Vitamins "may shorten your life".

[Darryl Shaw]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7349980.stm

It looks like Hippocrates was right when he said "let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food" because if this report is to be believed vitamin pills might just be killing you.

[Mike ODonnell]

Like anything....more is not always better....and real foods always tend to have the right amount of vitamins....no use messing with a perfect design...even if it's in man's ego to try and outsmart nature....

[Garrett Smith]

I'd bet that none of the studies that were done looked at:

• Natural vitamin A from CLO (they likely used synthetic)
• Full spectrum mixed carotenoid supplement (they simply looked at isolated beta-carotene)
• Full spectrum mixed tocopherol and tocotrienol supplement, aka the real Vitamin E complex (they likely looked only at d-alpha-tocopherol)

The vitamins looked at in their analysis are ingested "out of context" and wholly "imbalanced" in their intake. It would be like someone doing only heavy squats as their workout (nothing else) and wondering why they were developing muscle imbalances and compensation patterns. We need a full spectrum of vitamins, a full spectrum of movement for true health.

I'm not surprised by their findings at all.

[Dave Van Skike]

Originally Posted by Garrett Smith

It would be like someone doing only heavy squats as their workout (nothing else) and wondering why they were developing muscle imbalances and compensation patterns.

Hmm. I'd could make a pretty strong case for doing just that.

[Garrett Smith]

Dave, I'm sure you could make a strong case. Strong cases have been made previously for the aforementioned vitamin supplements taken in isolated, non-physiological doses.

I likely picked the wrong exercise for my analogy, considering the crowd here. Heavy leg extensions--an unnatural isolation movement used in the wrong context--would have been a much better comparison to the vitamins in the above review. My bad.

[Dave Van Skike]

Better.

I should have offered my credentials as a metaphor consultant up front.

[Steven Low]

Just like megadosing doesn't work at all. Very poor absorption and imbalance of the ones absorbed anyway.

Only thing that works is... wow.. fruits and vegetables and other healthy food. Who would've thought.

"Antioxidants are not meant to be magic bullets and should not be expected to undo a lifetime of unhealthy habits," said Patrick Holford.

"But when used properly, in combination with eating a healthy diet full of fruit and vegetables, getting plenty of exercise and not smoking, antioxidant supplements can play an important role in maintaining and promoting overall health."

Is it the supplement anti-oxidants working? Or is it the actual antioxidants you get from eating said fruits and vegetables and not smoking.

[Michael Miller]

Anybody seen the new Mercola Multi? Looks like there are some mega doses in there (4 tablets 2 times per day) I was going to order some just to see if i could tell the difference in my usual New Chapter choices. I wouldn't think that there would be any adverse reactions being that everything is comming from a whole food source.
http://products.mercola.com/multivit...amin-label.htm

[Garrett Smith]

Michael,
What Mercola is offering there is not technically a "whole food based" multivitamin. It is a multivitamin in a "whole food base" of...

700 mg of a proprietary vegetable and fruit base

When the vitamins are listed with their "chemical" names, such as ascorbic acid for Vitamin C (it is only one part of the Vitamin C complex!) and no source, that means they are not whole food.

This is deceptive marketing. It is a good multi compared to most of the crap out there, but it is not a whole food vitamin/mineral like those from www.innateresponse.com and www.new-chapter.com .

[Tony Ferous]

I bet that Merocola dude must be seriously rich! $50 per month is pricey.
I used to take the life extention tabs, but only took 2 per day not 9, thus a really only a 'supplement'.

It looks ok though. Good forms and amounts of magnesium, usually multis are stuff with oxide crap.
Unusual for a multi to contain silica and strontium(he mentions these twice on the label, which isnt very impressive), they are both essential to human health though.

Too much niacin maybe. Iodine scarey me as i think i'll break out in acne. No Vitamin K.
Im always dubious of fruit/veg in multis - unless they are extracts or super concentrated somehow, what good will 700mg do me?

Krebs cycle minerals are good i think, id perfer it to specify cirate, malate etc though.