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Old 02-24-2009, 09:05 AM   #1 (permalink)
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Dietary supplements

Your experiences? Your thoughts?

I've only just recently began gathering info here, so these are novice observations. Hopefully an expert will chime in here.

I figured all vitamins were the same, but there seems to be a difference in liquid/natural vs solid (i.e. most multivitamins). Once I started taking vitamin Bs in liquid (from an energy drink called Socko) form I noticed a big jump in energy. I drink the sugarless/no caffeine ones so its not from what you might be thinking. Although, I suppose the herbs could be helping too. Anywho, I've read too though that liquid vitamins are much more readily absorbed.

I forget which two it is, vitamin D and E maybe, but overdosing on them is actually really bad. And most multis have like 250% of daily value in them.

GABA I've heard is really good for a ton of stuff, including sleep, and muscle growth. Just started trying it, we'll see how it goes.

Vitamin C in short periods of high dosage seems to help stave off colds...but its hard to say really as I don't catch them much in the first place. Anyone have any serious evidence one way or the other?

Soy lecithin is good, or maybe not. Recently read some stuff saying it can be quite bad for you.

Ecanasia is good in short periods only, if you take it constantly it will actually weaken your immune system.

Also, a lot of supplements do have side effects. So introduce them one at a time, to see how they make you feel. And be sure to give them sufficient time, at least 2 weeks.
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Old 02-24-2009, 09:43 AM   #2 (permalink)
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Vitamins fall into two categories--water-soluble and fat-soluble:

Vitamin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This chart provides some useful information about which is which, what the RDA is, and what is toxic.

Personally, I try to get all of my vitamins from my diet. New studies on vitamins show that when we take vitamins out of context (i.e. in supplements) they don't do quite what we thought they might do; the health benefits seem to come from eating whole foods.

Quote:
Well - Vitamin Pills - A False Hope? Ever since the Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Linus Pauling first promoted “megadoses” of essential nutrients 40 years ago, Americans have been devoted to their vitamins. Today about half of all adults use some form of dietary supplement, at a cost of $23 billion a year.

But are vitamins worth it? In the past few years, several high-quality studies have failed to show that extra vitamins, at least in pill form, help prevent chronic disease or prolong life.   click to show 
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/he...itamins&st=cse
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Old 02-24-2009, 10:07 AM   #3 (permalink)
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There is so much conflicting evidence of the effects of vitamin supplementation.

They key to it all is to go on what is considered "promising" evidence: that which has a larger body of studies that show mixed or beneficial outcomes.

One or two studies are often not enough to reach any reasonable conclusions.

Some vitamins have more studies done on them than others. For example, vitamin C has been studied for years. Whether it can fight or prevent colds is still inconclusive; however, it has been shown in more than one study that vitamin C in doses of around 500mg can prevent upper respiratory infections in athletes, who undergo a lot of stress while training. Vitamin C has also shown to reduce the excretion of cortisol (a stress hormone) in a number of people in doses of up to 1,000mg taken just before a stressful situation. There are other claims to what vitamin C can do, but there is too much conflicting evidence, and the studies continue.

Then you have vitamins D and E, which haven't had as many studies done on them. Recently, however, it has been discovered that higher doses of vitamin D (800mg/day I think) can have beneficial effects previously unseen. There have been problems with vitamin E supplementation, as some cases have found that it can cause cardiovascular problems in some people on medication...though there have been some conflicting results from other studies on this as well.

The bottom line is you need to look at reasonable sources for your recommendations on vitamin intake. People such as Dr. Andrew Weil have built careers on reading all of these studies and coming up with recommendations based on the summarization of all the information available to us. Vitamins and minerals from food are usually better, but it's not always feasible in certain situations. There are valid reasons why doctors give people vitamin B12 shots, for example.

I could go on, but I'll let the thread flush out some more first.
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Last edited by Baraka_Guru; 02-24-2009 at 10:10 AM..
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Old 02-26-2009, 02:18 PM   #4 (permalink)
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Good stuff! Keep it coming, please.
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Old 02-27-2009, 01:44 PM   #5 (permalink)
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Update on GABA. It definitely helps me sleep. though it's a bit harder to wake up in the morning. Hard to explain what it does...its just deeper sleep, I don't wake up from little noises kind of thing. Pretty cool, havent seen such a noticeable effect on a supplement since vit B. Can't wait to see if it helps me muscle up a bit.
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Old 02-28-2009, 02:07 PM   #6 (permalink)
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My friend swears by fish oil, for the brain and the liver.
and milk thistle. Though I am not sure why.....
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Old 02-28-2009, 07:23 PM   #7 (permalink)
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The supplement industry has a nice racket going. Eat crap, take a multivitamin, and it all balances out, right? Bioavailability of vitamin tablets is generally pretty low, and you should eat a balanced diet anyway for your health.

