Vitamin Question

[skybolt_1]

Question for all you health & medical people:

How much is too much when it comes to vitamins? I am currently taking 2 (CVS brand equivalent of) Centrum Performance pills per day, one at breakfast and one at lunch, with food.

Are there possible negative effects to this? Should I cut back to just one per day? I feel pretty good as things go, I havn't been sick in 6 months except for some food poisoning. After I got poisoned, I upped myself to 2 pills because I knew that all the lovely side effects to FP had drained my body of minerals and such... I am just wondering if I should continue it.

Any opinions would be welcome!

skybolt_1

[ooops]

Vitamins are best used as a "supplement".

If the directions say 2 a day with meals , then o.k.

BUT if you take extra your body will not benefit from the additional doses and possibly build up an immunity to the vitamin tablet and not be quite as effective.

And if you're a male , you need a daily vitamin without iron.
(unless you have conditions that require add'tl iron).

Females need add'tl iron.

Twinlab makes a real good One A Day with and without iron.

[skybolt_1]

You can build up an immunity to vitamins? I didn't know that.

Why shouldn't men take pills with iron?

[zen]

Your body will only use what it needs and will swiftly flush the rest out.

More than 1 a day of centrum is a waste of money.

[Prison Kids]

This might help.

[Pexster]

Centrum or it's equivalent certainly doesn't qualify as a high-dose vitamin. Compare the ingredients to any of a number of brands you'll find in a health food store, Trader Joes, Whole Foods, or the like. You'll see that Centrum has very little of anything, comparatively speaking.

Many experts agree that the gov't RDAs are absurdly low, and are at a level that might prevent sickness, but certainly not promote wellness.

If it was me, I'd throw them away and buy a better brand.

[Sweet]

Only the water soluable vitamins (B's,C) are flushed out of your system. The fat soluable vitamins (A,E,D) are stored in the body and can accumulate.

By doubling the recommended amount you may be getting excess fat soluable vitamins.

Also check to see which minerals are in the multivitamin. We all need a small amount of the various minerals. Typically female formulas contain extra iron (as mentioned above) and a male formulary has extra zinc.

You may want to look real close at all of the individual vitamins and see which ones give 100% RDA. If those are the fat-soluable vitamins, you may want to change your strategy. Instead of the second multi, you might want to think about something like a B-complex or Vit C. I am not prescribing, just suggesting....

There 'may' be some people at a good health food store that can give you better advice.

[Sweet]

By the way, just read Prison Kids article.... interesting....

[emcron]

Sweet is correct, the fact soluable will accumulate in your body and can even make you sick if you take to many. I dont know how much to many is though.

[Pexster]

The article that Prison Kids linked to makes no mention of how many is too many. The cautions in the article are directed at people who take dozens or hundreds of pills a day (yes, there are people who do that). But they only make that clear in one sentence. The headline and lead-in are misleading, IMO.