3 ms·
> The only way I could imagine they're useless is if the the vitamins themselves are structurally different and indigestible? Yes. It is what they are bound to
by SoSoRoCoCo 6y ago
> The only way I could imagine they're useless is if the the vitamins themselves are structurally different and indigestible?
Yes. It is what they are bound to and how they are prepared. The idea of "micronutrients" popped up during the mass production of food post-war--(think of all those cereals that were fortified, fortified because all the nutrients had been stripped out during manufacture!)--and went out of vogue in the 70's. This was the idea that you could reduce food (like a steak) to just a bunch of chemicals, eat those chemicals, and have the same outcome as eating a steak. We've learned a lot more. (That's a crass way to describe it, but close enough.)
I am treating bone loss and I take a prescription Vitamin D because the kind found in OTC single- or multivitamins are not biologically available due to their (inexpensive) preparations.
- Aardwolf 6y agoWhat's the reason why a well prepared one is prescription based and a useless one OTC?
- treeman79 6y ago1,000u daily pill vs 50,0000u Weekly Unlikely, but you can Overdose on it. I have a prescription for it. Still prefer daily pill.
- SoSoRoCoCo 6y agoI don't know, and I would like to.
- arcticbull 6y agoBear in mind that vitamins and supplements are not regulated by the FDA and manufacturers are largely left to their own devices, with vastly varying results. For instance, in magnesium supplementation, all sorts of different formations exist -- and they're not particularly well studied. Some of them are pretty much totally ineffective. Here's a good study demonstrating the variability in terms of bioavailability of magnesium from different formulations -- ranging from 0% to 100% of the magnesium contained in the pill actually accessible to the body. [1] For instance, Nature's Bounty comes out bottom of the pack, pretty much totally useless (19% bioavailable) [2], whereas Magnerot Classic [3] seems to be best in class (90% bioavailable) [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6683096/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6683096/ [2] https://www.amazon.com/Natures-Bounty-Magnesium-Supplement-Vegetarian/dp/B00H5PJ0HW https://www.amazon.com/Natures-Bounty-Magnesium-Supplement-V... [3] https://www.woerwagpharma.de/de/produkte/produkt/magnerot-classic-n https://www.woerwagpharma.de/de/produkte/produkt/magnerot-cl...
- PeterisP 6y agoThe argument probably is that in various populations certain vitamin deficiencies are so prevalent (e.g. vitamin D in African Americans) that you can pretty much assume that a random person is most likely to be deficient in one or more categories and would benefit from a supplement to fix that. Of course, that argument is valid only if the supplement would actually fix the prevalent deficiency, as you refer in your example about vitamin D.
- bamboozled 6y agoSo is the fact Sweden puts vitamin D in milk and other foods pointless then ?