The difference between cheap & expensive vitamins

aka79 · 28-10-2009 10:25AM #1

Does anyone know the difference between the expensive vitamins and the cheap ones. I take vitamins on a daily basis, eg, multi-vitamin, evening primrose oil, etc. Whats stopping me from purchasing the 99c one monthly supply in either Boots or Tescos, rather than purchasing the €8.99 one monthly supplies, if they do the same job!

Dublin_Gunner · 28-10-2009 10:39AM

aka79 wrote: »

Does anyone know the difference between the expensive vitamins and the cheap ones. I take vitamins on a daily basis, eg, multi-vitamin, evening primrose oil, etc. Whats stopping me from purchasing the 99c one monthly supply in either Boots or Tescos, rather than purchasing the €8.99 one monthly supplies, if they do the same job!

Probably the wrong thing to say, and off topic - but why do you need vitamin supplements?

If the pills contain the same thing, I don't see any reason for being ripped off by the ones in fancier packs.

EileenG · 28-10-2009 12:31PM

Very few people eat an ideal diet. To get the full whack of everything, you need to be making all your meals as close to perfect (home cooked, organic, locally grown) as possible. No processed food (that includes things like cornflakes and white bread or pasta), no junk food, no takeaways.

If you are not eating like that, a little sensible supplement is probably useful. Hell, we do it for our horses (Ireland is naturally low in selenium, so we give them extra), why not for ourselves?

Usually the difference between a cheap and an expensive supplement is the ingredients. Damien Maher wrote in the Health and Living section of the Indo a while ago to read the list of ingredients. If magnesium oxide was one of the top ones, chances are the rest would be cheap and nasty too.

However, sometimes expensive brands with big names have the exact same ingredients as the Boots or Tesco version. You have to read the label and compare.

--Kaiser-- · 28-10-2009 01:16PM

Is there any proof that Vitamin supplements actually affect your health in any way? My sister did Biology in college and showed me a paper that purported that synthetic vitamins (basically derived from petrochemicals) were not absorbed by the body very effectively as the body didn't recognise them as food (bioavailability?)

corkcomp · 28-10-2009 01:20PM

EileenG wrote: »

Very few people eat an ideal diet. To get the full whack of everything, you need to be making all your meals as close to perfect (home cooked, organic, locally grown) as possible. No processed food (that includes things like cornflakes and white bread or pasta), no junk food, no takeaways.

If you are not eating like that, a little sensible supplement is probably useful. Hell, we do it for our horses (Ireland is naturally low in selenium, so we give them extra), why not for ourselves?

Usually the difference between a cheap and an expensive supplement is the ingredients. Damien Maher wrote in the Health and Living section of the Indo a while ago to read the list of ingredients. If magnesium oxide was one of the top ones, chances are the rest would be cheap and nasty too.

However, sometimes expensive brands with big names have the exact same ingredients as the Boots or Tesco version. You have to read the label and compare.

that view is a bit one sided TBH .. if you eat cleanly for 80% of your meals i.e. loads of fruit + veg, good fats and plenty lean protein then most people can get what they need to from that ... if you decide to have a take away or slice of white bread it wont do any harm if you are getting the good stuff in for most other meals .... a lot of people have the same idea with vits as with protein, that more is better, this is not always the case i.e. point of dimenishing returns ....

EileenG · 28-10-2009 01:25PM

corkcomp wrote: »

that view is a bit one sided TBH .. if you eat cleanly for 80% of your meals i.e. loads of fruit + veg, good fats and plenty lean protein then most people can get what they need to from that ... if you decide to have a take away or slice of white bread it wont do any harm if you are getting the good stuff in for most other meals .... a lot of people have the same idea with vits as with protein, that more is better, this is not always the case i.e. point of dimenishing returns ....

But how many people actually do? You've read the posts where people come on and say "I'm eating a good diet, special k for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, pasta and dolmio for dinner, and a few choccie biscuits to fill the gaps." That's what is a normal diet for anyone who doesn't make a conscious effort to eat well.

corkcomp · 28-10-2009 01:36PM

EileenG wrote: »

But how many people actually do? You've read the posts where people come on and say "I'm eating a good diet, special k for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, pasta and dolmio for dinner, and a few choccie biscuits to fill the gaps." That's what is a normal diet for anyone who doesn't make a conscious effort to eat well.

that diet would be an extreme, but yes similar diets have been posted :rolleyes:

the human body has a remarkable way to "getting by" even on poor diet (well what you or i would probably regard as poor) .. have you ever seen the freaky eaters programs, one guy felt fine and had a perfect blood work up eventhough he only ate chese sandwiches!?

