Follow-Up to the Vitamin Posts

If you've read, or heard the news, that multivitamins don't work, here's why.  They used Centrum Silver 50 Plus.  After reading the ingredients list, as well as the dosages of vitamins and minerals, I wouldn't take this multivitamin if you paid me to take it.  It has the very things you should avoid - artificial coloring (which contains aluminum), preservatives, talc, hydrogenated oil, synthetic vitamin E, etc.  Many of the minerals are in forms I would not prefer to take.

Here is a link to their page:  http://www.centrum.com/centrum-silver-adults-50-plus#tablets
Once on the page, click on:  ">Porduct Labeling" (just below the blue label).  Finally, here is a link to Orthomolecular News about the study with a few more reasons to take it seriously, and why not to take Centrum:  http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v09n31.shtml .

There are many choices for good vitamins.  Depending on your diet, age, health condition, other individual supplements you might take, if you take medications, and lifestyle, will determine the best one for you.  Always check with a healthcare provider (preferably someone who knows and understands supplements and diet, and possible interactions with drugs) before taking supplements.

I personally take a 6 a day multivitamin, but only take 2 instead of 6 because I take other supplements that would add to some of it's ingredients.

One last word about studies - when they want to discredit something, they'll do the study with a product that is most likely to show what they want, then generalize to all products in the same category, although the products are, in fact, very different.  If the news media had been honest in their reporting, they would have reported that Centrum Silver 50+ showed no cognitive benefits (but that would not have gotten the audience results the media want).

Whenever you read about a study (especially one that disagrees with the majority of previous studies), you need to dig in to the reasons - who did the study and who paid for it, was it flawed and in what way, who would benefit from it (money), etc.

With vitamins, supplements, nutrition, exercise, lifestyle, etc., remember it's your health that's at stake, and your health determines your happiness - so please do your research and stay healthy.

I think this will be the last word on this subject for a while.