post: 605087 said:
.... Avoid taking more than 100% RDA of any vitamin, better still, don't take any vitamin tablets at all unless you know exactly what you are deficient in and can't get that vitamin or mineral or combination from your diet.
....
Many multivitamin/multimineral tablets are far too packed with serious overdoses of pretty much everything. A mineral like iron for instance, can't be flushed out and will build up, causing problems.
This post from a week or so ago has been playing on my mind.
Some of the content is very sensible advice, however just to put an alternative opinion on a couple of points (and this is based on listening to advice from numerous medical practitioners who specialize in nutrition therapy) :
Many of the RDA numbers are woefully low, and often are close to the minimum needed to avoid deficiency problems, rather than the figure needed for optimum health. And if you are deficient in something, then a general multivitamin is often pretty useless in making up that deficiency as the quantity of each individual component is generally really, really low.
Our soils have become so depleted in commercial farming, that its almost certain that certain vital minerals are going to be low, even if you do eat a 'healthy' diet. Studies have shown that the majority of people are deficient in certain substances e.g. magnesium, and again, the amounts in some multivitamin tablets simply won't be able to make up the deficiency.
Everybody in our modern world is also subjected to exposure to toxins, whether from our food, or from our environment. Our body can use up certain vitamins and minerals at a vastly accelerated rate in trying to deal and expel these toxins. Once again, the amount found in a general purpose multi tablet may very well be insufficient, especially if you DO have a over-accumulation of certain toxins to deal with.
And then there are the substances which are strongly correlated with immune health. Which of course in these troubled times, is something that should be every individual and government's top priority (although for some strange reason it doesn't seem to be....).
So I'm looking now on Amazon at a best selling 'Centrum' brand multi vitamin. Lets take Vitamin D. it seems each tablet is 10ug (400 IU) and they say its 200% of the the EU NRV (but that's the minimum to avoid deficiency). Most of the medical practitioners I've been listening to who seem to actually know something about the usefulness of VitD, advise WAY more than that. I'd have to check the figures, but its something like 1000IU as a minimum (they tend to advise 2000-4000 and up!), and that's assuming you weren't deficient in the first place. I seem to recall that your body actually uses up around 4000IU per day - which isn't a problem if you're exposing your skin to sun, or have stores built up from the summer. But in winter, you can see that the 400IU in the multivitamin is woefully inadequate, especially for people in the UK in the winter.
I bet I could do a similar comparison for the majority of the other vit/min compounds as well - Just looking at the VitC - 80mg!! that's a complete joke. It might as well not even BE there !!
Of course, the problem is knowing whether you're deficient or not, and I do partially agree with comment of "<don't take it> unless you know exactly what you are deficient in".
That's a sensible point of view .... as long as you DO know what you're deficient in. But do you? I certainly don't (although I'd like to!).
So let me ask everyone a question - how many of you have your vitamin/mineral etc levels checked? And if so - how did you go about it? I hear a lot of American people talking about their 'bloodwork' analysis. I've never had one of these done. Is it something you can ask your local NHS GP for? or do you have to pay for it privately?
en.wikipedia.org
www.nhs.uk
www.technocracy.news
www.statnews.com
www.storz-bickel.com
