Nutritional supplements: C/D

I've taken all kinds of supplements. Creatine, HMB, multi-vitamins, St. John wort, ma huang... don't know if any of it did any good but when I did at least I felt I had to hit the gym and do a lot of running to make the supplementation work.
I still sometime take green tea pills but that's just to load up the daily caffeine doseage since 5 cups of coffe, 3 diet cokes and 2 Red Bulls a day just doesn't cut it anymore.

my mom [rightfully] tried to get me to gain weight by force-feeding me ginseng tea. not that sweet-processed ginseng tea you can get in bottles at the market - i mean like real asian ginseng tea. i'm not sure what exactly it does, but i ended up gaining a few pounds and i felt a lot healthier. but boy is it nasty. go to your local chinatown and get some ginseng root and boil it in water until the smell is almost unbearable. add some sugar or honey, hold your nose, and down it.

also, its supposed to cure everything from leprosy to the bubonic plague. and increase your virility, in case you need it.

My mom gave me St. John's Wort to improve my mood but it only made me frustrated.

I was reading in The Guardian about a book that explained that natural substances and chemicals were good for you because the molecules were irregularly shaped, like the ones in your body, whereas manufactured substances/chemicals were perfect spheres. So bottled vitamins are therefore bad for you. Proven by science.

So you can buy "whole food supplements" and spend inordinate amounts of money. Or...not.

There's been a recent article in the New York Times health section about vitamins and studies they've done--apparently there isn't scientific proof of the efficacy of large doses of any vitamin, and vitamin A can increase the brittleness of bones over time when taken in large amounts. But vitamin A (like A,D,E, and K) is fat soluable, so it's much more likely to be stored unnecessarily. Water soluable vitamins like the B vitamins (important for energy) will be readily excreted if they're not needed. The NYT article is quick to reference studies that say stuff like "High doses of vitamin E do shit all for heart disease!". Those studies, however, are based on supplementation. It's possible that in nature, vit. E is acting synergistically with other naturally occuring substances in a heart-protective capacity. They may not have the nutritional knowledge yet to understand other substances that could be involved.

If you eat a well balanced diet, which I suspect you do, multivitamins are probably not so necessary. When eating a healthy diet, with lots of fruits and veggies etc, you'll be getting a full range of vitamins, as well as various beneficial compounds/nutrients that nutritional sci doesn't know about or hasn't put in encapsulated form yet. Stuff like anthocyanins in blueberries which have been found to protect and help repair the nervous system. There's some compound in walnuts that seems very promising to help energy and such--I keep meaning to look into that.

In terms of gaining weight, I was using soy powder (the plain generic stuff is much much cheaper than protein shakes...go to Trader Joe's and compare). You can just keep adding ingredients (yogurt, soy powder, bananas, berries, milk...) in smoothies and they're high in calories before you know it. I was really underweight this winter due to health stuff and found smoothies and lotsa unsaturated fats (peanut butter! trail mix!) to be a good way to make sure I was getting plenty of calories while still eating healthy food.

I know lots and lots about herbs due to trying/researching all sorts of stuff like that, but I will stop now.

You're all sexy when you talk scientific, Julia. :p

I take a multivitamin everyday, regardless of whether it's doing anything for me, just because it gives me some comfort. I do take a whole bunch of garlic tablets everyday (and eat a fair bit of it), and it (I believe, along with more regular exercise) has stabilized my cholesterol levels, which were in danger of exceeding the "normal" range. I used to take lecithin and ginseng as well, and I think I'm going to get some after work today. Some people swear by apple cider vinegar capsules. Has anyone tried them?

I am not a doctor, but I've worked with many medical texts:

1) A deficiency of supplement X may harm Y organ or body system, but a surplus of X almost always does not help Y.

2) The "expensive pee" argument against supplementation is mostly true, although people who take vitamin or mineral megadoses do run the risk of accumlating enough in their bodies to cause problems. That said, I also take a daily multivitamin.

3) When it comes to supplements, "natural" versus "artificial" doesn't mean anything. Even if it comes from a natural source, the isolation process renders it bioequivalent to the synthesized form. Martin, I hope that Observer review gave that book a big thumbs down.

4) As for vitamins in food, yes, their effect almost certainly is modified by bioflavinoids and other components.

As far as nutrition combined with exercise goes its a good idea to have eaten within a couple hours before you start, if you're doing something strenuous eat or drink something with some calories every 45 minutes or so during, and definitely eat something within 30 minutes after you're done. Your body is supposedly more receptive to absorbing stuff shortly after exercise, so you will recover better.

The rule of thumb is carbs before, carbs during, and protein/carbs after. You do not want to drink something that has a lot of protein in it during exercise, it'll be difficult to digest.

The only real reason to use a supplement like a protein shake is convenience. My favorite recovery meal is a bagel with peanut butter and a glass of milk.

I bought a couple of those weird meal-replacement drinks today because I've had a gross intestinal bug all weekend & I don't think I'm ready to eat anything too solid yet. I'm kind of scared to drink them, though.

One of the benefits of living in a developed country where the average wage is above $20000 a year, as opposed to a poor country where most folks get by on less than $1000 a year, is the ability to toss down more nutrition than I need and let my body sort it out. Therefore, I take a multivitamin each day and some supplemental vitamin C, and a bit more when I'm feeling crosswise, sniffish or puny.

Expensive pee don't bother me. What good is money if you can't piss it away, says I.

money can be exchanged for goods and services

Ohh, I wanted a peanut.