IMO most of the posters on here are knowledgeable enough to be able meet their daily requirements from whole food, yet some people will still try to over think things and go way over board on vits!

ballsymchugh · 28-10-2009 01:45PM

the body can only use a certain amount of vitamins anyway, so in most cases, the supplemental vitamins will be excreted from the body. i can't find the link for it just now, but i'll keep searching.
as for organic food, that's been disproven.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8174482.stm

now, back on topic. just check the ingredients. if they're the same, then there's no difference. unless someone is lying.
the likely difference is probably similar to generic antibiotics and the modern version, both work the same way, but the generic one may feel like swallowing a brick.

Dublin_Gunner · 28-10-2009 01:46PM

TBH we survived long enough without even knowing what vitamins were, let alone buying them in a box.

I really don't think vitamin supplements are required for anyone apart form the severe cases where a lack of a certain vitamin / mineral is causing a medical condition (i.e Iron, Anaemia).

Of course it is up to anybody to decide what they want to put in their own body, but I think a lot of people are being conned by the vitamin / supplement manufacturers into buying things they don't need, that don't work, and cost too much.

A lot of people are being fooled into thinking that they can take 'supplements' as an alternative to actual food.

Khannie · 28-10-2009 03:42PM

corkcomp wrote: »

that diet would be an extreme

I don't think so. I'd say most people live off that kind of rubbish to be honest, just not the people who post on here, mostly.

corkcomp · 28-10-2009 04:03PM

Khannie wrote: »

I don't think so. I'd say most people live off that kind of rubbish to be honest, just not the people who post on here, mostly.

there is a lot of mis info and varying opinions on what is healthy and not though .. a lot of people would consider sandwich for lunch and spag bol for dinner as un healthy but if both are home made they could be quite nutritious and rich in vits and minerals ..

El_Dangeroso · 28-10-2009 04:17PM

Some vitamins and minerals are impossible to get in correct amounts in food, mostly due to poor soil quality and processing/storage methods.

Some things are worth supplementing, namely:

Magnesium: Back in the day when we didn't intensively farm the land, the soil had lots of magnesium and this isn't the case anymore unfortunately. Magnesium deficiency can result in hypertension, depression and migraine.

Vitamin It's close to impossible to get enough from diet unless you're eating almost a pound of herring a day and at this latitude, you can't get it from sunshine either. Vitamin D deficiency can contribute to heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis and a variety of auto-immune diseases.

Fish oil: Because of the widespread use of omega 6 rich oils in our food chain, this has created an imbalance with has devastating consequences for health. I posted a bbc radio 4 programme on this yesterday.

I eat a really good diet but I've noticed tangible differences in my health after supplementing with the above.

Also, if you eat a low fat diet, you're missing out on enough fat soluble vitamins, namely A, E and K, and this has a big effect on heart and brain health.

El_Dangeroso · 28-10-2009 04:38PM

Also, if you smoke then a 1000mg vitamin C supplement is essential.

Bottle_of_Smoke · 28-10-2009 09:26PM

aka79 wrote: »

Very few people eat an ideal diet. To get the full whack of everything, you need to be making all your meals as close to perfect (home cooked, organic, locally grown) as possible. No processed food (that includes things like cornflakes and white bread or pasta), no junk food, no takeaways.

If you are not eating like that, a little sensible supplement is probably useful. Hell, we do it for our horses (Ireland is naturally low in selenium, so we give them extra), why not for ourselves?

Usually the difference between a cheap and an expensive supplement is the ingredients. Damien Maher wrote in the Health and Living section of the Indo a while ago to read the list of ingredients. If magnesium oxide was one of the top ones, chances are the rest would be cheap and nasty too.

However, sometimes expensive brands with big names have the exact same ingredients as the Boots or Tesco version. You have to read the label and compare.

Organic - Recent famous study showed no benefit to organic grown food for health.

Horses are a different species las time I checked? Like the way pregnant humans supplement folic acid?

Only thing I'd supplement is Vitamin D, especially if you work indoors. Perhaps iron for women if they have any anaemia symptoms. Though be careful with that too. Lots of unknown haemochromotosis sufferers in this country.

Did a module in uni last year covering vitamins, I won't ever be buying one again!

TempleGrandin wrote:

Also, if you smoke then a 1000mg vitamin C supplement is essential.

Essential? Why is this? 1000mg? You'd piss virtually all of that away if you took it in one tablet.

El_Dangeroso · 28-10-2009 09:36PM

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

Organic - Recent famous study showed no benefit to organic grown food for health.

