As many persons do.chroot said:$0. I do spend a lot on fruit and veggies, though.
Did you rule out somatization disorder?Monique said:I once took vitamin supplements, but those things actually make me feel sick.
Then the most that can be said is that one or more components limited to those in the supplement you took made you sick. What was the supplement that you took?Monique said:I'm quite sure there is some component in there that I have a sensitivity to.
Those make me sick (mildly nauseous) too. I used to take them when I was a student and didn't think dining hall food was very nutritionally complete, and it took me a long time to realize it was the vitamin making me nauseous (I attributed it to stress, the dining hall food, lack of sleep, etc., and it wasn't until I stopped feeling sick when I ran out of vitamins and didn't have time to buy more for about a week that I realized what was causing the sick feeling).Monique said:Multivitamin (13) / multimineral (18), with all vitamins at 100% daily advised dose.
Except for some fat-soluble vitamins, 100% RDA is an extremely low dose. (And maybe you meant the RDA in Holland, which might be quite different from the USRDA.) If your supplement had only 100% RDA, that tells me you probably got it from a supermarket or "drug store."with all vitamins at 100% daily advised dose
They have expiration dates on them, so they haven't been sitting around for years if they are nowhere near the expiration date. If the vitamin is labeled for storage at room temperature, then the expiration date needs to be based on that storage temperature.hitssquad said:[*]Supermarkets and "drug stores" tend to sell extremely cheap supplements, some of which have been sitting around in storage in sub-optimal conditions for years. If you let B vitamins sit around at room temperature, they can go bad.[/list]
If you're truly using it as a supplement to and not a substitute for a reasonably balanced diet, there's no need to exceed 100% RDA. Indeed, with some vitamins, you wouldn't want to exceed the RDA.Except for some fat-soluble vitamins, 100% RDA is an extremely low dose. (And maybe you meant the RDA in Holland, which might be quite different from the USRDA.) If your supplement had only 100% RDA, that tells me you probably got it from a supermarket or "drug store."
No, it's not a cheap supermarket supplement. The name is Centrum http://www.centrumvitamine.nl/, a trusted brand.hitssquad said:I meant the exact supplement, by name.
Centrum is a famous supermarket/"drug store" brand. It is not carried by any reputable supplement retailers and there do not seem to be any life-extensionists who trust it or think it is a quality brand.Monique said:No, it's not a cheap supermarket supplement. The name is Centrum http://www.centrumvitamine.nl/, a trusted brand.
And why should we believe these life-extensionists? I read through a bunch of their threads, and they seem to be just a bunch of people sold on the hype of their own brands and who seem to believe they need to take high doses of vitamins to be healthy. No, Centrum is not providing huge mega-doses of vitamins, it's just intended to supplement, not replace your food.hitssquad said:Centrum is a famous supermarket/"drug store" brand. It is not carried by any reputable supplement retailers and there do not seem to be any life-extensionists who trust it or think it is a quality brand.
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sci.life-extension/search?q=centrum
Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2004;13(3):222-5.
Search for the most complete multivitamin.
Furlong VE, Truswell AS.
The group descriptor "multivitamin" doesn't guarantee that all vitamins are included in the product or that they are present in proportion to nutritional requirements. In fact the great majority of multivitamin preparations do not contain all the 13 established vitamins. We have reviewed the stated composition of all vitamin products registered with the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration. All containing fewer than five vitamins were excluded and so were those containing non-culinary herbs or amino acids, or intended only for export, or designed for children and pregnancy or in the form of powder and injections. 163 multivitamins were left for scoring. One point was awarded for each vitamin but a point was deducted if the amount was below or clearly above the Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI). We found two multivitamin preparations containing 13 vitamins at levels close to the RDIs: Centrum Complete (our score 11) and Centrum Select 50+ (score 10); five multivitamins containing 12 vitamins: the best Avon Women's Complete (score 12) and Pluravit (score 10). Others contain fewer vitamins (or scored less than 10). Centrum and Pluravit are available at major outlets and their cost is moderate. We recommend that these most complete multivitamins should be clearly listed in MIMS and dispensed in public hospitals when " Rx multivitamins" is prescribed. People who take a multivitamin supplement to insure that they obtain their vitamin requirements would be best to ask for a multivitamin that contains all (or nearly all) the 13 true vitamins.
Pediatrics. 2004 Jul;114(1):27-32.
Early infant multivitamin supplementation is associated with increased risk for food allergy and asthma.
Milner JD, Stein DM, McCarter R, Moon RY.
OBJECTIVE: Dietary vitamins have potent immunomodulating effects in vitro. Individual vitamins have been shown to skew T cells toward either T-helper 1 or T-helper 2 phenotypic classes, suggesting that they may participate in inflammatory or allergic disease. With the exception of antioxidant protection, there has been little study on the effect of early vitamin supplementation on the subsequent risk for asthma and allergic disease. The objective of this study was to determine whether early vitamin supplementation during infancy affects the risk for asthma and allergic disease during early childhood. METHODS: Cohort data were analyzed from the National Center for Health Statistics 1988 National Maternal-Infant Health Survey, which followed pregnant women and their newborns, and the 1991 Longitudinal Follow-up of the same patients, which measured health and disease outcomes. Patients were stratified by race and breastfeeding status. Factors that are known to be associated with alteration of risk for asthma or food allergies were identified using univariate logistic regression. Those factors were then analyzed in multivariate logistic regression models. Early vitamin supplementation was defined as vitamin use within the first 6 months. RESULTS: There were >8000 total patients in the study. The overall incidence of asthma was 10.5% and of food allergy was 4.9%. In univariate analysis, male gender, smoker in the household, child care, prematurity (<37 weeks), being black, no history of breastfeeding, lower income, and lower education were associated with higher risk for asthma. Child care, higher levels of education, income, and history of breastfeeding were associated with a higher risk for food allergies. In multivariate logistic analyses, a history of vitamin use within the first 6 months of life was associated with a higher risk for asthma in black infants (odds ratio [OR]: 1.27; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.04-1.56). Early vitamin use was also associated with a higher risk for food allergies in the exclusively formula-fed population (OR: 1.63; 95% CI: 1.21-2.20). Vitamin use at 3 years of age was associated with increased risk for food allergies but not asthma in both breastfed (OR: 1.62; 95% CI: 1.19-2.21) and exclusively formula-fed infants (OR: 1.39; 95% CI: 1.03-1.88). CONCLUSIONS: Early vitamin supplementation is associated with increased risk for asthma in black children and food allergies in exclusively formula-fed children. Additional study is warranted to examine which components most strongly contribute to this risk.
