Topic: Vitamins & Supplements
I've heard many people say that they know they probably need to take vitamins and supplements, but how do you know which ones to take? In my case, I was lucky enough to have a close friend who had been taking them for years and could give me some advice for the health problems I was having. That got me started twenty years ago and I've been reading a lot of research on vitamins and supplements ever since.
Doctors used to tell us that we get everything we need from our diet, especially from our fruits and vegetables (and some still do say that, but those are doctors who are not up to date on the research). Unfortunately, that hasn't been true for nearly twenty years, due to changes in how our food is grown. For example, twenty years ago, an orange would give you about 100mg of vitamin C, but recent tests show that the average orange only yields about 30mg to 50mg of vitamin C. And that's just one fruit. The vegetables don't provide enough of the vitamins we need, either. So it's not uncommon for a person to eat all of the recommended servings of fruits and vegetables each day (a very small percentage of the population does), yet still be deficient in the vitamins necessary for optimal health. After all, the most important thing is to have optimal health and many people have found that it takes vitamins and supplements to get to that level.
But some of our habits and medications can deplete many of the vitamins and nutrients we do get, so our diet could never provide enough to overcome that depletion. Because of that, I'm gathering information to put together handouts with information that can help you counter the effects of smoking, alcohol, caffeine, and cholesterol-lowering drugs. Each handout will list the vitamins and supplements that are depleted by those things. (e-mail me if you're interested in getting a copy of any of those when they're finished)
One challenge for people who do take vitamins and supplements is that they are not regulated, so you don't know if they actually have in them what they state that they have. One lab did a test about 15 years ago on a few brands and found that one brand, Sundown Vitamins (one of the cheapest brands on the market), only had 10% of the vitamin in each tablet that the bottle stated it had. So instead of taking the recommended one tablet a day of that vitamin, you'd need to take ten a day to get what you thought you were getting!
This is a real problem when someone hears or reads that a certain vitamin can help with a certain condition they have, so they unknowingly buy a bottle of an inferior brand like that (typically bought at a grocery store), they take the recommended amount, but get no improvement in their condition. So they'll say "I tried that vitamin and it didn't help.", which only adds to the confusion people have about which vitamins and supplements can help which conditions. It also reinforces what the traditional doctors tell people about vitamins and supplements--"You're wasting your money." But that misinformation is what traditional doctors are taught in medical school and by the pharmaceutical company reps.
So it's important to only buy brands with a reputation for quality. I found an independent lab years ago, ConsumerLab, which tests many brands and reports which ones passed or failed their tests and why. I subscribed to their service for a few years and started seeing some of the same brands passing every test, so I try to buy those brands. One brand that passed and I've been buying for quite a few years is Vitamin World, which has both retail stores and an online website, Puritan. They also manufacture the brand Nature's Bounty, which is the same product, but available at drug stores like CVS and Walgreens, sometimes at a Buy One Get One Free special.
Also, many of the health food stores carry the better quality brands, so if you're not sure about a brand you've seen somewhere else, you're probably safe buying a brand that the health food store carries.
If you have any questions about buying vitamins and supplements, please post your questions by clicking Post Comment below this article and I'll answer it so we can share the information with other readers.
