Vitamins

[BionicBabe]

What kind of specialist is best to see to find out which supplements would be best for me to take?

[Niffer991]

A Naturopath, they should be listed in the phone book.

[Sunes]

THE BEST  vitamin and mineral specialist  is Orthomolecular Specialist. They know more about vitamins and minerals than Naturopath doctors unlessNaturopaths  are Orthomolecular Naturopathic Specialists.
Hope this helps, Hugs, Sunes

[Myown]

My doctor is an Internist MD, but also practices Holistic medicine. And because he is an Internist, my insurance pays for the visits. I just have a $15 co pay.

[Bob_D]

Well, here is my opinion, which I have arrived at after much reading and pill swallowing....

Have you been diagnosed with a vitamin deficiency disease by a medical doctor? In that case, vitamins might help you. Otherwise, you are wasting your money.

If you are concerned about nutrition, then concentrate on eating a wide variety of foods, mostly plant-based. Eating tasty foods beats swallowing tasteless pills by a large margin.

Every so often there are surveys of groups of centenarians (people who have attained the age of 100 years). In no case I am aware of has any of them ever attributed their long life to either taking supplements or to any special diet, such as vegetarianism.

It's really so unfortunate, but there is nothing magical about vitamins, and no reason to believe that stripping out one component of a complex food and ingesting it is particularly beneficial. For example, vitamin C is present in an orange, but there are also flavenoids and dozens of other phytochemicals, none of which you will get in a vitamin supplement.

Can't bear the thought of not having nutritional "insurance"? Buy a store brand multivitamin that costs you a few dollars a month. It won't hurt you,
but don't count on it to furnish what you should get from food.

A 192-page meta-analysis of every controlled clinical study of antioxidant supplements done between 1945 and 2005, published in JAMA and available on Medscape concluded there was no benefit of taking antioxidants in either primary or secondary disease prevention.

I don't expect you to believe me, so I encourage you to do some investigation on your own. Look into the history of the discovery of vitamins and how they act in the body. Look into the history of health fads.

Although many people believe the ingesting vitamin supplements will act on them the way spinach acted on Popeye, it doesn't work that way. If you do not have a deficiency then additional vitamins will not extend your life or give you super powers.

Before you consult a naturopath or orthomolecular nutritionist, I suggest you read about those subjects on the web site www.quackwatch.org. And I wouldn't tell you there aren't good and caring naturopaths out there, either. Just be informed.

Above all, beware of the advice of people who have something to sell you.

Cheers,

[BionicBabe]

Thanks for your reply! I think you are right! It's the same thing my husband keeps telling me. My blood work came back normal for things like magnesium and potassium, which was my main concern, having heart arrhythmias.

Thanks to the other responses as well!