Very OT: multivitamins because of lots of diy :)

[Thelibrarian]

Apologies for the ot post well sort of.

Without sounding like and old git but my wife swears by them I've never touched anything multi vits. Basically I've been literally catching one illness after another and got myself checked out at the doctors and had a blood test all was fine.

I've been doing a lot more diy so pushing myself a lot more than usual of late, perhaps more than I should.

I've had my wife saying I should start a course of multi-vits like centrium or some such I guess and see how I fair.

I read mixed articles on line some say they are good some say they are bad. I should have asked my doctor of many years for his opinion.

Just wondering if you guys take anything like this to stay healthy or in tip top condition ..

starting to feel the problems of age kicking in and its getting me down slightly.

I've always been young for my age so I've always though stupidly I'll never get old :) that day has come

maybe next is a sports car lol.

Sorry for the weird post but being a long term lurker and occasional poster I thought must be worth a shot asking :)

Hope no one minds.

Bosworth

[Nightjar]

My GP's view is that if you need more vitamins or minerals, then the right way to address the problem is to change your diet to include them.

Colin Bignell

[Gib Bogle]

In my opinion the enormous vitamin industry is a scam. Most people do not need vitamin supplements. Just eat a balanced diet and you're fine.

[Tabby]

Its actually a fairly complex topic, and I dont see a newsgroup post doing it much justice. In short yes, well chosen supplements can bring some benefits, but there's no shortage of minimal value products, unsupported claims, naive takes on it all and so on about.

If you want an evidence based approach on the subject, albeit an inevitably imperfect one, that explains what supplementation can do and how, a good start would be the book Health Defence by Paul Clayton.

NT

[Tim Streater]

It's also worth noting that the claims that large amounts of (say) vitamin C do you some good, are cobblers. The body need about 60mg/day and if you take more, the extra just gets pissed out. This is part of the "if a little is good, much more must be much better" crap put out by the scientifically illiterate chattering classes. The same applies to "detoxing the body" - as if we haven't evolved livers to perform that exact task.

[Another John]

Ditto to all the above who (so far) have said "eat well and sensibly", and "the supplements industry is a con". I've always believed that your body actually tells you what it wants to have. (Well -- y'know - up to a point; the body gets a lot of help from Common Sense too.)

I'd also add: exercise. I was a runner for most of my life, eventually wound down to a stop, so now use the gym and a bike when the weather's fair. I also, these days, count my multifarious DIY as exercise -- I do more of it now, and stuff like using a lump hammer and chisel up a ladder, or hedge cutting, is awful good 'exercise' -- or rather, simply awful exercise.

BUT, Bosworth, you say:

I know blokes who are 50 who say that (get up and get on with it, you girl's blouse); and blokes who are 72 who say that (what a guy!!). If you're the former, you'll be glad to know you have at least 10 years before you start to slow down. If the latter: well I hope I'm the same when I get to your age, mate.

John

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Tim Streater saying something like:

You speak for yourself, matey. Many times I've found a vitamin C bomb of 1 gram will nicely knock colds on the head. Perhaps it doesn't work for you.

[pete]

Vitamins don't do you more good, the more you take - they're not like beer :) Once you have consumed enough (which is actually quite small amounts) to do whatever it is that they do, any extra is either excreted or matabolised into something else instead. So unless you're pregnant there's almost no reason to take them.

[Man at B&Q]

Complete waste of money unless you are on a seriously weird diet.

MBQ

[PeterC]

Although I've not found that 1g of vit. C will /cure/ a cold, it does alleviate the symptoms. The one bit of 'evidence' that I have is from many yeers ago: v. heavy cold, committed to ridin a hilly 30-mile 4-up team time trial. Vit. C on the day before and on the morning, cold still heavy but not so oppressive, managed to ride with the team all the way. Didn't do my fair share on the front but we still had a good ride.

Just started taking 500g slow-release doses for a while, as I was feeling a bit sluggish; it seems to be working (or I just feel better because of the action rather than the effect).

[David Paste]

I've never had a cold longer than 2 days, and I'm a physical wreck! Sleep and (non alcoholic) liquids are the key.

That's a symptom of too much Vit C being disposed of by the body, ironically!

[David Paste]

For the vast majority, they work in the same complex psycho- pharmaceutical way that homoeopathy does: placebo. Never under- estimate the power of wishful thinking! Unless, of course, you eat too much vit. A. That might produce some effects, but none you'd want.

If you want to think about possible benefits of large doses of vitamins, read the recent lit regarding vit. D. That's fairly interesting.

[robgraham]

I've read this thread through saying time and again to the nay-sayers "you've got it wrong and you are not considering other vitamins eg Vit D ". There is a lot of evidence that a number of conditions that are peculiar to people in northern climes are the result of Vit D deficiency. Vit D comes from a limited range of food sources but the majority is generated by UV on the skin and anywhere north of middle France has no significant UV from November to March. Add in that once you are over 65 you are poorer at metabolising Vit D and your RDA has to rise as you age further.

There is a story going round that there are children of well off families in the UK suffering from rickets which is due to Vit D deficiency. The assumption is that these kids are never going outside to play..

Rob

[Tim Streater]

Well this is a deficiency innit. So your supplement just needs to bring it up to the recommended daily dose - not to be confused with megga-doses.

[David Paste]

People always look for the easiest 'cure'. They are not really interested in long-term maintenance of themselves, but rather a quick- fix which makes them /feel/ better.

Would not surprise me. I have a friend who has a couple of teenage boys, and on a summer trip to the lake district, they stayed indorrs nearly the whole time playing on portable games machines. Sad, really.

Another friend of mine developed rickets (or some other vit deficiency disease) whilst at uni, but that was because he blew most of his student loan in one night at the casino. The miserable sum left over was used to buy rice and flour in the assumption that he could live off rice and bread for the next 3 months. Didn't quite work out for him.

[Gib Bogle]

Playstation victims?

[Tim Streater]

*White* rice and flour, no doubt. Too bad he was so ignorant.

[David Paste]

He'd just blown the best part of 1500 quid in a casino, I don't think he was too concerned about /what/ rice he had right then!

[jgharston]

I do the same but in the form of as many oranges as I can manage to force down. I did a bit of experimentation in the early '90s which showed that in my cases it significantly reduced the symptoms. I still take the day off work though, to avoid antisocially infecting other people.

JGH