Total Health Magazine

Solving the Mystery of the Multivitamin Part IV

This article is the fourth in the series that began with “Solving the Mystery of the Multivitamin.” The focus now shifts to reasons for taking a multivitamin/mineral as we enter the second half of life and, more importantly, the overall approach to nutrition that should inform any anti-aging program. Readers will discover that some, but not all of the gender-specific nutritional needs covered in earlier articles become less meaningful in later life. As individuals approach 60, overall physiology changes in ways that tend to lead to a convergence of nutritional requirements.

Solving the Mystery of the Multivitamin Part III

This article is the third in the series begun with “Solving the Mystery of the Multivitamin” and continued with “The Special Nutritional Needs of Women.” Here it is observed again you do not need to believe “men are from Mars, women are from Venus” in order to accept that men and women have different nutritional needs. Men lead in eight of the top ten causes of death in the United States. As it is often remarked, because men are more reluctant than women to seek medical care, when they do so, their illnesses typically have advanced to a more serious degree. It would seem that men, even more than women, would do well to adopt defensive measures to preserve their health. However, men should not depend on the supplements used by their wives or women friends. Some preventative measures are strictly gender-specific. The following suggestions are designed to help men take charge of their health while the ball is still in their court.

When it comes to nutrition, there is no one-size-fits-all. Almost 50 years ago, Roger Williams, a pioneer in the discovery of vitamins and their importance to health, pointed this out in his book, Biochemical Individuality. People are biochemically similar and different. Some individuals, even siblings, need five to ten times more of a given nutrient than do others. Many of us are familiar with this reality and expect differences in “condition specific” supplement formulations. In contrast, multivitamin-mineral supplements generally do not get as much scrutiny.

Taking Supplementation Seriously Part I:

There is an ongoing debate on whether dietary supplements deserve to be part of a health-promoting strategy. Several medical organizations do not advise routine supplementation for people, without underlying deficiencies, citing safety concerns or lack of clear evidence of benefits, and suggest that an adequate diet should be sufficient in obtaining proper nutrition. Prophylactic use of supplemental vitamins or minerals, like iron, has sparked controversy. On the other hand, there is a wealth of published, peer-reviewed scientific data that present strong correlations between adequate nutrient intake and lowered disease risk/incidence, as well as studies in which nutrient interventions demonstrated significant health benefits. Hyperbolic media reports that “resveratrol may make you live longer” or “multivitamins may cause prostate cancer” further complicate the dialog.

Taking Supplementation Seriously Part II:

Last month, we started a dialogue on whether supplementation is the appropriate course for insuring a nutritionally complete diet. We examined a very simple case, the multivitamin: a supplement designed to provide the base set of essential nutrients that are requisite for normal human metabolism. In response to the case against multivitamin usage (“proper diet alone should be adequate in providing essential nutrients”), we considered how 1) widespread deficiency of several nutrients in the U.S. diet, 2) the demonstrated reduction in nutrient availability in the modern food supply, and 3) the subclinical deficiencies in several nutrients that can result from caloric restriction and exercise, suggest that supplementation of essential nutrients may be warranted in some individuals. Here we expand the list of observations to consider when making the decision whether to include a multivitamin in your daily health regimen.

There is a vitamin revolution brewing, and it is important to the health of young and old alike as researchers respond to what has been called the “vitamin D deficiency epidemic.” More than a dozen scientists at leading universities both in the United States and abroad have minced no words about it: many of us need more vitamin D. (See “Cod liver oil, vitamin A toxicity, frequent respiratory infections, and the vitamin D deficiency epidemic.”)¹ The issue of deficiency may be especially true of children, yet it is also applicable to adults. Quite surprisingly as far as vitamin D is concerned, the suggested intakes in recent decades have fallen rather wide of the mark. Not only are the recommendations of 400 IU/day as an adequate intake (100 percent of U.S. Daily Value) and 2,000 IU/day as an upper limit too low, but also recommendations may have been more realistic 70 years ago. As detailed below, in a tale of two vitamins, A and D, scientists initially bet on the wrong one.