Do Multivitamins Improve Health?

Chief_Rocka

If forums are anything to go by many US citizens are obsessed with 'vitamins' (one of the most misused words out there). Here in the UK there is far less emphasis on this, neither the medical profession nor the media push micronutrient supplements for all. Are Americans healthier or have a better nutrition status than Brits as a result of all this pill popping?

I don't know if it's the same in the US as here the UK (note that I work in lifestyle healthcare with the general public) but few here even know what all our official healthy eating guidelines are despite them being freely available online, fewer still adhere to them they seem to be seen as some sort of holy grail not minimums/ maximums. It really is not that difficult to eat healthily, people bang on about vitamin D being 'necessary' to supplement yet ONE ounce of some oily fish contains the full days intake. We are fooling and cheating nobody but ourselves.

I agree with most of this, but Vitamin D is a different animal. It's one of the things people might actually need to supplements.

Dave198lbs

All I really needed to do was to double up on my spinach and broccoli and add some tomatoes, but it depends on what you're starting with.

for a very large number of people that would be extremely difficult to accomplish if not impossible on a regular basis

Why would it be difficult for a very large number of people to increase their intake of certain fruits/ veggies? Surely it's not that hard, or maybe they just don't want to put the time in?

well...you are claiming you are going through a stressful time and dont want your dairy checked out...that could be it for a lot people...or they are lazy...or uneducated on all this or spinach,broccoli and tomatoes are not readily available....why are we all here? there are as many reasons as there are people I would imagine

lacurandera1

All I really needed to do was to double up on my spinach and broccoli and add some tomatoes, but it depends on what you're starting with.

for a very large number of people that would be extremely difficult to accomplish if not impossible on a regular basis

Why would it be difficult for a very large number of people to increase their intake of certain fruits/ veggies? Surely it's not that hard, or maybe they just don't want to put the time in?

I was wondering the same thing, And I think it boils down to time for a lot of people. It takes that, to prep fresh, homemade meals. Not much, IMO, but idh kids, two jobs, etc, add all the other things that suck your time.

Firefox7275

I agree with most of this, but Vitamin D is a different animal. It's one of the things people might actually need to supplements.

We *might* need to supplement any given micronutrient IF we don't consume enough/ the right combinations/ have an absorption or conversion issue. I am not aware of any compelling evidence that we need to supplement D more than, say, magnesium on top of a truly balanced diet. Humans have been living successfully without pills in northern climes for millennia, I believe we evolved to eat plenty of seafood, opinion primarily based on omega-3s being essential and the 'out of Africa' theory maps. Not sure what the US intake is like but here in the UK we consume an average of half a serving of oily fish a week, I suspect that is one of the less oily/ less D rich fish like farmed salmon.

Firefox7275

I was wondering the same thing, And I think it boils down to time for a lot of people. It takes that, to prep fresh, homemade meals. Not much, IMO, but idh kids, two jobs, etc, add all the other things that suck your time.

It takes under five minutes to throw together a crock pot/ slow cooker meal serving a whole family a couple of meals or many days for one person, I timed myself and I didn't buy pre chopped fresh veggies (carrot celery onion) that would have made it even faster. I have many very busy clients cooking this way. There is little to no prep with frozen vegetables, canned beans and lentils, canned oily fish and so on. For the vast majority these are excuses not reasons.

Chief_Rocka

Humans have been living successfully without pills in northern climes for millennia,

Humans living in nothern climates also:

(a) had light skin, and
(b) were outside all the time

DrMAvDPhD

Why are they not publishing some of this? Why did I have to dig to find it? Money. That's it. Plain and simple. Our economy is boosted by disease. And pharmaceuticals make money... vitamins, not so much.

Actually, the biggest difference is that pharma is regulated by FDA and has to substantiate its claims with years (and millions of dollars) worth of clinical data, where as companies that sell as vitamins/supplements do not have to provide clinical evidence for any claim that they make. That's why all those "miracle weight loss" cures can spout their nonsense with a little *These claims haven't been evaluated by the FDA tagged on.

Firefox7275

Humans have been living successfully without pills in northern climes for millennia,

Humans living in nothern climates also:

(a) had light skin, and
(b) were outside all the time

Light skin in most cases tho there are some exceptions Inuits are not so much for example. A fairly high percentage of northern Europeans still are, North America is changing much faster than we I think?

