[Closed] If I am going to take just one vitamin or supplement - which one?

Aspirin.

DrP

(ooh - controversial for those in the know....!!)

A multivitamin! Or is that cheating?

Hmmm, either glucosamine or vit D.

Read Ben Goldacre's book, Bad Science. Quick summary: at best Vitamin supplements do no harm, at worst they shorten your life and increase the likelihood of getting cancer.

It would be helpful if you put a reason against each one so I know why I should take it 😉

Flappyfoot: Is Ben Goldache a Daily Mail journalist?

Vitamin D I reckon - but I'm not a doctor.

Many people are deficient in Vitamin D - hard to get from your diet unless you eat a lot of oily fish and office jobs mean that many people don't get enough sun.

Deficiency is linked with many nasty things including MS.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2010/09/17113234
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/vitamins-minerals/Pages/Vitamin-D.aspx

A piece of fruit

[edit]because it's good for you

An apple

Quick summary: at best Vitamin supplements do no harm

Snot what I read, but that was a while ago.

Flappyfoot: Is Ben Goldache a Daily Mail journalist?

Far from it, he's a GP who spends his life debunking bad science, of which the Vitamin industry is a good example.

http://www.badscience.net/

I already east an apple, orange and banananana most days.

Thanks so far!

It's worth reading his book. Whilst there is evidence that Vitamins are good for you and deficiencies are bad (we'd all die for example if we got none). The evidence for supplements is much more controversial and in some cases pretty damning. His book is a really good read as he goes through all the trials you never read about e.g. a large anti-oxidant supplement trail they had to abandon when they found a statistical significant rise in cancer and death amongst the group taking the supplement rather than the placebo.

A glass of red wine. Or not, depending on whether or not it's good for you at the moment, I can't keep up.

A piece of dark chocolate. Or not (see above)

It's worth reading his book.

I think it should be mandatory reading before anyone is allowed loose on the Internet unsupervised.

A glass of red wine. Or not, depending on whether or not it's good for you at the moment, I can't keep up

Then you need this fabulous site

[url= http://kill-or-cure.heroku.com/a-z/w ]Kill or cure[/url]

Brilliant attempt to keep up with the latest Daily Mail definitive science on whether something is good or bad for you.

(Wine will currently kill [u]and[u] cure you!)

Ask your wife.

No one should ever be allowed in the internet unsupervised.....

Ask your wife

Good point

Right, I'm back from Google.

Vitamin supplements - not a cure all, won't prevent cancer, cure Alzheimer's or make you live to 150. However they can be considered an insurance policy against deficiencies IF you are at risk, according to some, and therefore could help a bit with general health.

How about a good multivitamin ever couple of days or so?

</fencesitting>

Did you find any peer reviewed papers describing double blind trials which showed a statistically significant improvement in general health from Vitamin Supplements? That would the minimum starting point.

Did you find any peer reviewed papers describing double blind trials which showed a statistically significant improvement in general health from Vitamin Supplements?

Nope. Hence the wording of my post.

However in my experience of reading (the abstracts of) proper scientific studies, they are never so generic as that. Measuring 'general health' would be nigh on impossible to the required standards.

Agreed. But there are peer reviewed studies showing that some supplements are bad for you eg the Anti-oxidant one, hence I'd not recommend taking a generic Vitamin supplement as a 'general precaution' and personally I stopped taking all supplements after reading Bad Science.

Resveratrol is one of the most interesting supplements around - you could give that a go. Found to significantly prolong life AND cause weight loss in animal models - not bad eh? Found in the skin of grapes, and therefore red wine, but tends not to be very bioavailable. It can be bought as a supplement.

The effects of resveratrol are hugely controversial, as you might expect otherwise we'd all be on it. Massive research effort underway over the past 5 years to establish the basis for its in vivo effects (and even just to replicate them). Still, it's one of the more intriguing supplements on offer and interesting to read up on.

Did you find any peer reviewed papers describing double blind trials which showed a statistically significant improvement in general health from Vitamin Supplements? That would the minimum starting point.

It's a starting point, rather than the starting point. I mean you won't find any peer reviewed papers describing double blind trials which showed a statistically significant improvement in health from use of parachutes as a supplement to aid egress from an aircraft. Nevertheless people still persist in using them.

