Multi Plus Vitamins

joejoem

I bought these yesterday, the back of them has the list of ingredients which is huge! I was wondering if anyone has used them, I will be able to tell you soon wheather they are any good but I'm feeling a little impatient!

tie_mi_shu

hmmmm, i never really felt i needed vitamins.. i eat my veg ..

joejoem

tie_mi_shu wrote:

hmmmm, i never really felt i needed vitamins.. i eat my veg ..

Congratulations, so do I, but anyway.......

g'em

joejoem wrote:

Congratulations, so do I, but anyway.......

sorry, not taking the p*** but why take them then? Do you feel that you're lacking any nutrient in particular? A healthy, balanced diet will provide more than enough of the nutients we need to keep ourselves happy and healthy.

Besides which synthetic vitamns are quite difficult for the body to break down, and many are actually isomers (same chemical formula, different structure) of natural vitamins. You can only absorb so much of these vitamin supplements and the rest goes down the toilet. But too high levels of Vitamins A,D and B and calcium and iron can all cause adverse physiological affects including damage to bones, itching, skin colour changes, constipation, nausea, vomiting and lots of other fun if they're not being used by the body. Now obviously you'd have to be taking quite alot of pills for this to happen, but overdoses of some Vits like the B family can actually be symptomless and you can do irreperable damage before you know it.

Best thing to do is write down your diet and figure out which vitamins/ minerals/ elements it's lacking. You should find that most of your dietary requirements are meat by eating healthy, unprocessed, natural foods, the more raw the better. Protein shakes are a prime example- I know I don't get enough protein in my diet so I have to supplement it with shakes. I also take iron, magensium and zinc becasue I train so much and I need it for muscle development. But everything else gets covered by my eating habits. I'd rather spend my money on fresh fruit, veg and oily fish than be swallowing oodles of pills everyday.

stevejazzx

g'em wrote:

sorry, not taking the p*** but why take them then? Do you feel that you're lacking any nutrient in particular? A healthy, balanced diet will provide more than enough of the nutients we need to keep ourselves happy and healthy.

Besides which synthetic vitamns are quite difficult for the body to break down, and many are actually isomers (same chemical formula, different structure) of natural vitamins. You can only absorb so much of these vitamin supplements and the rest goes down the toilet. But too high levels of Vitamins A,D and B and calcium and iron can all cause adverse physiological affects including damage to bones, itching, skin colour changes, constipation, nausea, vomiting and lots of other fun if they're not being used by the body. Now obviously you'd have to be taking quite alot of pills for this to happen, but overdoses of some Vits like the B family can actually be symptomless and you can do irreperable damage before you know it.

Best thing to do is write down your diet and figure out which vitamins/ minerals/ elements it's lacking. You should find that most of your dietary requirements are meat by eating healthy, unprocessed, natural foods, the more raw the better. Protein shakes are a prime example- I know I don't get enough protein in my diet so I have to supplement it with shakes. I also take iron, magensium and zinc becasue I train so much and I need it for muscle development. But everything else gets covered by my eating habits. I'd rather spend my money on fresh fruit, veg and oily fish than be swallowing oodles of pills everyday.

Much of what you say is true.
However a well chosen vitamin supplement is almost essential for todays modern lifestyles. In fact the world health organisation recommends a vit supp for every busy active adult.
The idea is to chose a good one, something like Pharmaton or Solgar would do nicely because as you have pointed out some cheaper brands offer only synthetic forms which can be almost impossible to absorb.
Maintaining a body with just food is an almost impossibility especially considering that most of the fresh fruit we get here is inorganically grown essentially been frozen(supermarkets call this deep chilling) and are full of growth promoters most of them chemical.
The fresh veg is corrupted with pestisides and studies have conclusively shown that spinach for e.g which is not grown organically yields almost no iron and that the quality of soil used to grow the largest proportion of the countries veg is low in essentials nutrients like zinc and selenium etc.
Most fresh meat is corrupted again with preservatives (bacon pork hams etc) and chicken is nothing more than hormone filled c**p.
(Lamb is possibly the best meat option incidentally, possibly organic beef, the free range chicken market is unreliable to say the least also it is imperative to buy wild fish if you want the full benefits as farmed fish studies are showing increasinly worrying results.
However I agree with maintaining the healtiest diet possible and miminmising vit intake and finding the vitamins that are particulary apliccable to oneself i.e. common deficencies such as selenium, iron etc should be treated with a seperate vitamin and the individuals should seek out highly absorbable forms of vitamins like zinc piccolinate for a zinc deficincy and so forth.

joejoem

g'em wrote:

sorry, not taking the p*** but why take them then? Do you feel that you're lacking any nutrient in particular? A healthy, balanced diet will provide more than enough of the nutients we need to keep ourselves happy and healthy.

Besides which synthetic vitamns are quite difficult for the body to break down, and many are actually isomers (same chemical formula, different structure) of natural vitamins. You can only absorb so much of these vitamin supplements and the rest goes down the toilet. But too high levels of Vitamins A,D and B and calcium and iron can all cause adverse physiological affects including damage to bones, itching, skin colour changes, constipation, nausea, vomiting and lots of other fun if they're not being used by the body. Now obviously you'd have to be taking quite alot of pills for this to happen, but overdoses of some Vits like the B family can actually be symptomless and you can do irreperable damage before you know it.

Best thing to do is write down your diet and figure out which vitamins/ minerals/ elements it's lacking. You should find that most of your dietary requirements are meat by eating healthy, unprocessed, natural foods, the more raw the better. Protein shakes are a prime example- I know I don't get enough protein in my diet so I have to supplement it with shakes. I also take iron, magensium and zinc becasue I train so much and I need it for muscle development. But everything else gets covered by my eating habits. I'd rather spend my money on fresh fruit, veg and oily fish than be swallowing oodles of pills everyday.

No problem, no I dont fel like I'm lacking in any particular food group, I take the vitamins to overcompensate. I eat allot of vegies every day and I eat allot of fruit, but my lifestyle is very demanding. My work is very long hours, with night college and training four times a week I will often find myself fatigued with an hour or so of something left to go. This may not be physical, but it may be mental, where I have to pay attention to something but my brain has given up, gone to bed and not interested in waking up. With my unfortunate timetable I have one (sort of) rest day, where I still have to study and go to the gym.

So taking a multi vit is my failsafe, it gives me an extra boost, and an extra level of immunity. I also take fish oil capsules and protein shakes, fish oils to help skin and brains and protein because I cant eat any more tuna and chicken fillets than I do!

It may be a subconcious crutch, but I dont see the harm, with all the water I drink, any unused will get flushed out with my pee.