# Vitamins?



## Picard (Apr 5, 2005)

Does anyone take vitamins supplements? Which type of vitamins do you take? Do they have a significant effect on your health? 

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## TrailGoat (Sep 6, 2016)

I don't really take vitamins, but I do try to ensure I get a good balance of nutrients from food, and it has helped tremendously.

I used to eat burgers, buffalo chicken, and ice cream for literally 80% of my diet. I never gained weight, and was fit, strong and "healthy" so I gave it little thought. then, I started really thinking about "you are what you eat". It is literally true, the food you eat becomes your body. I was eating junk. I started eating whole grain, non sugary cereal for breakfast, fresh fruit and healthy bars/shakes for lunch, and chicken/fish and vegetable for dinner, and having less ice cream before bed. I am the same weight I was before, but am much healthier, mainly in my level of allergies to pollen. I used to be a snotty mess from april through October. now I only have about 5-10 days of symptoms a year. I am sure there are other behind the scene improvements/changes that I haven't noticed with fitness, but I have only adopted this a year ago and havent really trained consistently over the last few years to get a good comparison. I was able, however to train for a 12 hour adventure race in 4 months with no base before that.

hope this kinda helps...


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Nope, i have never been a vitamin taker. I am a pescatarian and try to eat healthy. I've been working to cut down my sugar intake and to eat less carbs, though when I really cut back on the carbs my weight plunged to less than desirable.


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

I take a daily vitamin. Probably a waste, as I try to eat right. However, I consider it as insurance against the times I do not eat right. I do take some extra magnesium and vit D per doctor's orders after my blood work showed I was low.

Go the the USDA Supertracker website and track your diet for two weeks. Record EVERYTHING you eat, including the quick snacks that most people forget to count. Then print the nutrients report from the website. You can see exactly where you are over or under and then make your dietary changes based on facts and not guesswork or internet testimonials.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

I have been vegan x 3 years (vegetarian my entire adult life). I only just started taking magnesium x 1 year and found that it relaxes my muscles and helps me sleep. I also take vitamin B12. (I've taken it for many years)

I get all my nutritional needs met through diet. I do strength training (crossfit) x5 to 6 days per week in addition to running and mtb both twice per week. I'm pretty healthy


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## kubikeman (Jun 4, 2010)

500mg of B12 once a week. Even though it's one of the water soluble ones, your body can store it in your liver and hang on to it. No need to take it daily.

I've been veg, vegan, meat eater and every phase in between. I find if I'm on a major veggie kick, this is the only one that's kind of important.

Unless you have a known, medical deficiency, or have a wildly unhealthy diet, vitamins are mostly a waste of money.


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## WHALENARD (Feb 21, 2010)

Vitamins are not a waste of money and there are 525k studies to validate them. Can we please stop propagating otherwise.

All B vitamins and B vitamin like hormones compete for absorption. Taking a single B vitamin, especially long term, will enevitably lead to deficiency in the other B vitamins. It's best to take a B vitamin complex to get a balanced spectrum of B vitamins.

If I were a vegan or vegetarian I would certainly look into supplementing with L-carnosine (not to be confused L-carnitine) as it's essential and only found in vertebrates. While I've seen and heard of claims to the contrary I've never come across anything to factually bear that out.

I've read a couple of good studies in the last several months showing magnesium supplementation having a very favorable impact on the aging brain. Some truly remarkable studies on magnesium threonate's ability to cross the blood brain barrier having a protective and regenerating effect.


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## Geralt (Jul 11, 2012)

I take a multi-vitamin and quite a bit more than the RDA of D3. It seems like I feel a bit better when taking them, but it's probably just the placebo effect.


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## dave54 (Jul 1, 2003)

The USDA is pretty conservative with their recommended intake levels. The science has to be rock solid and completely accepted as scientific fact by every science body on the planet before they change them. Having said that, there is compelling evidence (but not absolute conclusive) more D3 is warranted. There is an upper limit above which intake is considered toxic. There is some disagreement what that toxic level is. All the fat soluble vitamins A, D, E, K) could reach toxic levels by consuming massive supplements. So keep your supplement intake reasonable. There is toxic levels for B complex and C also, but is almost impossible to achieve even with supplements. You would probably vomit them back up if you tried to swallow that many pills.

BTW -- orthorexia is considered an eating disorder.


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## Geralt (Jul 11, 2012)

Trying to figure out what is reasonable isn't particularly easy. For example, amount of Vitamin D recommended varies widely depending on what group is doing the recommending. Haven't had my level tested, but I get very little sun exposure during the winter, so I figure I'm okay bumping up my D3 a bit. My diet is erratic(though I am working to improve that), so I take a multi-vitamin just to make sure I'm not missing something. I've read that taking a lot of D if you're deficient in K is probably not a good thing to do because of the way calcium is used in the body. No idea if vitamin K deficiency is common.


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## chazpat (Sep 23, 2006)

Geralt said:


> No idea if vitamin K deficiency is common.


Vitamin K is common in darkly leafy greens and lots of other healthy foods. It assists in blood clotting; those of us on blood thinners (warfarin) have to keep consistent on our K intake as it will interfere with our meds. Basically, our med level is adjusted to work with our diet. My father was actually given vitamin K to carry when he would go backpacking in case he got a bad cut.