But in answer to the OP.
Crisps.
Or maybe chocolate.
Actually, scrap that, they're staples.

No, definitely don't eat staples.

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I do take B12 and calcium but that's because I eat a 99% vegan diet and travel a lot which means not eating as well as I do at home.

some supplements are bad for you

Yes, I did read that, but it seemed to be large doses of specific vitamins - like loads of vit A for example (which we mostly knew) and vit E too which was at one point supposed to prevent cancer and now seems to cause it.

Multivitamins mostly have 1/2 to 1/10 of your RDA of things, with the higher doses reserved for the things that don't cause harm in large doese, so it seems to me that they've taken a very cautious approach in designing them.

I stopped taking them every day when I started the iDiet, since I found I was eating tons of veg and plenty of legumes and eggs, smashing my 5 a day. I only have them now when I've had a couple of days of not eating well. There does SEEM to be a slight improvement in the general 'meh' ness that otherwise accompanies such days. I'm also quite convinced that they make it easier for me to get up in the morning - possibly related.

Multivitamins mostly have 1/2 to 1/10 of your RDA of things

Happen to have a box of Boots "Complete Man" multivitamins on my desk (I was feeling a bit run down after doing some calorie restriction + exercise).

Pretty broad spectrum of dosages, but many are 100% RDA or more.

Ok well I was going from memory, on Centrum ones. What are the high and low doses, out of interest?

EDIT: interesting.. checked the Centrum site and some have way more than 100% for most things, and others not.. but the US and UK versions are different it seems, although the units are different so it's hard to tell exactly how much. I tend to buy big bottles of them from the US since they are way cheaper.

Had my vit D tested and it was 'very low'. Been taking a high dose supplement of 5,000iu for around 6 months, been tested again and now it's 'average'.

I ride all year. Go figure!

What are the high and low doses, out of interest?

Too many to be arsed typing out (amazingly they don't have it on their website), but a select few :

Highest:
455% Thiamin (Vit B1)
357% Riboflavin (Vit B2)
214% Vit B6
200% Vit B12
167% Vit E
150% Vit D

Lowest:
15% Calcium
16% Magnesium
25% Manganese
25% Iron

I ride all year. Go figure!

Wearing any suncream or sun-protective makeup?

Wearing any suncream or sun-protective makeup?

Nope.

I think it should be mandatory reading before anyone is allowed loose on the Internet unsupervised.

Great thread idea!

Flappyfoot: Is Ben Goldache a Daily Mail journalist?
Far from it, he's [s]a GP who spends his life debunking bad science, of which the Vitamin industry is a good example.[/s] actually a journalist for the Guardian these days.

Vastly different. 🙄
One who uses his medical qualification to add emphasis to his writing, but without working or having worked as a GP .
He also has a following that believes his book should be mandatory reading.

Vastly different.

But not mutually exclusive, non?

Other than pointing out what paper he works for, and rolling your digital eyes.

Do you disagree with anything Ben Goldacre says, and if so, why ?

But not mutually exclusive, non?

Agreed.
Even guardian journalists can have guest columns in other newspapers. Why not the daily mail?

Does it matter if Goldacre has worked as a GP or not?

Does it matter if Goldacre has worked as a GP or not?

I'm with jon on this one - 1/2 an Asprin a day for me whilst following a varied Vegetarian diet as i have done for 20+ years, The peer revieved medical evidence for taking Asprin daily is mounting up whilst the evidence for the effectiveness of vitamin/dietary supplements is sketchy and skewed heavily in favour to the drug companies.

Our dietary habits should be addressed and changed if necessary as a first point rather than attempt to cover up vitamin/mineral deficiency by use of little more than sugar pills - if vitamin pills worked as a means of delivery then we'd now be in a position to bypass the perceived hassle of preparing fresh food for consumption and swallow a few brightly covered pills instead - a perfect dystopian solution for our increasingly busy lives.

molgrips - Member

I stopped taking them every day when I started the iDiet, since I found I was eating tons of veg and plenty of legumes and eggs, smashing my 5 a day.

I always assumed the 5-a-day myth was more about fibre than vitamins.

I only have them now when I've had a couple of days of not eating well. There does SEEM to be a slight improvement in the general 'meh' ness that otherwise accompanies such days.

