multivitamin analysis please?

[Kd did]

I am looking for a good multivitamin, and this is not my area of expertise. It seems like the smart thing to do is ask the advice of those of you who understand these sorts of things. I have read numerous threads and I can say for certain that I can not afford those that many of you label "the best" on the market. I have been contemplating a multi on the "Dr. Natura" website called detoxigreen. Can someone please take a look at the ingredients and tell me if would be a wise purchase?

Detoxigreen (http://drnatura.com/product_pic/detoxigreen_pic.html)

[Gostrydr]

DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!!!

Look at the those paltry potencies..3 caps will give you 75 mgs of calcium and you will only absorb at the most 40% of that..you need at least 1250 mgs of calcium a day to build bone and to prevent osteoperosis..in addition to your food at times.

You will also need at least
1,000mgs of C, 400-800 Iu's of E, 1,000 Ius of D,500-700 mgs of Magneisum..

So as you can see that multi sucks..sorry but it hardly has doses that can be of any benefit to you..


May I suugest you look at multis like Supernutrition..high potencies at dose effective levels to help avoid and overcome defiencies

Or multis from Solaray, Natures Way,Country Life, Twin lab..

[jpatti]

I think it depends.

I take fish oil, CoEnzymeQ10, vitamin D3/K2, calcium ascorbate, calcium, a B-complex, milk thistle, SloNiacin and pantothenic acid supplements. And the vast majority of my food intake is fresh vegetables, second most common food I eat is pasture-raised meat, eggs and dairy. I drink well water with a high level of minerals in it. I use Lite Salt for potassium. So I'm not relying on my multi much and I buy the cheapest generic men's multi available.

Let me tell you the advice I gave someone who is prediabetic and on disability with a very limited income. Take a cheap multi daily, preferably one that does not contain iron unless you have a known deficiency (a generic men's multi is good). Take a good gel-based capsule of D3 (make sure it's D3, not D2); ideally, you'd have your doctor check your blood level and take enough to get to 50-60 ng/dL; in the absence of testing, take 1000 or 2000 IU daily. Take 4 grams of the cheapest fish oil daily. Take a couple generic Tums products for calcium. Get a cheap bottle of powdered vitamin C (calcium ascorbate is best as it's buffered without adding a lot of sodium) and add to Crystal Light or such daily. This "buys" the most for your buck, it costs just a few bucks a month to take these as they're dead cheap and provide a lot of goodness with regards to those who have blood glucose issues and for preventing inflammatory disorders like heart disease.

Keep some echinacea and goldenseal to take when you feel under the weather.

Otherwise, there's specific things to take for specific problems - for instance, I take SloNiacin though it's expensive, cause it's a good buy for me since I've had a heart attack; I take a more expensive D3 pill cause it contains K2 also good for both heart and bone health; I take a B-complex largely because I'm frankly diabetic; I take milk thistle because I'm on prescription medications that can effect the liver; anyone on a statin should take CoEnzymeQ10.

But without specific health problems requiring more, a generic multi, fish oil, vitamin D3, calcium and vitamin C are the best health buy for few bucks. Invest what you save over buying more expensive supplements in better food.

There's a wide variety of phytochemicals and other specific fatty acids (like CLA and GLA) that do lots of good things, and likely many that have not yet been discovered. But with limited funds, you can't be buying into every hot new supplement that comes along. You're better off buying better foods than a bunch of pills. Organic produce has more nutritients than regular, so upgrade whenever you can afford to. I shop by buying 8-10 lbs fresh produce weekly and then arranging my menus to get it eaten before it goes bad. Get a wide variety of colors in your produce to maximize the nutrition.

Ditto with pasture-raised meat, eggs and dairy and wild-caught fish - these are the healthiest sources of protein because of the fats that come with them.

When you do add extra carbs to your diet, the best grains are buckwheat and barley as they give you a lot of nutrients for the carbs compared to junk food like wheat and corn.

In short, put your bucks into a few cheap supplements that buy you a lot and spend more on good food to maximize health.

[Gostrydr]

JPatti,
that is a great post, but I have to admantly disagree on your advice on buying a cheap, generic multi..they are virtually worthless.

Though they do contain USP vitamins(in really low doses) they also contain alot of synthetic fillers, dyes and other garbage that indeed may be harmful to the body.