Journal of the American Dietetic Association
103: 1185-1187, 2003
Vitamin A in dietary supplements and fortified foods: Too much of a good thing?*1
Kristina L. Penniston MS, RD*, , , Sherry A. Tanumihardjo PhD
Abstract
Vitamin A consumption by many Americans is quite high, in part because of the consumption of fortified foods and the use of vitamin supplements. Most multivitamin supplements provide two or more times the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for vitamin A because the daily value (DV) is based on 1968 and not current RDAs. Consumption of just one multivitamin often provides excessive vitamin A, the majority of it as preformed vitamin A esters. Given recent epidemiologic evidence that suggests a link between chronic intakes of vitamin A that exceed the RDA and hip fractures, it may be time to reexamine food and supplement fortification policies and to discontinue the clinical practice of prescribing two multivitamins to the elderly and other patients whose needs for certain micronutrients are high.
Recent epidemiologic studies 1, 2, 3 suggest an increase in the incidence of hip fracture with intakes of 1,500 to 2,000 mg of retinol per day, which is approximately twice the current recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for adults 4 . Although more research is clearly needed to understand the temporality, influence of genetics, and mechanisms of action of retinol on bone, the data thus far seem compelling. It may be time to question food fortification with vitamin A and the safety and efficacy of the clinical practice of prescribing two daily multivitamins for certain patient populations (eg, elderly, HIV [human immunodeficiency virus]-positive, postgastric bypass) whose needs for selected micronutrients may be high. Geriatric and other medical practitioners may, for example, prescribe two multivitamins daily to their elderly patients whose vitamin D needs are not being met through dietary intake and/or skin synthesis. A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, referenced widely on Web sites and in advertisements by vitamin supplement manufacturers, advocates that all adults should take a multivitamin daily and cautiously supports a dose of two daily multivitamins for the elderly, noting the high prevalence of low vitamin B12 and vitamin D intake 5 . Individuals, especially those taking more than one multivitamin per day, may be at an unappreciated greater risk for hypervitaminosis A given that the current daily value (DV) for vitamin A is 5,000 IU (1,500 mg) because it is based on the higher 1968 and not the current RDAs 6, 7 . DV is a standardized term that appears on food and nutrition supplement labels and was designed to help consumers gauge whether a product contains “a lot or a little of a specific nutrient” 6 .
1. Recommendations and intake
In lowering the RDAs for vitamin A in 2001 4 , the Institute of Medicine moved the US recommendations closer to those of other nations. - Table: [ 1] provides the current vitamin A RDAs and tolerable upper intake levels (ULs) by life stage group. There is a disconnect, however, between the RDA and the DV as shown on food labels. Consumers and health practitioners alike may be confused by what, in actuality, are conflicting recommendations. The consumer who measures his or her daily intake of vitamin A by the percent DV appearing on food labels could easily consume more than the RDA and possibly come close to the UL. The UL for vitamin A is 3,000 mg (10,000 IU)/day for adults and less than that for children. (Refer to - Table: [ 1] for the specific ULs for vitamin A by age and gender.) The ingestion of preformed vitamin A beyond recommended levels may be especially common with the routine ingestion of a multivitamin and other dietary supplements, a practice that approximately 50% of the US population follows, with higher percentages of intake among certain subpopulations 8, 9, 10 . Although some major vitamin manufacturers now provide 20% to 25% of the vitamin A as beta carotene, a provitamin A carotenoid from which there is little risk of toxicity, preformed vitamin A (usually as retinyl acetate or palmitate) predominates. An individual who consumes even one multivitamin per day in addition to consuming foods fortified with preformed vitamin A will easily exceed 1,500 mg per day. Using commonly consumed foods, - Table: [ 2] illustrates the ease with which a high amount of vitamin A may be obtained. The 2,520 mg of vitamin A shown in the table as the daily total would exceed 4,000 mg if two multivitamins were figured into the calculations.
Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin (and 5,000 IU of vitamin A is 1,500 mcg (1.5 mg), not 1,500 mg).Moonbear said:Some more: [Consumption of just one multivitamin often provides excessive vitamin A]hitssquad said:Except for some fat-soluble vitamins, 100% RDA is an extremely low dose.
That depends upon what the nutritional goal is, and upon what is classified as food and what is classified as supplement. If the goal is to prevent or reverse Beriberi, that can be accomplished while ingesting only a fraction of the daily value (DV) of thiamine. If the goal, instead, is the optimum compromise of high-functioning and low-rate-of-senescence in today's food-drug-and-supplement environment, that cannot be accomplished while abstaining from supplements.Moonbear said:If you're truly using it as a supplement to and not a substitute for a reasonably balanced diet, there's no need to exceed 100% RDA.