Regression to the mean. If you feel worse than normal for a few days, you will always feel better.

loum - Member

Does he refer to himself that way?
Seeing as a lot of his own writing is devoted to criticism of scientific inaccuracy in the mass media, with one of his most famous successes being the withdrawal of the use of the title "Dr" for the unqualified miss Gillian Mckeith, I'm sure he'd enjoy the irony in being termed a GP despite no experience of general practice.

I've got a copy of Bad Science in front of me and the 'about the author' bit says:

Ben Goldacre is a writer, broadcaster and doctor best known for the Bad Science column in the Guardian. Trained in Oxford and London, with brief forays into academia, he is thirty-four and works full-time for the NHS.

...attempt to cover up vitamin/mineral deficiency by use of little more than sugar pills - if vitamin pills worked as a means of delivery then we'd now be in a position to bypass the perceived hassle of preparing fresh food...

If vitamin supplements are purely sugar-pill placebos then why are they prescribed and used to treat genuine medical deficiencies?

Pills work as a delivery mechanism. Why wouldn't they?

They don't and can't replace food because they don't contain calories, carbohydrate, fat or protein.

if vitamin pills worked as a means of delivery then we'd now be in a position to bypass the perceived hassle of preparing fresh food for consumption and swallow a few brightly covered pills instead

They do work in general, so I've read. And the warnings are all about getting too much of a particular vitamin, so that would imply that they do actually get into your blood. Some don't work well in isolation though, there are many examples of certain nutrients only being absorbed and working in conjunction with others - read an article about that a while ago, may have been New Scientist. That's why they always recommend taking them with a meal.

In theory you could replace food with pills, but the range of nutrients is absolutely huge and hard to replicate. Multivitamins don't pretend to replace food of course, I imagine they'd be somewhat different if they did. Plus the market for food replacement paste would be fairly small, as we'd get fed up with eating it!

Incidentally, preparations must exist to replace food entirely, because they feed coma patients on it, and babies too.

the 5-a-day myth

How's the idea of 5-a-day a myth?

My company sponsored the GB sailing team - went to an interesting presentation from one of the team GB doctors. Apparently the only thing they make the athletes take is zinc (speeds up recovery from colds by 30%) and yakult twice a day (reduces colds by 50%). He said those were the only two things with any science to back them up.

molgrips - Member

How's the idea of 5-a-day a myth?

In Japan it is recommended you have 17-a-day, the World Cancer Research Fund say it should be 10, the Institute of Optimum Nutrition say 8.... (the latter are the focus of criticism in Bad Science btw).

It might not be a myth, but there doesnt appear to be consensus.

In Japan it is recommended you have 17-a-day

Really?? Bloody hell. Surely that can't be the same size of portions though??

I suspect eating 17 bananas a day, for example, would actually make you quite unwell.

It'd be 1530 calories for a start!

I suspect eating 17 bananas a day, for example, would actually make you quite unwell.

No, the recommended dose is [url= http://www.30bananasaday.com/ ]30 a day[/url]!

If you're a complete nutter, of course.

It might not be a myth, but there doesnt appear to be consensus.

If you are expecting it to be some kind of optimum prescription for invincibility, then you are right - different guidelines would reduce credibility.

However the message is 'eat plenty of fruit and veg' which isn't exactly controversial or difficult to accept, is it? 5 a day is just a token number so that people have an idea of what 'plenty' is. You know, the people* who'd whine 'well I've had some lettuce on my burger today so it's ok'

* before anyone accuses me of jeering at stereotypes, I did watch a tv programme where someone attempted to defend their meal choice via the lettuce in their big mac. They did realise fairly quickly how silly they were being mind.

From the FAQ on that 30BAD site:

[b]A. How do i know im not eating enough calories from fruit?[/b]
1. Cooked food starts to look and smell good.
2. Cooked food looks more than the toxic, second rate slop it really is.
..
10. Your so thin and weak that your athletic friends start to get concerned.

😯

I was just reading that too, Graham. It's rather forceful, which is worrying considering it's bolleaux

From the FAQ on that 30BAD site

The comments/replies to the articles are the real gold, though. It's like the Daily Mail comments section.

Hmm.. I never normally do this kind of thing but I am tempted to log on for a windup...

EDIT not tempted for long though... sheesh.