Were they outside all the time, both genders and infants? How much of their skin was not covered in hair or clothing at key times of year? How do you explain that every modern northern person with an indoor lifestyle is not D deficient for part of the year?

neanderthin

Humans have been living successfully without pills in northern climes for millennia,

Humans living in nothern climates also:

(a) had light skin, and
(b) were outside all the time

Light skin was a mutation to allow the absorption of D as human migration happened.......now with a more global community we have people of all ethnicity living everywhere, I know in Canada, vitamin D deficiency is a given, or so they say.

FredDoyle

Humans have been living successfully without pills in northern climes for millennia,

Humans living in nothern climates also:

(a) had light skin, and
(b) were outside all the time

Light skin was a mutation to allow the absorption of D as human migration happened.......now with a more global community we have people of all ethnicity living everywhere, I know in Canada, vitamin D deficiency is a given, or so they say.

Thus a poor nation full of people with rickets... :noway:

Lesa_Sass

All I really needed to do was to double up on my spinach and broccoli and add some tomatoes, but it depends on what you're starting with.

for a very large number of people that would be extremely difficult to accomplish if not impossible on a regular basis

Why would it be difficult for a very large number of people to increase their intake of certain fruits/ veggies? Surely it's not that hard, or maybe they just don't want to put the time in?

I was wondering the same thing, And I think it boils down to time for a lot of people. It takes that, to prep fresh, homemade meals. Not much, IMO, but idh kids, two jobs, etc, add all the other things that suck your time.

I would really like to know what is such a time sucker that it is more important than cooking healthy meals for your family? Meal prepping and planning only takes a couple extra hours a week and much more enjoyable than sitting with a sick kid at the doctors office. Not judging you so please do not take it that way, I am just wondering what this mysterious time sucker is that is more important? I know people that have kids, work full time jobs and find time to exercise, plan, prep and cook healthy foods. They do this because they made the choice in putting it first.

neanderthin

Humans have been living successfully without pills in northern climes for millennia,

Humans living in nothern climates also:

(a) had light skin, and
(b) were outside all the time

Light skin was a mutation to allow the absorption of D as human migration happened.......now with a more global community we have people of all ethnicity living everywhere, I know in Canada, vitamin D deficiency is a given, or so they say.

Thus a poor nation full of people with rickets... :noway:

LOL, yeah we funny that way. I think what their saying is Canadians in general are not getting enough. Originally when rickets were rife, cod liver oil was recommended, and that worked, now some basic food stuff are fortified. During winter is where their concern lies apparently.

EvanKeel

If the argument is that taking a daily multi somehow prevents people from "eating better" b/c they feel justified in eating less nutrient dense foods if they're supplementing with a multi, then I just simply disagree with your assertion.

I think someone who eats crap most of the time will continue to eat crap even if daily mulit vitamins randomly evaporated and there were none left on the planet. The multi isn't the problem; something else is. They might have some emotional attachment to the food. They might be ignorant. The list goes on.

If what you want is a solution to the root cause of poor nutrition instead of fixing a symptom, multi vitamins are kind of irrelevant. The vitamins neither help nor harm the root cause. They do have an effect on the symptom, though.

ironmonkeystyle

here's the thing about "eating better." Due to soil depletion, over-farming and a host of other factors (GMOs, etc.), eating better (more vegetables, let's say) doesn't necessarily have the same healthy effect that it once did. That is, it is much harder to get all of the nutrients that once were found in abundance in things like spinach in the 60s. You would have to eat bunches and bunches more of the spinach to approximate the same nutrient density of spinach from the 60s. This is one of the main reasons why some health professionals (my doctor included), recommend a decent multi-vitamin.

As far as I know, the information on micronutrients would be for today's food. Are you suggesting that getting all or most of what you need from today's food products is impossible?

