Finding The Right Multivitamin And Which To Avoid

CNN:

Vitamins have been recommended for years because they help you get key nutrients if your diet's low on fruits and veggies -- and may even help prevent cancer and heart disease. And it's unlikely that one critical paper (speculating that vitamin supplements might upset your body's natural healing process and boost your risk of death) will change that. Health.com: Your vitamin cheat sheet

Longtime vitamin experts at Tufts University and the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University continue to say multis aren't dangerous and the paper's findings are wrong. The paper analyzed previous studies, including many with people who were sick before taking vitamins, so there's a good chance vitamins weren't responsible for shortening their lives. Experts say the paper also ignored two major studies that found vitamins reduced the risk of death.

Read the whole story: CNN

Comments

[zizyphus]

04:13 AM on 08/28/2007

Vitamins should be considered the same as drugs, both are synthetic or natural molecules that have an effect on the body. They should remain an over the counter drug, and hopefully codeine and pot will one day sit on the shelves alongside them.

People act like they are going to die if they don't get three balanced meals a day. That's why 2/3's of Americans are obese. Adults need one good meal a day and a couple of light snacks.

It is far healthier to skip meals for a day or two at a time, than to just continually keep shoveling in all kind of food.

Every study ever done on caloric restriction from amoebas to primates, the group that got the restricted calories lived the longest.

[MovingtoNorway]

09:54 PM on 08/24/2007

Try food. Seems to have worked for thousands of years.

[jeanruss]

04:44 PM on 08/23/2007

I don't trust any health news from CNN-Sanjay Gupta has been misleading on many issues and just seems to support Big Pharma-all the negative media lately about vitamins is because drug companies want to co-op that business-in England they have succeeded and now you need a PRESCRIPTION to get vitamina and the potencies are very low-more informed people want vitamins instead of drugs and this trend scares them alot-the more sick people are, the better they like it-my family hasn't had any sickness since we started to supplement and it has been great-we also don't drink any fluoridated water or products made with fluoride

[zizyphus]

02:37 PM on 08/23/2007

Taking a vitamin is an act of faith. There is no way you can know for sure what is in them.

People read the labels, but believe me, you can put any info on a label. Who is checking? Manufacturers-who are obviously biased. The FDA doesn't test anything.

Most vitamins are actually made in China, so that should be a tip-off as to the level of safety and purity.

Whole fruits and vegetables contain hundreds of complex nutritive compounds, of which synthetic vitamins are but a dim shadow. In addition, the natural compounds contain numerous other disease preventing components.

There is no substitute for eating whole foods.

[ThePhilosopher]

02:50 PM on 08/24/2007

You're right that there isn't a substitute for whole foods, but that doesn't mean one shouldn't take multivitamins. Not everyone can eat three well-balanced meals everyday and even if you do you may still be missing some key nutrients. Multivitamins are good supplements, not good replacements.

[SouthJerseySteve]

01:54 PM on 08/23/2007

I used to sell Nutrilite (Amway) vitamins but at over $100/month, they are just too expensive now. A GNC multivitamin is fine for me.

[Dirkh]

01:06 PM on 08/23/2007

As a general rule, you are probably better off with capsules then pressed tablets. I've seen studies showing that some of those tabs take a very long time to break down and release their vitamins.