Whose still takin' multivitamins?

I go on and off of them. I just bought some today since the adult gummy version was on sale. 

Thing is- essential vitamins are just that.  nutrients that your body needs and the only way to get them is by eating them.

Problem with studies like the recent report, is that it's pretty uncontrolled as to what kind of vitamins the subjects were taking.  Anyone who took more than three supplement pills of any kind were categorized into taking multivitamins.  the other thing is, too much vitamin intake can also be deleterious and with certain nutrients, over supplementation is correlated with increased cancer rates.  So, those taking a simple multi, may be benefitting, and those taking 'too much' could be bringing down the average.

for instance:

If you're eating a handful of brazil nuts every day, and then taking a supplement that has 200mcg of selenium in it, you end up getting maybe 10 times the recommended dosage (70mcg/day)- and yes... that level IS correlated with increased cancer.  But- having low intake of selenium is also a problem.

the short answer is- it's personalized.  Know how you eat, know what you need, and supplement as necessary.  

Me- I get my vitamin D levels tested every year and I know I need to supplement them.

you got it.  I work at a health resort that has a lot of top notch docs and nutritionists.  they all came to the same conclusion.

from what I've seen regarding news media reports regarding supplements.  Whatever statement is made in the title of the media article... is often the opposite of what the study results determined.

My cardiologist has had me take Centrum Silver since my heart surgery 13 years ago, mostly as a precautionary measure.  Centrum Silver specifically not only due to my age, but because I'm on Coumadin/Warfarin and Silver has the lowest percentage of vitamin K, which counters the anti-coagulation effect of the Coumadin.

Mark 

I generally take a men's multi each day.  I know that something over 98% of it ends up in the Charles River within a day, but I never know HOW MUCH of the last 2% my body might use (or not).  As there are no studies showing a deleterious effect of a low dose multi (to my knowledge, but I admittedly haven't done a careful search of the literature), seems like a good hedge as the cost of a multi a day doesn't impact my life.

Of interest (well, at least a timely coincidence - not sure anyone is really interested, after all), I JUST stopped taking a calcium/D supplement - which I've been doing for a couple years (@ 1/2 the recommended dose daily).  Having just seen some papers on a possible negative effect (not sure if it's causitive or correlative), and given that I have a pretty good dairy intake with yogurt and cottage cheese and the like, I just decided to cut it out until the verdict is more clear.  

Seems lots of folks believe different things in this space - all good - and this is my approach.

Oh, and the Better Half brought home a couple bottles of fish oil caps (hey, it was buy one get one, and she loves a bargain!), so I'll take those until they're gone (at 1/3 the dose, or 1 pill daily) - not even sure why.    So much for science!  

Matt