I take melatonin to help me sleep sometimes, but everything else strikes me as snake oil and miracle cures.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeraph View Post
Vitamin C in short periods of high dosage seems to help stave off colds...but its hard to say really as I don't catch them much in the first place. Anyone have any serious evidence one way or the other?
If you take much more than you need, your body doesn't use it and it gives you the shits.
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Old 03-01-2009, 12:47 AM   #8 (permalink)
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Try herbal supplements. Vitamin supplements don't do much for me for some reason, but herbal supplements have huge impact.

Good herbal supps I've used are:
- Goji (good for immune system)
- Bitter melon (controls glucose levels)
- Noni (good for hair, skin, and immune system)
- bee pollen (good for weight management, regulating appetite, skin problems, giving energy)


The goji, bitter melon, and bee pollen work within days while it takes a week or so for the noni to make any noticeable changes.
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Old 03-01-2009, 04:24 AM   #9 (permalink)
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A great place to consult on the efficacy of vitamins, supplements, and herbal remedies is the Mayo Clinic, one of the leading medical establishments in the world. They have reviewed the evidence of thousands of studies and have evaluated various supplements, giving each a grade of A through F based on the hard evidence of it's efficacy in doing what it's promoters say.

Just type in the supplement you are interested in and review their findings:

Saw palmetto (Serenoa repens [Bartram] Small) - MayoClinic.com
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Old 03-01-2009, 04:54 AM   #10 (permalink)
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I just take a good capsule form of multi from NSI along with fish oil, a probiotic, D drops and DHEA. Hopefully this all just supplements a good, organic diet and fills in where I might miss from day-to-day. I do increase my C when I feel a cold coming on.
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Old 03-01-2009, 07:24 PM   #11 (permalink)
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An article on the subject from one of my favorite blogs: Science-Based Medicine Another Negative Study of Vitamins

And I agree with what Snowy and others have said - best to get your vitamins from your diet. Supplements can help in certain circumstances, if you have a lack of a certain vitamin in your diet, or some medical condition.

Herbal supplements are 90% crap, and there isn't enough research for most of them to determine which is the crap and which isn't, though that's getting better. If an Herbal supplement *does* work, then they'll isolate the chemicals involved, put it out in purified form, and call it 'medicine'.
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Old 03-01-2009, 07:55 PM   #12 (permalink)
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My brother thought it would be swanky to take a handful of different vitamins and he'd suddenly be ultra-healthy. In reality they made him sick as a dog, blood pressure went through the roof. Eat right, and e-x-e-r-c-i-s-e.
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Old 03-02-2009, 11:21 PM   #13 (permalink)
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I can't talk about the validity of multivitamins, but I swear by my omega-3 flax oil supplements. I can concentrate far better after taking the supplements regularly - they remove a sort of mental cloud that has always haunted me since my middle school years.
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Old 03-12-2009, 01:13 PM   #14 (permalink)
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How much is a good amount of garlic to eat a day?

I just started eating it raw, whole cloves. One goes down easy, 2 on the other hand...It's actually surprisingly spicy raw. Kind of tasty, just don't eat more than one clove in a sitting.
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Old 03-12-2009, 05:15 PM   #15 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeraph View Post
How much is a good amount of garlic to eat a day?

I just started eating it raw, whole cloves. One goes down easy, 2 on the other hand...It's actually surprisingly spicy raw. Kind of tasty, just don't eat more than one clove in a sitting.
One per day, raw, is plenty. You want to be careful or you'll start smelling like the stuff.

Try to swallow them without chewing or biting. Cut the pieces up if you want and swallow it like pills. This will avoid garlic breath.

If you consume too much, the scent will ooze out your pores.

Garlic is quite good for you, as are onions, etc., for similar reasons.
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Old 03-12-2009, 10:52 PM   #16 (permalink)
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someone I once knew said that if a person smelled like garlic they must be having a good time. I have no idea what that means but it might help.
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