Horses are a different species las time I checked? Like the way pregnant humans supplement folic acid?

Only thing I'd supplement is Vitamin D, especially if you work indoors. Perhaps iron for women if they have any anaemia symptoms. Though be careful with that too. Lots of unknown haemochromotosis sufferers in this country.

Did a module in uni last year covering vitamins, I won't ever be buying one again!

Essential? Why is this? 1000mg? You'd piss virtually all of that away if you took it in one tablet.

Because smoking increases oxidation, you need the extra anti-oxidants as a result:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1349925/

Yes, you might excrete some of it but as a smoker you'd utilise a lot of it too.

I've read that systematic review on organic food (as in it wasn't new science, just cherry picking of papers that supported their opinion.) and the researchers made some major omissions and twisted their own results.

The majority of studies have shown that organic food is higher in both anti-oxidant and vitamin content as well as being free from pesticides, a fact that the review completely ignored.

ballsymchugh · 28-10-2009 09:57PM

Temple_Grandin wrote: »

Also, if you smoke then a 1000mg vitamin C supplement is essential.

erm... can you please explain this one?? how does smoking affect the digestion of oranges or the absorption of vit c??

El_Dangeroso · 28-10-2009 10:27PM

Just extra anti-oxidants to counteract the increased oxidative effect of smoking, or eat twelve oranges, either way..;)

cmyk · 29-10-2009 12:16AM

I was actually with my GP last week and happened to ask him about a decent multi-vitamin, he told me that I wouldn't like the answer...and told me to save my money.

He also told me that I wouldn't find a single scientific study to say they have any benefit on either serious diseases/and/or immune system benefits at any level. He said with any half decent diet we get enough of them and as stated earlier by someone else they are much more readily available through foods rather than supplementation.

In a nutshell he said to spend my money on better quality foods.

Bottle_of_Smoke · 29-10-2009 12:29AM

Temple_Grandin wrote: »

Just extra anti-oxidants to counteract the increased oxidative effect of smoking, or eat twelve oranges, either way..;)

I think that would be a far better idea. Or maybe mix it up and have a kiwi, 2 oranges, a few cups of green tea. Last resort break the vit c tablet into little pieces and take it throughout the day.

Pointless taking a 1000mg tab, we can't store vit c so virtually all of it gets pissed out. I'll give a better answer when I read that study, cheers for the link

El_Dangeroso · 29-10-2009 12:55AM

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

I think that would be a far better idea. Or maybe mix it up and have a kiwi, 2 oranges, a few cups of green tea. Last resort break the vit c tablet into little pieces and take it throughout the day.

Pointless taking a 1000mg tab, we can't store vit c so virtually all of it gets pissed out. I'll give a better answer when I read that study, cheers for the link

I don't know, eating fruit containing 1000mg of vitamin C would be a lot of extra calories and sugar in the diet, and considering that sugar competes on the same metabolic pathway as vitamin C it seems somewhat counterproductive.

ballsymchugh · 29-10-2009 01:18AM

am a little confused by the last two sentences of the pubmed abstract. the last sentence suggests that smoking decreases the vitamin c level in the serum, and what you take in your diet won't make any difference. but before it, it says that supplements will make a difference.
i remember getting grilled on vitamin c in a biochem pass fail oral exam years ago. i thought i knew it all... given that i was the only one that passed!!

El_Dangeroso · 29-10-2009 01:21AM

ballsymchugh wrote: »

am a little confused by the last two sentences of the pubmed abstract. the last sentence suggests that smoking decreases the vitamin c level in the serum, and what you take in your diet won't make any difference. but before it, it says that supplements will make a difference.
i remember getting grilled on vitamin c in a biochem pass fail oral exam years ago. i thought i knew it all... given that i was the only one that passed!!

All the last two sentences mean is that the adjusted their data for any confounding factors such as dietary intake.

Bottom line, give up smoking, if you can't give up right now take a vitamin C supplement until you can.

ballsymchugh · 29-10-2009 01:27AM

Temple_Grandin wrote: »

All the last two sentences mean is that the adjusted their data for any confounding factors such as dietary intake.

Bottom line, give up smoking, if you can't give up right now take a vitamin C supplement until you can.

but don't supplements fall into diet anyway?? the way vitamin c is absorbed would be the same no matter how it's injested. although, the study does explain a lot which i think we should've been taught later in college!!

El_Dangeroso · 29-10-2009 01:36AM

ballsymchugh wrote: »

but don't supplements fall into diet anyway?? the way vitamin c is absorbed would be the same no matter how it's injested. although, the study does explain a lot which i think we should've been taught later in college!!

