I’ve gone back and forth on taking a multivitamin since I know my diet isn’t all that great. Ideally I should be working to improve that diet but let’s say due to certain circumstances that’s a bit difficult at the moment.
Would it be worth taking a 1 a day multivitamin to at least correct some possible deficiency or is it very unlikely that it would have any effect?
Not asking for professional medical advice or anything, mostly looking to see if anyone else is taking a multivitamin and if so why?
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I’ve wondered the same.
I have a poor diet. There are times where I don’t eat enough, and when I do eat it’s often very… not varied.
I know people always say you don’t need vitamins if you just eat better, or that you can just ask your doctor - but my answer to those are “I don’t want to” and “I can’t afford to”, respectively.
Are vitamins a better-safe-than-sorry option if your diet is probably insufficiently varied to give you everything you need, and you have no strong desire to change that, but you have no way of actually figuring out what’s low or not? Or even then are they probably a waste of money?
I take it when i have some symptoms of vitamin deficiency like if you’re sitting in one place and get up and you feel some weird sensation in the legs or hands. Like hundreds of ants running inside the veins. Or when I forget to drink water and get dehydrated and the body loses vitamins. I usually don’t take such meds.
A nutritionist friend of mine was big on diet but she wasn’t necessarily anti-vitamin pills. She said they can be an “insurance policy” against gross deficiencies in your diet that you’re not aware of or which happen because you’re not getting your diet right for whatever reason.
They’re not a substitute for eating right but they can be a good alternative to nutrient deficiencies.
That’s how I view them. It’s a supplement, to ya know, supplement your diet in case you missed any vital nutrients.
You just pee out the excess anyways just don’t go overboard. Looking at you B vitamins…
It couldn’t hurt. But most medical professionals I know don’t recommend it.
If you want to get a multivitamin that’s more bioavailable, consider eating an egg a day, or liver. These are some of the most available multivitamin sources in nature
One liver a day, got it!
With some fava beans and a nice bottle of Chianti
happy Hannibal noises
Make sure it’s a polar bear liver (don’t do this).
don’t do this
i don’t think anyone was planning to travel to the artic circle to hunt a polar bear, and eat the liver, after reading the first half of your comment
Oh yeah? Prove it
Speak for yourself! I was half-way out the door with my snow boots and plane tickets in hand.
I’ve seen rich people do worse.
Blended
Liver shake! Liver shake! Liver shake!
yeah but I know my diet is shit and I’m definitely not going to eat those things daily, so I think a multivitamin helps me at that point lol
You definitely can’t eat a single egg daily? It takes 5 minutes maybe to cook and eat a single egg, unless you have an allergy to eggs it’s pretty hard to say you can’t do it
Considering I don’t like eggs, no I can’t. Eggs are gross. I continue to take a prenatal vitamin because something about it prevents my headaches. My doctor theorized it’s the calcium and magnesium, but taking those separately doesn’t help. Maybe it’s the dosage in the prenatal or something else in deficienct in, but it really helps me.
Just wanna scoot in here and mention that yes, it can be very difficult for some people to do very mundane tasks, such as cooking an egg. Trust me, I know how depression fucks with your system and it indeed sometimes makes you incapable of spending five minutes on boiling an egg :(
You don’t have to boil it and wait for that, put a pan over heat and crack an egg into it. If depression stops you from doing that then your depression will starve you
Yes, depression can starve you. When I was depressed I couldn’t keep pans clean, never mind crack an egg and stand by the stove whilst it cooked.
People who haven’t been through it don’t seem to understand it. When my depression was really bad I lost 60 lbs in a few months and couldn’t gain any back for 2 years. Even grabbing a premade salad out of the fridge or putting a microwave meal in the microwave was too much work.
Yeah it’s maybe hard to imagine what it feels like if you don’t know. I couldn’t brush my hair for weeks at a time, it was so much effort.
As a side note, it feels weird to reflect on that time now, like looking at a different person. If anyone suffering with depression is reading this now, just know that it can pass.
I’d be lying if I said I put that much effort in daily
My dude you heat a pan and crack an egg, it’s the easiest way to feed yourself there is. Even getting fast food is more effort unless you doordash every single meal, I fear for your wallet if so
An egg a day instead of a multi-vitamin? And then you get high cholesterol.
You’re not going to have a cholesterol problem from a single egg per day, the rest of your diet being shite will cause that
You can hard boil a bunch of eggs at once, then keep them in the fridge for a daily pick me up
Yea it takes maybe half an hour to do a half dozen hard boiled eggs on your day off.
Depends on how significant the deficiency is. If it’s pretty bad, you would probably be better off taking supplements of just that thing along with the daily multi. Or even changing your diet if it’s really extreme or caused by how you eat (like a vitamin d deficiency from not eating greens, going outside or drinking milk).
I have created a handy chart to follow
Did your doctor recommend you take supplements?
If yes
Take those specific supplements
If no
You do not need to take supplements
Best guide I’ve seen. saved!
To add to this, you really need a blood test to show what you need. Some docs will talk out their ass about dieting (this is rare, but it happens). Always get bloodwork to confirm.
Also, some vitamins are water soluble, others need to be taken with food. Your doc should know though
I’m a vegetarian and people assume I need B12, but my bloodwork shows I’m fine. I did need some D though, since apparently hiding inside for 3 years during a pandemic can impact your body… who would’ve guessed??
