Question to women regarding their supplements

grace173

Hi,

I have been taking polyphenol nutrients and a GTF complex for the past 2 years. My naturopath said that I should not stay on them forever so I'm wondering if I should change. Are there supplements out there that are beneficial to women?
I really like these supplements and I would like to stay on them or change to something similar. I also take a tincture for relaxation purposes so if there is a tincture you like to take please let me know about that too.

Many thanks.

ninerbuff

While I usually don't agree with a lot of naturopath's, I'll agree here. 90% of supplements aren't needed. If you're not getting it through your nutrition, then you should look for foods that supply it. You DON'T get extra points for taking extra supplementation either.
Relaxation is more a state of mind and body. Try yoga. Much better for your body than taking supplements.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

grace173

ninerbuff wrote: »

While I usually don't agree with a lot of naturopath's, I'll agree here. 90% of supplements aren't needed. If you're not getting it through your nutrition, then you should look for foods that supply it. You DON'T get extra points for taking extra supplementation either.
Relaxation is more a state of mind and body. Try yoga. Much better for your body than taking supplements.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

I agree. I'm just a little nervous about stopping as I really did feel the benefits of them.

ninerbuff

I used to be a supplement junkie. As a natural competitive bodybuilder, I was looking for any edge to compete. At one time I was taking 50 pills a day with a $200 a month cost. When I finally researched about effectiveness, I was really saddened. After dumping them, I really didn't feel any worse or better if I just ate nutritionally dense.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

grace173

ninerbuff wrote: »

I used to be a supplement junkie. As a natural competitive bodybuilder, I was looking for any edge to compete. At one time I was taking 50 pills a day with a $200 a month cost. When I finally researched about effectiveness, I was really saddened. After dumping them, I really didn't feel any worse or better if I just ate nutritionally dense.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

For me I felt the supplements helped me with stabilizing my hormones. I have a slow liver and hormones are processed through your liver so these supplements helped me with processing my glucose and stabilizing my blood sugars which in turn helped my liver process my hormones quicker which made me feel more level headed and calmer. She did say however that my body naturally starts producing these needed supplements all by them self after a while and so I no longer have to take them. I don't know how true this is but these particular supplements are very difficult to get where I live now so I would love an alternative.

cityruss

grace173 wrote: »

ninerbuff wrote: »

I used to be a supplement junkie. As a natural competitive bodybuilder, I was looking for any edge to compete. At one time I was taking 50 pills a day with a $200 a month cost. When I finally researched about effectiveness, I was really saddened. After dumping them, I really didn't feel any worse or better if I just ate nutritionally dense.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

For me I felt the supplements helped me with stabilizing my hormones. I have a slow liver and hormones are processed through your liver so these supplements helped me with processing my glucose and stabilizing my blood sugars which in turn helped my liver process my hormones quicker which made me feel more level headed and calmer. She did say however that my body naturally starts producing these needed supplements all by them self after a while and so I no longer have to take them. I don't know how true this is but these particular supplements are very difficult to get where I live now so I would love an alternative.

Was this medical opinion/diagnosis/advice or did it come from a naturopath?

ElizabethKalmbach

I'm not sure about the supplements, but when my body weight drops and my endurance increases, I become more responsive to insulin. As a result, I am less hungry, angry, and headachy without having to eat every 3-4 hours. Nor do I have an overzealous response to sugar like I do when I'm insulin resistant. (A cookie used to give me a sugar crash and headache. Now it does not, but I also don't crave cookies.)

So, from my own anecdotal experience, I agree that your body can take over and become more balanced on it's own. I just have no evidence that the supplement is what was helping you.

grace173

ElizabethKalmbach wrote: »

I'm not sure about the supplements, but when my body weight drops and my endurance increases, I become more responsive to insulin. As a result, I am less hungry, angry, and headachy without having to eat every 3-4 hours. Nor do I have an overzealous response to sugar like I do when I'm insulin resistant. (A cookie used to give me a sugar crash and headache. Now it does not, but I also don't crave cookies.)

So, from my own anecdotal experience, I agree that your body can take over and become more balanced on it's own. I just have no evidence that the supplement is what was helping you.

I can't prove that these supplements help me either and yes you are right I am in better form when I am very active and keep my weight around where it needs to be. Apparently what I take is the right mgs of multivitamin. She told me I may as well throw out the over the counter multivitamin because to get the right amounts of vitamins in an over the counter multivitamin you would almost have to take the whole container of them. The multivitamin I take has high mgs of vitamins in them. I just wondered if there was recommendations for a worldwide available multivitamin.

