Real talk on multivitamins

RoyalMoose11
RoyalMoose11 Posts: 211 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I'm looking for some thoughts on multivitamins. I usually eat 3 or 4 servings of fruits (berries, banana, apple, pineapple) and veggies (different types of peas, broccoli, brussel sprouts, string beans, asparagus) a day and an overall pretty healthy diet. I've read lots of strong, varied opinions on multivitamins that I'm curious as to what others think. For context I also have a pretty high fitness regimen including lifting, running, and playing sports.

Replies

  • jlahorn
    jlahorn Posts: 377 Member
    I'm too lazy to google the (many) articles for you, but the consensus is that if you eat a balanced diet, you really don't need to take vitamins in pill form, and you mostly pee them out anyway.
  • Rowan813
    Rowan813 Posts: 170 Member
    I'm too lazy to google the (many) articles for you, but the consensus is that if you eat a balanced diet, you really don't need to take vitamins in pill form, and you mostly pee them out anyway.

    This. Unless you have been diagnosed with a deficiency or have a medical condition requiring supplementation.
  • waldo56
    waldo56 Posts: 1,861 Member
    Pretty much every long term study of the health differences between people regularly taking multivitamins and those that don't shows no benefit to doing so.
  • jbee27
    jbee27 Posts: 356 Member
    From what I've heard and read, most people with a decent diet are just fine without.

    Personally, my doctor suggested one, as my Iron count tends to be on the lower end, and I was having days where I felt woozy/dizzy. Since I have started taking the multivitamin it has not happened. Bonus side effect is that my nails are much stronger than they were (used to peel/chip easily).
  • BigT555
    BigT555 Posts: 2,067 Member
    i take them because they are cheap enough that if they dont make a difference i dont really care, and they cant really hurt
  • ATT949
    ATT949 Posts: 1,245 Member
    Concur with Walkdo56 (I've been on this site for quite a while and he appears to be a reliable source of info).

    Meta-analyses* carried out by the British Health Service (results last year) and at Stanford University (a year or two age) concur that multi-vitamins offer no significant improvement in health or nutrition when consumed by a person who is otherwise healthy and who eats a nutritionally sound diet.

    While these studies didn't cover other supplements, my reading, which dates back a few years to when I was losing weight, lead me to conclude that they're a complete waste of money.

    The best site I've come across for these issues is

    sciencebasedmedicine.org

    The doctors who run the site are cardiologist and an oncologist (those two come to mind) and many of the folks who comment are practicing physicians and researchers. Many of the articles are easy for a layman to understand but a small percentage require some understanding of medicine. All in all, I trust it as a good site to read and learn from (I've been using the internet sine 1987 - well before the web - so I have seen it go from a medium of interchange of information between academics to its current state).

    As I see it, if you want to benefit from vitamins, buy stock in a company that sells them.


    *That's plural for meta-analysis which is a study that reviews the data from other studies.
  • RodaRose
    RodaRose Posts: 9,562 Member
    It would be one thing if you have lab work showing a deficiency in something. Otherwise, healthy people do not need them.
  • sculli123
    sculli123 Posts: 1,221 Member
    I take them but mostly out of habit. Have always taken them since I was a kid. Guess I could save a couple of bucks though and ditch them.

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