Posted by novelagent on August 11, 2012, at 22:29:59
In reply to Supplements, posted by jono_in_adelaide on August 11, 2012, at 18:58:55
Over the years, there's been long-term studies of multivitamins, and they all find multivitamins shorten lifespan, It's hypothesized people who take multivitamins may use their consumption of them as an excuse fo eat poorer diets than people who do not. It's also thought it may be possible there is a possibility for a build up of what might amount to effectively toxic doses of certain nutrients, High intake of Vitamin D, for instance, has recently been linked with death snd other risks.
It's important to point out, as my doc did, that when lab results of vitamin deficiencies come back, even those are simply deficiencies relative to the average healthy population-- it's possible that the average person has a somewhat excessive amount of a certain nutrient, and scientists have no way of knowing it. Some toxic levels of nutrients result in toxic symptoms, and some don't carry any symptoms,
Bottom line, though, at least with deficiencies, you're not shooting in the dark so much, and there's at least some basis for taking a supplement for it. But even then-- I mesn, at the hospital, I was put on Risperdal, and the Internal medicine doc at the psych hospital I was in found my lab results showed I had an iron deficiency. So they put me on iron.
Luckily, I didn't stay on iron after my hospital stay, because I can't afford it, because a year later, I read an obscure study mentioning how antipsychotics chelate iron in the brain, which means a toxic build up of iron is stored up in the brain, which can cause cancer and perhaps be neurotoxic,
Since I don't present any symptoms of iron deficiency (despite it being symptoms I can imagine a hypochondriac easily convincing he has) I have weighted the risk of cancer and brain cell death against treating zero symptoms for the sake of a vague sense my health is somewhat improved despite their being no symptoms, and have determined not taking iron is the wisest call.
So it's important to be cautious, These things carry risk. Be especially mindful and prudent about taking minerals. Zinc and magnesium are fine, but take the lowest dose or so. For magnesium, I wouldn't take more than 50mg. Too much zinc, and you'll get acid reflux (or is that magnesium? I get the two mixed up).
> I'm a bit of a vitamin junkie - I have a feeling that they can help slow down or ward off some parts of the aging process. Every day, i take a high potence multivitamin, an antioxidant with e,c and betacarotene, selenium, calcium and magnesium.
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> I have just started taking ginseng to see if gave me any more energy, they are 648mg pills.... the bottle says one a day, thought I have rwad that dose can range upto 2000mg per day, so I might push it to two pills if one doesnt work.
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> What dietary supplemnts do you take?
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> I truly beleive that EVERYBODY should take a dayily generic multivitamin (the Walmart or Costco version of Centrum) - it costs about 5 cents a day, yet can do so much good
poster:novelagent
thread:1023063
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120803/msgs/1023089.html