I have been told by someone at my local nutrition center that I need to take about 4 or 5 different vitamins and supplements. Is it ok to take many different vitamins at the same time or are they just trying to sell to me? If I need them, how much should I take?

Hi Sandra Brook,
First of all the people in the health centre(English,English) have to make money or they lose their jobs so it is very hard to generate much trust in them. Do you eat a good, variable diet, with little animal foods and lots of fruit and vegetables. Read all of the posts and see if you would then choose pills over food as your source of nutrients, most research has come up negative for pills and positive for food.

Cheers

Hi Sandra Brook,
By supplementing the diet with additional vitamins and minerals, multivitamins can be a valuable tool for those with dietary imbalances or different nutritional needs. People with dietary imbalances may include those on restrictive diets and those who can't or won't eat a nutritious diet. Often iron-free, fluoride-free formulas, and sometimes copper-free formulas, are preferred.
for further info go to the

Hi...

A good multivitamin will be a great start; I take a multivitamin with minerals from health genesis, green foods supplements that contain spirulina and chlorella also from health genesis and a good immune support supplement from new chapter. We do need to add nutritional supplements since the equivalent of what our body needs in real food will be not only a lot of food but also very expensive, a concentrated substitute well balanced can do a better job, but you still need a lot of water and eat your green veggies. ..

Hi Keith,
I think we would do a lot better if we simply aimed at getting our nutrient requirements from food. I only ever put people on supplements if there is a genuine reason why they can't procure their requirements from food sources, I haven't taken supplements for 40 years and I have no health problems whatsoever. Have you been looking at the research on supplements or do you ask people who are making money out of supplements for your advice? I wonder which one would be more likely to fib?

Supplements have been shown to cause cancer in several studies so why would you take them:
Beta-Carotene: Bad News and Good News

For a short time, beta-carotene, a form of vitamin A, was a star among supplements. There was good reason, too -- solid research suggested that beta-carotene could lower cancer risk.

Best Beta Sources
If you are looking to increase your intake of beta-carotene, include more of the following foods in your diet.

Apricots, fresh or dried; apricot nectar
Broccoli
Cantaloupe
Carrots, carrot juice
Grapefruit, red or pink
Greens, collard or mustard
Kale
Mango
Peppers, sweet red
Persimmon
Pumpkin
Spinach
Squash, winter
Sweet potato
Swiss chard
Vitamin manufacturers jumped on the bandwagon and began replacing all the vitamin A in their pills with beta-carotene, until results from a study called CARET (Beta-Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial) brought things to a screeching halt. This landmark study, published in 1996, tested synthetic beta-carotene and vitamin A supplements in people at high risk for lung cancer -- smokers, former smokers, and asbestos-industry workers. The study was quickly discontinued when it became clear that those taking beta-carotene supplements (about 30 milligrams a day) actually had a higher rate of lung cancer and higher mortality rate than those taking a placebo (an inert pill)


Researchers are still arguing over vitamin C and colds. But vitamin C may offer protection against lots of other conditions, including cancer.

A diet high in vitamin C has been strongly linked to a lower risk of cancers of the mouth, throat, stomach, and pancreas. Weaker data exist for cancers of the breast, cervix, and rectum. However, it's hard to separate the effects of vitamin C from those of beta-carotene, because many fruits and vegetables are rich in both.

Best Sources of Vitamin C
Eating more of the following foods will add more vitamin-C to your diet.

Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Cabbage
Cantaloupe
Cauliflower
Greens, cooking (collard, mustard, or turnip)
Kale
Kiwi Fruit
Mango Papaya
Peppers, sweet, green or red
Potato, white or sweet
Strawberries
Tomato, tomato juice
In fact, studies show it may be the combination of the two that's important, which is yet another reason to get your antioxidants from foods rather than supplements whenever possible. Indeed, the few studies in which vitamin C was provided by supplement have not shown any cancer-fighting benefits


Many Americans fall short of the recommended daily intake for calcium, which is 1,300 milligrams for teenagers; 1,000 milligrams for adults 19 to 50 years of age; and 1,200 milligrams for adults 51 years of age and older. Amounts of 1,200 to 1,500 milligrams have been linked to an anticancer effect. On the other hand, there is evidence that an intake of more than 2,000 milligrams of calcium per day, primarily from supplements, may increase the risk for prostate cancer.

Multi-vitamin supplements have been shown to increase the risk of cancer also.

Unless you have something wrong with you then you should be able to get all you need from diet, the Okinawans are testament to this, they probably wouldn't know what a supplement was and the elders are still the longest lived people in the world.
Check your country's performance in the longevity stakes against people in Asian countries that get their nutrients from diet.

Cheers

I take health supplements daily because I am of the opinion that it is hard to cover all needs our body naturally has. Certainly I eat lots of fruits and vegetables every day but nevertheless I additionally take vitamin supplements. I think this keeps me well and fit. Recently I was diagnosed with an iron deficiency and so I decided to take iron supplements in order to redress the balance. I think it is a good idea to take some additional health supplements.

Hi sibleydarling,
It's great to see you expressing your opinion on so many things in such a short time but one always has to bear in mind that it is only your opinion and not fact as born out by rigorous research, and so for anyone wanting sound advice they should always allow science to take precedence over opinion.
Your opinion is certainly valuable for evaluation and comparison with other opinions, I certainly read what you say but some areas present dangers that should be highlighted such as the increase in cancers associated with certain supplements, the risk became so pronounced that the investigators decided it was to great to continue in one study. With your iron deficiency did you determine a cause or simply apply a band-aid?

Science does not have an opinion it simply reports the facts and researchers should not have an opinion on anything they are investigating or they have introduced bias before they start which may dramatically increase the placebo effect.


http://www.healthcastle.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1320

Cheers