EVERYONE SHOULD BUY A HIGH QUALITY MULTI VITAMIN AS A BASE..everything else like fish oils and other isolated compounds are just icing on the cake.

As far as food, yeah food is great, but vitamins are more concentrated and absorb equally well and at times better than food.

They are in a free form state that can be abosrbed and assimliated very fast..and they are bioindentical to food.

The number one absorbed green food for calcium is Kale..at 40% absorption..calcium carbonate is absorbed at 39%..so not much less than Kale at all.

But to get the recommended 1000 mgs of Calcium from Kale you would need over 3lbs of it..
You can just take 2 old calcium carbonate tabs to reach that level.

To get 1000 mgs of C you would need 3lbs of brocolli..
You could take 1 1000 mg of a C capsule and be done with it.

So if one is to really make some dramatic health improvements, there is no place for cheap,generic vitamins..

Don't fool yourself . they are garbage.

[Cajunboy47]

just my two cents, but to correct a vitamin deficiency, if indeed we know that is what we have, how do we conclude we need to mega-dose to overcome it. I fell in to that trap for a while, but don't see the benefits of it.

I've read that vitamin E, over 400 IUs' per day can become toxic.

I'm not saying we don't need vitamins, but it is very difficult, I think for anyone to determine how much they need, other than increase a bit and try to notice if you're feeling better.

I mega dosed on Vitamin B-12 once and it came out in my blood test. I immediately cut my dose in half and my next blood test showed good results. I get complete blood work every 90 days.

I don't mega dose on anything any more and my blood tests don't reveal any deficiencies.

I'm not for or against vitamins at the moment, but rather leaning from a believer to being skeptical... that sort of makes me against it doesn't it...:) but then again, I do take my fair share of cheap Wal-mart vitamins... :):)

[Zuleikaa]

Just my 2 cents

I don't believe in the popular brands of vitamins...I've found that they're generally the cheapest (for the manufacturer), lowest quality, and comprised of the worst form of the nutrients for bioavailability or comprised of nutrient varietals that can't be used by the body at all.

TBS, there are some good or excellent quality inexpensive vitamins available.

So in my book, more expensive isn't better but you have to know what form the nutrients should be in...that's what counts.

And finally, you want vitamins without sugar, starches, and dyes, and with no or the least amount of least damaging/negative impact fillers.

[Gostrydr]

Zuliekka and Cajun boy..

All good points..I'm not talking mega doses but optimal potencies..not the RDA or Daily Values but what the research has shown.

Now if I had a cold, I would in fact be taking more C in addition to my Multi..somewhere in the neighborhood of 5- 10 grams a day..that still is not mega dosing.

If I was told I has osteopenia/peroisis it would make sense to up my doses of Calcium, D and Magnesium.

Zuleikka, I totally agree that you do not have to spend a ton of cash on a good quality multiple..some of these ridiculous "food grown" multis can cost someone more than $2 a day.

But if someone goes to a drug/grocery store and buys a month supply of a multi for $5.99, then they are sorely misguided into believing they are receiveing any real health benefits.

As far as toxicity...Vitamin E has been shown to have toxic levels at 5000 IU's...I've never seen a multi above the 800IU mark..

So in conclusion, everyone should take the time to buy a very high quality multiple, that is above the RDA and that can be found at a reasonably good price.

[Cajunboy47]

Gostrydr,

I use D-Care multi-vitamins, also their anti-oxidant forumula and their sugar blocker. Check it out for me and give me your opinion....

That is really the only vitamins I take other than a 1g Vitamin C pill and B-12. I'm finishing a bottle of B-complex, but won't take it after it expires.... I do take some minerals and amino acids also, plus my Herbs that some people are so afraid of taking...:)

But, I am fortunate, I can get complete blood work every 90 days at no cost, so I can see where my deficiencies or excesses are before they become a long term problem... I guess those frequent results are what makes me believe that my vitamins are not being taken with a misguided effort.

I will try to find that research on the Vitamin E over 400 iu and post the reference. It has been a while since I read that...

www.d-care.com

Ron

[Kd did]

Thanks for all of your input. I appreciate all of the advice I can get.

[jpatti]

I still disagree.