ElizabethKalmbach

I don't bother with multivitamins. I just supplement (individually) the things I come up short on in my blood work. Currently that's D, B12, B6, thyroid, selenium, potassium, and magnesium. Each of the individual supplements is an order of 10 higher than what I'd get in a daily multivitamin, and enough to actually make a change in what I see in my annual blood work. The other thing you need to look at is timing. Some vitamins will bond to each other and go right back out of you if you take them at the same time, so some items should be taken in the morning and some in the evening (Or at least 4 hours apart. I just don't bother taking vitamins at lunch.).

amusedmonkey

grace173 wrote: »

ElizabethKalmbach wrote: »

I'm not sure about the supplements, but when my body weight drops and my endurance increases, I become more responsive to insulin. As a result, I am less hungry, angry, and headachy without having to eat every 3-4 hours. Nor do I have an overzealous response to sugar like I do when I'm insulin resistant. (A cookie used to give me a sugar crash and headache. Now it does not, but I also don't crave cookies.)

So, from my own anecdotal experience, I agree that your body can take over and become more balanced on it's own. I just have no evidence that the supplement is what was helping you.

I can't prove that these supplements help me either and yes you are right I am in better form when I am very active and keep my weight around where it needs to be. Apparently what I take is the right mgs of multivitamin. She told me I may as well throw out the over the counter multivitamin because to get the right amounts of vitamins in an over the counter multivitamin you would almost have to take the whole container of them. The multivitamin I take has high mgs of vitamins in them. I just wondered if there was recommendations for a worldwide available multivitamin.

High mgs is not always a good thing, and I can tell you she is absolutely 100% wrong if she is telling you that you would need to take a whole bottle of multivitamins daily to get your needs. While all you get from over consuming a few vitamins is expensive pee (read: your body does not need them so it throws them out), over consuming some others may cause serious problems.

You are eating food aren't you? Then you are likely getting enough, and if you are concerned a multivitamin would top them off since being on a diet may make some nutrients slightly less abundant. There is a reason most vitamins don't contain 100% or more of all nutrients, it's because it can be dangerous while being slightly under is not.

Why are you discussing this with a naturopath anyway? A doctor has the ability to evaluate you (and not tell you that your "liver is slow" unless it really is), and then make recommendations if any supplements are needed based on real numbers and blood tests rather than pure speculation.

The only supplement I took was fish oil medical strength prescribed for high triglycerides. Weight loss has normalized my triglycerides so I'm not supplement-free without problems.

grace173

amusedmonkey wrote: »

grace173 wrote: »

ElizabethKalmbach wrote: »

I'm not sure about the supplements, but when my body weight drops and my endurance increases, I become more responsive to insulin. As a result, I am less hungry, angry, and headachy without having to eat every 3-4 hours. Nor do I have an overzealous response to sugar like I do when I'm insulin resistant. (A cookie used to give me a sugar crash and headache. Now it does not, but I also don't crave cookies.)

So, from my own anecdotal experience, I agree that your body can take over and become more balanced on it's own. I just have no evidence that the supplement is what was helping you.

I can't prove that these supplements help me either and yes you are right I am in better form when I am very active and keep my weight around where it needs to be. Apparently what I take is the right mgs of multivitamin. She told me I may as well throw out the over the counter multivitamin because to get the right amounts of vitamins in an over the counter multivitamin you would almost have to take the whole container of them. The multivitamin I take has high mgs of vitamins in them. I just wondered if there was recommendations for a worldwide available multivitamin.

High mgs is not always a good thing, and I can tell you she is absolutely 100% wrong if she is telling you that you would need to take a whole bottle of multivitamins daily to get your needs. While all you get from over consuming a few vitamins is expensive pee (read: your body does not need them so it throws them out), over consuming some others may cause serious problems.

You are eating food aren't you? Then you are likely getting enough, and if you are concerned a multivitamin would top them off since being on a diet may make some nutrients slightly less abundant. There is a reason most vitamins don't contain 100% or more of all nutrients, it's because it can be dangerous while being slightly under is not.

Why are you discussing this with a naturopath anyway? A doctor has the ability to evaluate you (and not tell you that your "liver is slow" unless it really is), and then make recommendations if any supplements are needed based on real numbers and blood tests rather than pure speculation.

The only supplement I took was fish oil medical strength prescribed for high triglycerides. Weight loss has normalized my triglycerides so I'm not supplement-free without problems.

