Well, it has been a while since I have posted anything, and I must warn you now that this post is not one to get too excited about. On the other hand I do expect a plethora of comments.
For quite some time now, basically since I have been dating my wife, the two of us have had this mildly ongoing debate about taking multivitamins. I say it is a waste of money. She says it is not. I would like to hear from those in the audience what your thoughts are on a daily multivitamin and if your thoughts have any sources that you could cite.
8 comments:
Well, I got some free ones recently that made me feel no better or no worse.
However, about six years ago, I started taking Centrum (I think it was) and it gave me daily diarrhea. In my compulsion to remain - um - tidy, I got a little rambunctious with the clean up efforts and caused my fissures.
Stupid vitamins.
I'm not sure I've come across a definitive paper that's ever said whether vitamins are beneficial or not. It stands to reason, though, that with our unbalanced diets these days, we might be slightly deficient in a few nutrients.
Certainly, someone like your wife who's still of child-bearing age, should be on prenatal vitamins--there's no question that extra folic acid decreases the risk of neural tube defects, and there's some evidence to suggest PNV's might even lower the incidence of some pediatric cancers. But I'm not sure anyone can give similar science to say that vitamin supplements would help men.
I'd say, if you're healthy and on no other medications that would interact, taking a Centrum or a One-a-Day couldn't, and would probably fill in some minor nutritional holes that might occur eating in the fast-food nation we live in. I actually have a bottle of One-a-Day's on the kitchen counter (although I never remember to take it). Hyperdoses of vitamin A, D, E, and K (the fat-soluble ones) could get you into trouble, but you'll probably pee out the water-soluble ones if your body can't handle them. That being said, going overboard on any vitamin is dangerous, but getting just a little extra probably won't be harmful to you. And make sure you're buying from a reputable vitamin company--they're not regulated by the FDA, so they can essentially put and say whatever they want in those bottles.
Anywho, if you want the NIH consensus statement on the subject, go here: http://consensus.nih.gov/2006/2006MultivitaminMineralSOS028main.htm
My wife , who is a firm believer in all things herbal, swears by vitamins. She has attempted to get me to take a multivitamin for years now. The longest stretch I took them fairly consistently was 3 months, and I could feel a difference in both my energy level and general healthiness. But, as a sufferer of AADD, getting me to set anykind of routine is nearly impossible, and I forgot about taking them and haven't for a long time, and now I wonder if I remember it correctly at all. Was it the vitamins, or did I make another change in conjunction with the vitamins that made the difference? Don't know, and I'll forget I was even thinking about it in another 5 minutes. But my wife says "Yes, take them." Wives seem to know what they are saying. Well most anyways.
The message from my upbringing would concur with most of what Swany said with the added caveat - if you want to waste your money (for the most part) go ahead. That doesn't prevent me from stopping my wife from buying whatever she thinks may make her feel better. I take a low dose asprin everyday and eat berries... everyone has their routine.
What's with the people who wake up and drink their own pee every morning? Have you guys heard about that?
Scratch, I gotta hand it to ya'. Allowing your wife to buy whatever she thinks may make her feel better is a great accomplishment that I have not mastered yet. Thanks Doc Swany for the info, it both confirms and refutes some of my thoughts. Oddly enough my knowledge in this area is based primarily off of a conversation I had with Scratch's dad about vitamins and how he thought they were a waste of money. I would seem to think this would be the case for me considering that my wife not only wants me to take a vitamin but she makes me eat a pretty healthy diet that consists of a lot of organic foods.
Drinking pee? Hmmmmmm, I will have to read some more of my survival book before I definitively say that I wouldn't ever do such a thing. I have heard that it is really sterile and good for cleaning wounds in the wild, but in civilization I guess if you pee most of your vitamins out then why not recycle?
Because it's pee, man.
Urine is normally sterile--otherwise, we'd all be complaining about bladder infections all the time. So I imagine it's fine to drink, and could be better to use for washing wounds in the wild instead of some polluted stream water. But like Firecracker George said, IT'S PEE!
As far as the vitamins and organic food, my advice would be if you're not hurting for money, do what your wife tells you to do. Isn't that what we're all supposed to do to stay out of the doghouse anyway?
Besides, although I've never met your wife in person, she looks to be pretty fit in the rare picture I've seen. Considering you look pretty fit yourself, and the both of you have run the Bolder Boulder and crazy-ass things like that, who am I, with my aching sciatica and expanding waist line, to tell her she's wrong. You guys must be doing something right.
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