I'm saying that research suggests that you'd have to eat a lot of vegetables and other stuff all the time to do what you could have done with a normal amount of these things years ago. For instance, "Recent studies that compared the mineral content of soils today with soils 100 years ago found that agricultural soils in the United States have been depleted of eight-five
percent of their minerals (Rio Earth Summit 1992.)" See, e.g.: http://www.nutritionsecurity.org/PDF/NSI_White Paper_Web.pdf for more information. The idea is simple-- it's not "impossible", but I just don't have time or the inclination to eat 10 pounds of kale, 4 helpings of salmon, 6 helpings of brussel sprouts, two tablespoons of chia seeds, 5 tablespoons of dulse, etc. etc. every day. It's "possible" to do this, but that sucks. I have a job and stuff. It is less possible to get all of your nutrients from raw foods than it was 50, 60, 100 years ago. That's all the research shows. :-)

lacurandera1

All I really needed to do was to double up on my spinach and broccoli and add some tomatoes, but it depends on what you're starting with.

for a very large number of people that would be extremely difficult to accomplish if not impossible on a regular basis

Why would it be difficult for a very large number of people to increase their intake of certain fruits/ veggies? Surely it's not that hard, or maybe they just don't want to put the time in?

I was wondering the same thing, And I think it boils down to time for a lot of people. It takes that, to prep fresh, homemade meals. Not much, IMO, but idh kids, two jobs, etc, add all the other things that suck your time.

I would really like to know what is such a time sucker that it is more important than cooking healthy meals for your family? Meal prepping and planning only takes a couple extra hours a week and much more enjoyable than sitting with a sick kid at the doctors office. Not judging you so please do not take it that way, I am just wondering what this mysterious time sucker is that is more important? I know people that have kids, work full time jobs and find time to exercise, plan, prep and cook healthy foods. They do this because they made the choice in putting it first.

Yeah, not offended at all, especially since i said it's not much extra time IMO. I don't have kids, etc that other people use as excuses so I can only speculate as to why it would not be important enough to spend the extra 10 minutes a day. As for myself, I try very hard to eat fresh, scratch, homemade awesomeness. This is not to say I don't eat a half a pizza a couple times a month but for the most part, no.

As someone else said earlier, in a world where you can buy veg prewashed and prepped..there really is no excuse. heck, even a can of green beans is a better addition to dinner than prepackaged frozen french fries or insert bad for you food here.

I've found that people who do not want to make a change, make excuses. I for one am glad I'm not one of them.

Lesa_Sass

All I really needed to do was to double up on my spinach and broccoli and add some tomatoes, but it depends on what you're starting with.

for a very large number of people that would be extremely difficult to accomplish if not impossible on a regular basis

Why would it be difficult for a very large number of people to increase their intake of certain fruits/ veggies? Surely it's not that hard, or maybe they just don't want to put the time in?

I was wondering the same thing, And I think it boils down to time for a lot of people. It takes that, to prep fresh, homemade meals. Not much, IMO, but idh kids, two jobs, etc, add all the other things that suck your time.

I would really like to know what is such a time sucker that it is more important than cooking healthy meals for your family? Meal prepping and planning only takes a couple extra hours a week and much more enjoyable than sitting with a sick kid at the doctors office. Not judging you so please do not take it that way, I am just wondering what this mysterious time sucker is that is more important? I know people that have kids, work full time jobs and find time to exercise, plan, prep and cook healthy foods. They do this because they made the choice in putting it first.

Yeah, not offended at all, especially since i said it's not much extra time IMO. I don't have kids, etc that other people use as excuses so I can only speculate as to why it would not be important enough to spend the extra 10 minutes a day. As for myself, I try very hard to eat fresh, scratch, homemade awesomeness. This is not to say I don't eat a half a pizza a couple times a month but for the most part, no.

As someone else said earlier, in a world where you can buy veg prewashed and prepped..there really is no excuse. heck, even a can of green beans is a better addition to dinner than prepackaged frozen french fries or insert bad for you food here.

I've found that people who do not want to make a change, make excuses. I for one am glad I'm not one of them.

:flowerforyou:

rllewell

Great topic Rock. What were you basing your "amount or servings" when you determined you were short on spinach and broccoli? Are you basing that off eating the recommended 7-13 servings of F&V a day?

For vitamins and supplements I ask where is the independent 3rd party clinical research studies published in peer reviewed journals on the product as a whole? Clinical studies show that eating raw fruits and vegetables will lower the risk of chronic illness (cancer, heart disease, diabetes etc...) and deliver the vitamins and minerals your body needs. In my own research I ask these questions: Does it deliver key antioxidants and other phytonutrients that are absorbed by the body? Does it reduce oxidative stress? Does it support a healthy immune system? Does it help protect DNA? Does it positively impacts several key indicators of cardiovascular wellness?