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## Geralt (Jul 11, 2012)

Clotting is one of the things K affects, but as I understand it, K is also involved in how calcium is directed in the body. Enough K and calcium goes to the bones which is good, not enough K and calcium gets deposited in soft tissue such as blood vessels which is bad. Too much D in relation to K screws up where calcium ends up.


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## WHALENARD (Feb 21, 2010)

"The Real Vitamin and Mineral Book" by Sheri Lieberman is a great resource for anybody looking to expand their knowledge base here. It's written by 2 practicing doctors who are also nutritionists. It's been in circulation for a long time and is well vetted. It's somewhat comprehensive yet easy to digest and most importantly interesting. Interesting enough to keep the average Joe engaged I'd say. I've read lots and LOTS of these books & always recommend this one. If your on this forum pick up a copy, you won't regret it.


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## cyclelicious (Oct 7, 2008)

WHALENARD said:


> "The Real Vitamin and Mineral Book" by Sheri Lieberman is a great resource for anybody looking to expand their knowledge base here. It's written by 2 practicing doctors who are also nutritionists. It's been in circulation for a long time and is well vetted. It's somewhat comprehensive yet easy to digest and most importantly interesting. Interesting enough to keep the average Joe engaged I'd say. I've read lots and LOTS of these books & always recommend this one. If your on this forum pick up a copy, you won't regret it.


thanks for sharing this resource! Always looking for new learning opportunities


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## HTR4EVR (Jun 15, 2007)

Since I had a thyroidectomy in 2010, vitamins are very important for me. After some research and some experiments, plus avoiding caffeine packed vitamins, I found this one to be the best option for me.










One every morning will do it

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## RockyMntMonkey (Dec 13, 2015)

Vitamins are very important. That being said, most people don't need to take any vitamin supplements if you eat a balanced diet. Many studies show the importance of vitamins, but they are in populations with deficiencies. There are only two that I could potentially see needing supplementation, vitamin B12 if you are a vegan and vitamin D if you don't spend much time outdoors. Apart from that, many supplements supply such high amounts that your body either can't absorb them or simply don't use them all and excrete them. Basically, if you take a multivitamin you are paying for expensive pee.

One of the best looks into the efficacy of multivitamins was done in two meta-analysis from the New England Journal of Medicine found no real effects.

Here is the link: 
Are Multivitamin and Mineral Supplements Useful? - NEJM Journal Watch


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## spleeft (May 2, 2017)

I have been seeing a Functional Medicine Doc, and the first thing she did was have me do this test, 
https://www.gdx.net/product/nutreval-fmv-nutritional-test-blood-urine
It shows exactly what nutrients you are lacking( among a bunch of other cool stuff). And even if you know this info, you dont know how "bio-available " it will be for you if you have any Dysbiosis , and you could be wasting money on expensive supplements or worse. 
She told me its always best to get those nutrients from food when possible, and if something is lacking you can use high quality supplements. 
Also, like most people here prolly, I like to research on the web, and then try something if it sounds reasonable......I ended up taking a 5000cu D3 for a few months ( I had no idea if I needed it, but the internet said most men are lacking in it/ this is before the above testing/ turns out I did NOT need it!) . In a round about way, it was responsible for some small kidney stones that showed up !!!!! So be careful , especially with the fat-soluble stuff !


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## Geralt (Jul 11, 2012)

spleeft said:


> I ended up taking a 5000cu D3 for a few months ( I had no idea if I needed it, but the internet said most men are lacking in it/ this is before the above testing/ turns out I did NOT need it!) . In a round about way, it was responsible for some small kidney stones that showed up !!!!! So be careful , especially with the fat-soluble stuff !


I saw on the other thread that you've had magnesium deficiency. Had you already rectified that problem when you developed the kidney stones? Just wondering if there may have been other contributing factors in addition to the D3.


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## spleeft (May 2, 2017)

I had not, so there might have been other factors ( and probably were), but the kidney doc was very adamant that the D supplements were the main culprit based on the before and after blood serum testing.


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## clarissjeune (Jan 20, 2021)

I take nature's Blend Multivitamins and this product was made without gluten, wheat, yeast, preservatives, and artificial colors or flavors. Here's the link


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## 127.0.0.1 (Nov 19, 2013)

d
zinc
mag
calcium
c
b complex

who knows if it works, I'm doing them 'cuz science
old as dirt and still lifting weights and hammering on the bike, so all good I reckon

I know 100% the calcium and B works for riding kung-fu...the others ain't making me 
sick is all I can say about the others


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## donna.1996 (Mar 26, 2021)

Of course I take vitamins, nowadays, this is the only way to survive until we get the vaccine. Vitamin C and vitamin D is what I take everyday. Other than that, it also depends on you, cause, you know, kids get vitamin D, K, and calcium. Women get supplements with collagen, pregnant women must take iron and folic acid. Usually I just scroll through all offers from nhc.com and choose something I feel like I need.


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## Lupearn (Nov 8, 2021)

Yes, I do this, and I'm not sorry for a second that I started using them in my daily routine. Over the years, I have experienced anemia that has caused other health problems such as unhealthy hair and nails, white skin, acne. All this lowered my confidence when I looked in the mirror but also always felt without energy. That's why I started using a complex of vitamins that included collagen, which provided me with the necessary nutrients. It was beneficial and empowered my body to heal.


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