I’m a vegetarian, have gained weight but not to the point that it would explain why I feel like ass all the time recently. I should get blood work, I was thinking I had low testosterone or something but it could be anything really
Low iron is a common one iirc.
This is why I take a multivitamin. I deal with low iron and it helps a bit. Gotta be careful thought if you do have an iron deficiency since many multivitamins don’t have iron. I could just take iron supplements but my doctor agreed that it was a good idea to just go with a multivitamin.
Weight gain and low testosterone display similar symptoms but may not be related. (Fatigue and such) Check with a doc for sure.
I did need some D though, since apparently hiding inside for 3 years during a pandemic can impact your body… who would’ve guessed??
D3 you smartass
I set myself up for that one though, huh?
which more than can be said about Giant Floppy there… he can’t get up. #bigdickproblems
Yes you did 😏
¿Por qué no los dos?
Heavily relatable ngl
I’m always happy to share some D with those in need.
Vitamin D deficiency is incredibly common. I think it’s something like 1/3 or 1/4 depending on the season or where you live.
Of course, if you’re a member of the red haired master race, your body produces it for you so it’s less likely.
If you can’t make your own, store bought is fine.
Vitamin D deficiency was also shown to be a co-morbidity with COVID. So to answer the question “do multivitamins do anything?” I’d say they could potentially have saved your life and you might not have noticed.
Before COVID, my wife nagged me into establishing a primary care physician since I hadn’t gone in a while. So I did, they did a blood test, and showed that I was vitamin D deficient. I took some prescription vitamin D for like a week then my doctor told me to start taking a multivitamin. When they later announced it being a co-morbidity, I felt like I dodged a bullet.
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A woman at work gave us all big bottles of vit D during the pandemic. I think it should last me until 2045.
And if I don’t own a doctor?
Do you live in the God Forsaken northern lands? If so, vitamins can be beneficial during your Hellish Winters that humans are not supposed to inhabit. Migrate to sunnier climes.
I prefer defying whatever gods exist by living in darkness and cold. Sunlight causes skin damage, I’d prefer getting by with vitamin D supplements.
It’s generally not micronutrients like vitamins that are problematic for people with bad diets, it’s macronutrients that cause problems, and those can’t be fixed with supplements.
It’s pretty unlikely you’re going to notice much of anything from taking multivitamins, most likely you’re going to be paying a bunch to be pissing it right back out, but if you can trivially afford it then just buy a small pack and see if taking it makes you feel better.
Do buy the cheapest most generic one though, no reason to pay extra for fancy packaging.
For those of us without an account with the atlantic, what’s the deal?
A multivitamin is not bad, but different vitamins need different other substances to be available for the body. Eg. some are soluble in water (like the B group) some, like vitamin D need fat to be solved in (and it’s good to acompany it with vitamin K to make D work as intended). Be careful with vitamin A - people in developed countries usually have too much and it can cause serious problems. It’s generally good to know what you’re taking and why. But if you just need a quick fix, a multivitamin is usually ok.
I think this is the best take. OP, multivitamins do work. Of course you need to fix your diet, of course it’s better to ingest the vitamin with the food so it can be absorbed better. Of course you should talk to a doctor. But if you have a deficiency of an important vitamin such as C or D, you will notice the difference.
Regarding overdoses, it is almost impossible to hurt yourself by taking a typical OTC multivitamin pill.
Consider some specific foods which give you a boost of the vitamin, such as canned tuna for Omega-3, Brazil nuts for selenium, etc.
But, at the end of the day, the general recommendation is that multivitamins are safe and pretty decent. I wouldn’t recommend any drug to a random person on the internet but multivitamins are fine.
Source: my wife is a nutritionist and we do talk about this a lot. I have a great diet but do take vitamins regularly as a complement or when I’m sick.
I look at them the way Voltaire looked at going to church. To paraphrase (going from memory here), “If heaven exists then by going to church every Sunday I’ve saved my soul, if it doesn’t then I’ve only lost a few hours every Sunday.” Multivitamins are cheap enough that I can take them on a “just in case” condition.
This is not a good way to deal with anything.
Think of them like a seatbelt then. I have no intentions of benefitting from a seatbelt and over several decades of driving, I haven’t had any use for one. I’m still going to wear it “just in case”
This is simple (opportunity) cost/benefit analysis and is an excellent way of dealing with most things.
One thing a doc told me is that your body can only absorb so much. Some people go so crazy on certain supplements that they end up blocking the body’s ability to absorb other essential nutrients.
If you want to supplement, a single multi each day isn’t going to be a massive game changer, unless you’re already missing something.
It’s like when you have a Berocca and your wee is a luminous yellow for your next few trips because your body can’t absorb all of the extra vitamins isn’t it?
That’s part of it, ig. But there was this one study where they gave people shit tons of one vitamin and they just started dying because they weren’t getting anything else they needed. Sounded intense.
I’m sceptical. That would be an extremely unethical test. And it would only prove that too much of something can kill you. Did you know that people can even die from drinking too much water?
This was a study of a specific disease that caused a specific deficit in one vitamin. They tried hyper-dosing people to treat it and had to stop the study because they died.
Can’t remember which disease it was
Multivitamins are pretty much like the train to Hogwarts. They only work if you believe they work!
Yes, they do. They improve the profits of some companies.
Is “moving money” = “doing a thing”? :-)