I did do bloods. I have Gilberts syndrome which is very common but once you know you have it there are steps you can take to help out your liver like eat a lot of food that has antioxidants in them. I would love to find that fish oil you are talking about because she did prescribe me a really good one but I can't get it here. I did a lot of research before I picked her to go to regarding my hormones. She was very good and very helpful. She knew it was a one off appointment as I was leaving the country soon after so there was no point in her advising me this that and the other as a kind of money spinner because she wasn't going to make anymore money from me after. Do you not take a multivitamin? Maybe I will just try a good fish oil and see how I get on because as I said she didn't recommend I stay on it anyway. Thanks.

amusedmonkey

grace173 wrote: »

amusedmonkey wrote: »

grace173 wrote: »

ElizabethKalmbach wrote: »

I'm not sure about the supplements, but when my body weight drops and my endurance increases, I become more responsive to insulin. As a result, I am less hungry, angry, and headachy without having to eat every 3-4 hours. Nor do I have an overzealous response to sugar like I do when I'm insulin resistant. (A cookie used to give me a sugar crash and headache. Now it does not, but I also don't crave cookies.)

So, from my own anecdotal experience, I agree that your body can take over and become more balanced on it's own. I just have no evidence that the supplement is what was helping you.

I can't prove that these supplements help me either and yes you are right I am in better form when I am very active and keep my weight around where it needs to be. Apparently what I take is the right mgs of multivitamin. She told me I may as well throw out the over the counter multivitamin because to get the right amounts of vitamins in an over the counter multivitamin you would almost have to take the whole container of them. The multivitamin I take has high mgs of vitamins in them. I just wondered if there was recommendations for a worldwide available multivitamin.

High mgs is not always a good thing, and I can tell you she is absolutely 100% wrong if she is telling you that you would need to take a whole bottle of multivitamins daily to get your needs. While all you get from over consuming a few vitamins is expensive pee (read: your body does not need them so it throws them out), over consuming some others may cause serious problems.

You are eating food aren't you? Then you are likely getting enough, and if you are concerned a multivitamin would top them off since being on a diet may make some nutrients slightly less abundant. There is a reason most vitamins don't contain 100% or more of all nutrients, it's because it can be dangerous while being slightly under is not.

Why are you discussing this with a naturopath anyway? A doctor has the ability to evaluate you (and not tell you that your "liver is slow" unless it really is), and then make recommendations if any supplements are needed based on real numbers and blood tests rather than pure speculation.

The only supplement I took was fish oil medical strength prescribed for high triglycerides. Weight loss has normalized my triglycerides so I'm not supplement-free without problems.

I did do bloods. I have Gilberts syndrome which is very common but once you know you have it there are steps you can take to help out your liver like eat a lot of food that has antioxidants in them. I would love to find that fish oil you are talking about because she did prescribe me a really good one but I can't get it here. I did a lot of research before I picked her to go to regarding my hormones. She was very good and very helpful. She knew it was a one off appointment as I was leaving the country soon after so there was no point in her advising me this that and the other as a kind of money spinner because she wasn't going to make anymore money from me after. Do you not take a multivitamin? Maybe I will just try a good fish oil and see how I get on because as I said she didn't recommend I stay on it anyway. Thanks.

I don't take a multivitamin at the moment (by the way there was a typo in my post "not supplement-free" was meant to be "now supplement-free"). Since you have Gilberts syndrome that's a strong reason to be very careful with supplements and medications. Trust me, try weaning yourself off of the supplements and you will see that not much will change. As for fish oil, I doubt you would find it because I had mine through a prescription and they had about 90% omega3. I would be very careful consuming fish oil with your condition, since most of them are poorly regulated and may contain mercury.

grace173

amusedmonkey wrote: »

grace173 wrote: »

amusedmonkey wrote: »

grace173 wrote: »

ElizabethKalmbach wrote: »

I'm not sure about the supplements, but when my body weight drops and my endurance increases, I become more responsive to insulin. As a result, I am less hungry, angry, and headachy without having to eat every 3-4 hours. Nor do I have an overzealous response to sugar like I do when I'm insulin resistant. (A cookie used to give me a sugar crash and headache. Now it does not, but I also don't crave cookies.)

So, from my own anecdotal experience, I agree that your body can take over and become more balanced on it's own. I just have no evidence that the supplement is what was helping you.

I can't prove that these supplements help me either and yes you are right I am in better form when I am very active and keep my weight around where it needs to be. Apparently what I take is the right mgs of multivitamin. She told me I may as well throw out the over the counter multivitamin because to get the right amounts of vitamins in an over the counter multivitamin you would almost have to take the whole container of them. The multivitamin I take has high mgs of vitamins in them. I just wondered if there was recommendations for a worldwide available multivitamin.

