What's your supplement IQ?

I take a variety of supplements and multivitamins. I find that most brands of multivitamins contain some items which I find of questionable benefit (I am big on proper clinical studies), and every one that I have ever looked at have things at doses much higher than needed for healthy individuals. I am especially leery that they have high doses of the fat soluble vitamins (A,D,E,K) in the stress and anti-oxidant formulas. I will alternate between a regular multivitamin and other formulations when I am ill, or stressing my system by not getting enough sleep.

Not sure what can be done to better educate the masses, but I would like to see more clinical trial data disseminated in an objective fashion. Unfortunately most people get their information from journalists/news sources who sensationalize things and will either be overly enthusiastic about something or paint a picture of doom and gloom toxicity.

I take a whole food supplement. There are very big differences in vitamins, they are not all created equally and some can even cause more harm than good.

I take them because I know my diet is not going to give me everything I need to stay healthy, how can it when our food is not as nutritious as it should be? I also take them for preventive, not a cure.

We need to work on fixing the confusion about food before we can expect people to understand the benefits of supplements. People need more info about safe supplements. Supplements can be used in a holistic fashion if it's a whole food. Synthetic ingredients are harmful, not healthful.

I don't put a lot into clinical studies because we don't know the whole story. Studies have been done on vitamins with negative results but we were not told by media that the studies were done using synthetic vitamins. I'm still waiting for studies done using a whole food supplement without additives, synthetics, fillers, added sugar, etc.

Reading ingredients on supplements is not rocket science. If there's not a real food source listed with the vitamin, like vitamin C from camu camu fruit, it's synthetic.

Vitamins are needed in small amounts to promote good health. As with anything, excess of vitamins can lead to serious consequences. Deficiencies can also lead to health disorders. The RDA establishes how much we need of each vitamin. I follow those guidelines when choosing a vitamin supplement. I am careful to choose a good manufacturer, a GMP-certified product and one that gives maximum absorption of nutrients, like MultiVescence, which is an effervescent vitamin supplement. It contains selenium, magnesium, calcium, potassium, and zinc. It also contains L-Glutamine and bioflavonoids for immune support; CoQ10 for maintaining heart health. I think there is confusion because there is such conflicting information so freely available all over the Internet. I usually rely on credible sites like Harvard, the MayoClinic, etc.