Yes but by adjusting for various dietary intakes they can get a more consistent view of the effect that smoking has and they acknowledge that the supplements had an effect on the vit c serum levels of smokers:

particularly when not accompanied by vitamin supplementation

ballsymchugh · 29-10-2009 01:37AM

gotcha. i think!! sound for the lesson!!

Bottle_of_Smoke · 29-10-2009 04:28AM

cmyk wrote: »

I was actually with my GP last week and happened to ask him about a decent multi-vitamin, he told me that I wouldn't like the answer...and told me to save my money.

He also told me that I wouldn't find a single scientific study to say they have any benefit on either serious diseases/and/or immune system benefits at any level. He said with any half decent diet we get enough of them and as stated earlier by someone else they are much more readily available through foods rather than supplementation.

In a nutshell he said to spend my money on better quality foods.

Yeah I think its pretty much a racket myself. Seems to me wherever you find people suffering from malnutrition they're also suffering from a lack of food!

--Kaiser-- · 29-10-2009 09:57AM

There's a food supplement I take called Floridix that's actually made from plants so probably better than those aforementioned tablets

http://www.florahealth.com/flora/home/usa/products/R64771.htm

EileenG · 29-10-2009 12:37PM

EileenG wrote: »

But how many people actually do? You've read the posts where people come on and say "I'm eating a good diet, special k for breakfast, sandwich for lunch, pasta and dolmio for dinner, and a few choccie biscuits to fill the gaps." That's what is a normal diet for anyone who doesn't make a conscious effort to eat well.

Anyone watch "Why am I fat?" last night? The researcher had been making an effort to eat healthy, then got worried about sugar, so she examined what she ate in a day.

80g of "healthy" breakfast cereal, plus glass of cranberry juice,
Low fat Go Ahead snack bar.
Baked beans on toast
Go ahead bar.
Skinless chicken breast, veggies, brown rice and kung po sauce.
Similar supper

Total 167g of sugar in the lot. And not too many vitamins either.

Macha · 29-10-2009 01:05PM

Found this handy list on Precision Nutrition:

Who’s at risk?

Health condition |Deficiency risk
AIDS |Vitamin B12
Alcoholism |Thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pantothenic acid (B5), pyridoxine (B6), biotin, folic acid (B9)
Blood loss |Iron
Crohn’s disease |Vitamin A
Diabetes mellitus |Riboflavin (B2)
Diarrhea |Selenium
Excessive consumption of goitrogenic foods (cassava, cabbage, rutabagas, turnips, among others) |Iodine
Gastric bypass |Vitamin B12
Gastritis |Vitamin B12
Gluten intolerance (untreated) |Vitamin A
Gut flora irritation/alteration |Vitamin A
Hyperparathyroidism |Pyridoxine (B6)
Hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid) |Vitamin C
Hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) |Riboflavin (B2)
Increased energy needs (illness, intense training, injury rehabilitation, etc.) |Vitamin A
Inflammatory bowel disease |Pantothenic acid (B5)
Lactation |Vitamin C
Living in endemic areas with un-supplemented food supplies| Iodine
Menstruation (heavy or lengthy periods)| Iron
Pregnancy |Vitamin C, iron
Raw egg white consumption (excessive amounts)| Biotin
Rheumatoid arthritis |Zinc
Sickle cell anemia |Zinc
Smoking |Vitamin C
Stress (excessive amounts) |Iodine
Sun exposure (insufficient amounts)| Vitamin D
Vegan diet |Vitamin B12

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/aa-nutrient-deficiencies

Bottle_of_Smoke · 29-10-2009 01:55PM

EileenG wrote: »

Anyone watch "Why am I fat?" last night? The researcher had been making an effort to eat healthy, then got worried about sugar, so she examined what she ate in a day.

80g of "healthy" breakfast cereal, plus glass of cranberry juice,
Low fat Go Ahead snack bar.
Baked beans on toast
Go ahead bar.
Skinless chicken breast, veggies, brown rice and kung po sauce.
Similar supper

Total 167g of sugar in the lot. And not too many vitamins either.

But that's a terrible diet. Its not healthy at all. No fruit whatsoever other than a processed cranberry drink, how could that be considered normal?

El_Dangeroso · 29-10-2009 02:07PM

Bottle_of_Smoke wrote: »

But that's a terrible diet. Its not healthy at all. No fruit whatsoever other than a processed cranberry drink, how could that be considered normal?

You'd be surprised, a lot of people think that would be healthy because it's low in fat.

The difference between cheap & expensive vitamins

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