High mgs is not always a good thing, and I can tell you she is absolutely 100% wrong if she is telling you that you would need to take a whole bottle of multivitamins daily to get your needs. While all you get from over consuming a few vitamins is expensive pee (read: your body does not need them so it throws them out), over consuming some others may cause serious problems.

You are eating food aren't you? Then you are likely getting enough, and if you are concerned a multivitamin would top them off since being on a diet may make some nutrients slightly less abundant. There is a reason most vitamins don't contain 100% or more of all nutrients, it's because it can be dangerous while being slightly under is not.

Why are you discussing this with a naturopath anyway? A doctor has the ability to evaluate you (and not tell you that your "liver is slow" unless it really is), and then make recommendations if any supplements are needed based on real numbers and blood tests rather than pure speculation.

The only supplement I took was fish oil medical strength prescribed for high triglycerides. Weight loss has normalized my triglycerides so I'm not supplement-free without problems.

I did do bloods. I have Gilberts syndrome which is very common but once you know you have it there are steps you can take to help out your liver like eat a lot of food that has antioxidants in them. I would love to find that fish oil you are talking about because she did prescribe me a really good one but I can't get it here. I did a lot of research before I picked her to go to regarding my hormones. She was very good and very helpful. She knew it was a one off appointment as I was leaving the country soon after so there was no point in her advising me this that and the other as a kind of money spinner because she wasn't going to make anymore money from me after. Do you not take a multivitamin? Maybe I will just try a good fish oil and see how I get on because as I said she didn't recommend I stay on it anyway. Thanks.

I don't take a multivitamin at the moment (by the way there was a typo in my post "not supplement-free" was meant to be "now supplement-free"). Since you have Gilberts syndrome that's a strong reason to be very careful with supplements and medications. Trust me, try weaning yourself off of the supplements and you will see that not much will change. As for fish oil, I doubt you would find it because I had mine through a prescription and they had about 90% omega3. I would be very careful consuming fish oil with your condition, since most of them are poorly regulated and may contain mercury.

Fish oil does tend to repeat on me but everyone probably experiences this with fish oil. I will trial weaning off them. Thanks for the chat.

jgnatca

I will be on vitamins for life due to malabsorbtion issues. I checked the ingredients of the GTF formulation and I am betting other than the iron and the calcium, you don't want to be on the other minerals (minerals can build up and cause other problems).

How about going to every other day and wean yourself off them?

grace173

jgnatca wrote: »

I will be on vitamins for life due to malabsorbtion issues. I checked the ingredients of the GTF formulation and I am betting other than the iron and the calcium, you don't want to be on the other minerals (minerals can build up and cause other problems).

How about going to every other day and wean yourself off them?

Its a bit more then GTF chromium it is also a multi called a glyco kinetic forumula which helps me with glucose absorption but yes I think every other day. Thanks.

amusedmonkey

jgnatca wrote: »

I will be on vitamins for life due to malabsorbtion issues. I checked the ingredients of the GTF formulation and I am betting other than the iron and the calcium, you don't want to be on the other minerals (minerals can build up and cause other problems).

How about going to every other day and wean yourself off them?

The minerals issue is worse for her. The condition she has is initially harmless but creates a low toxicity threshold for some substances which may produce mild toxicity symptoms in people who have it. Some may feel nasty if alcohol or contraceptive pills are consumed, some may need their medication levels adjusted because something as simple as a Tylenol could become toxic if not careful, so experimenting with supplements can be harmful, and in case of minerals, disasterous.

amusedmonkey

Double post.

amusedmonkey

Double post.

Quasita

So... You have a documented medical condition that directly impacts your ability to absorb nutrients, but opt to maintain your care based on the recommendations of a naturopath you saw one time approximately 2 years ago? I think this sounds like a disaster. Go to the doctor and have a new set of panels done, especially if you haven't done so in two years. It's really irresponsible of anyone working in healthcare capacity to recommend long-term care for a patient when they don't establish a care plan or any followups.

Also, it's often the opposite when it comes to supplementation of substances in the body. If you over supplement your levels, you end up shutting down your natural body processes for creating those substances. The only way it works to kind of kickstart your system is if you supplement for a relatively short period of time and then 100% stop.

LKArgh

If you have a medical problem, talk to your dr (or find a dr you trust if you do not trust the one who made the diagnosis) and make a plan regarding medication, supplements etc. Do not change what a dr prescribed based on a naturopath's opinion or somethign you read online. Bring the topic back to your dr and discuss it. Or get a second opnion if in doubt. If you have no medical recommendation to take suppelements, then yes, your naturopath is right, you should not be trying to self medicate, with supplements or whatever else. Get an appointment with a dr.