There's really no such thing as a good multi. We don't even *know* what nutrients we need; they're discovering new stuff all the time. You can't get a "complete" multi - the concept is silly on the face of it.

I know when I was working on a PhD in biochemistry, I thought this argument was spurious. But there was almost two decades between then and my heart attack and when I got back into the research literature, large numbers of nutrients had been discovered to be important that weren't even on the radar a couple decades eariler.

This really convinced me that getting your base nutrition from pills is impossible. Maybe in another 100 years we'll have all food components analyzed and understand what they do, but we're not *near* that yet.

Do I think food-based multivitamins are better than cheapo generics? Yes. But I don't think they're "complete". I think they become "complete" by eating the REAL FOOD in the first place. And that is way cheaper than a supplement, cause when you take supplements, you still have to buy groceries.

Take CLA as an example. CLA is a pretty expensive supplement, considering *all* you get is CLA. Pasture-raised meat, eggs and dairy all contain high levels of CLA. IMO, supplementing CLA is foolish unless you have a specific shortage of it. Eat the foods that contain it. You have to buy groceries anyways. And when they discover 5 years from now that it only works with a particular co-factor, you'll be ahead of the folks buying the pills that didn't contain it.

The most important nutrients for health that we don't get enough of are fish oil and vitamin D3. It's impossible to get 4 grams of fish oil in a multi. Granted, even there, you're better off getting it from food - cod liver oil is more complete than most fish oil tablets. Just most folks can't tolerate it. I couldn't, and my cats wouldn't even eat the leftovers!

Fish oil has an anti-inflammatory effect and unless you live in Iceland or are one of the few who actually like cod liver oil, odds are good you can't get the amounts that are useful in your diet. Since inflammation is the start of many disease processes (including artertesclerosis leading to both the most common form of heart disease and stroke), fish oil buys you WAY more health benefit than a multi. I think you buy more health benefit taking it than even a good multi (and some folks simply can't afford a good multi anyway).

D3 protects you not only from heart disease and osteoporosis (it's unlikely anyone would even get osteoporosis without a vitamin D shortage, I lost an inch of height over the course of a couple years with a perfectly healthy serum level of calcium), but the winter blues and even ongoing depression. A lot of low-grade symptoms of feeling like crap that people attribute to endocrine disorders go away when D3 is supplemented. It's *unlikely* to even get the D3 form of vitamin D in a multi as D2 is cheaper, and while a good dose could fit in there, it's unlikely. And given that everyone has different needs for vitamin D that should be based on blood serum results (some folks need over 10000 IU to get a decent serum level), there's no way to dose it properly anyways.

Again, for the amount spent, fish oil and vitamin D3 are a great deal. The person I was referring to on disability has an income of just over $600/month, from which they must pay rent, utilities, groceries, etc. A good multi isn't an option. Fish oil, vitamin D3, the powder form of vitamin C and a cheapo multi cost her less than $4/month, leaving her more to spend on produce.

Good multis are sold on the basis of them being more complete than the cheapo ones. While that is true, they'll never be as complete as food, which you have to buy anyways. IMO, unless you have money to blow and eat a crappy diet, they're not very useful.

I compare *all* supplements to food, on the basic assumption that food will be a better nutritional buy. For instance, a while back, another board I'm on, people were discussing apple cider vinegar for reducing blood glucose levels. A conversation of a bunch of folks and NO ONE suggested buying the actual food, everyone was talking supplements. We don't even know what exactly in it causes the effect, how can we know if the chemical or group of chemicals required made it into the pill? And besides which, aren't we all going to eat cole slaw, salad dressing, pickles, etc? An adjustment of diet gets you the benefit for sure with fewer pills to swallow daily.

I'm not opposed to supplements, I swallow rather a lot of pills daily myself. But whenever I hear about a particular nutrient that seems to be beneficial to me, my first thought is how to adjust my diet to get more of it. Sometimes, one *can't* - I'm not going to eat natto, so must get my K2 in pill form if I want it. But deciding to drink the free well water at my house is a much better way to get minerals than continuing to drink bottled water and buying a supplement to make up for it.

The vast majority of the time, when I hear people talking about good, complete multis, I just think food... which after all contains even the stuff they haven't discovered yet that is good for us. There's no pill ever going to compare to that.