Helping people
make CHANGES® 
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Helping people
make CHANGES® |
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How to choose a multiple.Twenty or thirty years ago, we would not be having this discussion. I would have told you that a multiple was a total waste of time. I have always taken vitamins, mind you, but individual supplements, never a multiple. I started buying vitamins for personal use in the 60s. Typically, I either went to my local health food store, or I would buy via mail order. With only a half dozen or so major companies to choose from at that point, the decision- making process was considerably easier. Today with hundreds of companies to choose from, finding the right supplement can be overwhelming. I have – in my practice – always prescribed vitamins for my clients. Sometimes for therapeutic purposes, sometimes for prevention purposes, and frequently just as added insurance for those individuals seeking optimum health and energy. For an otherwise healthy person I would typically recommend 500 mg of a buffered vitamin C, 200 - 400 I.U. of a natural vitamin E, with mixed tocopherols, and 10 mg or more of a B-complex. But always individual supplements, never a multiple. Now, usually by the time I get to the third individual supplement, the question comes up: "Isn't there one pill that contains everything I need? Couldn’t I just take a multiple?" My answer used to be: "You can take a multiple instead of the B-complex, but you will still need to take a vitamin C, and a vitamin E." The reason? Historically, most multiples only contained 60 mg. of vitamin C, and maybe 15 I.U. of vitamin E, which is not enough to be worthwhile. Even the B vitamins in many multiples are often there in minuscule amounts. Until very recently, although I might suggest to a client that they start to take a particular supplement, I would usually send them off to a health food store to select their own brand. Not infrequently that proved to be a problem. I might tell a client to take a magnesium supplement, and have them come back from the pharmacy with Milk of Magnesia. Or the clerk in the vitamin store would tell them that what they really need is not magnesium, but a combination of cal/mag/ and zinc. (FYI, there are often therapeutic reasons for wanting magnesium by itself.) I once told a client to take a Brewers yeast supplement, and she went to the supermarket and bought Baker’s yeast, and then complained bitterly about a problem with gas. When selecting multiples people often choose a heavily advertised brand, which may be so low in potency as to be a total waste of money, or they pick the cheapest discount store brand they can find. Currently, I try to be more hands on with my recommendations. Fast forward to a new era...Times have changed and so have supplements. Today it is entirely possible to find one product that will give you most of what you need. You will, however, need to take 2 or more pills. It is simply impossible to get it all to fit in a single capsule. But, there are so many choices. Which one should you buy? You could spend hours reading labels – which are impossible to decipher – trying to figure out which one’s have the right ingredients, the right amounts of each ingredient, and then there’s the issue of quality. Are you getting what you pay for? Should you buy the most expensive supplement you can find, or save your money and go for the cheapest? There are thousands of new supplements that appear on the market each year. Each has to attract your attention so that you will buy. And each has to come up with a "unique selling proposition" something that sets it apart from the competition. Time-Released. Food-based. Clinically Tested. One-A-Day. "Our product is better than their’s." One sales rep was trying to convince me to buy her companies Ginkgo Biloba. She said "Our product is the only one that has been proven in clinical research to work." I corrected her. " I think what you mean to say is that your Ginkgo Biloba is the only one that has been proven in clinical research done by your company to work." (Over the years there have been numerous positive studies re Ginkgo.) Can you see the potential for a problem when the research is conducted and paid for by the company who will be selling the product? (For the record people, there is no such thing as unbiased research.) Does advertising work? Absolutely! Think of the product that claims to be "Complete from A to Zinc?" More people take this supplement than any other, not because it’s the best, but because they are most familiar with it because of advertising. What about the word "Natural?" Is that meaningful? Sometimes. Natural vitamin E, for example appears to be more effective than the synthetic. If the label doesn't say whether or not the vitamin E is natural, look for the letter "d" and not "dl" in front of the name -- (d'alpha tocopherol vs dl'alpha tocopherol.) The dl form is synthetic. What if the label says "natural vitamin C with Rose Hips." The product will be 95% ascorbic acid and 5 % Rose Hips. A pill containing 100% Rose Hips would be cost prohibitive. And probably the size of a baseball. Rather than looking for a natural vitamin C, consider a buffered vitamin C. It will contain mineral ascorbates – potassium ascorbate, magnesium ascorbate - rather than ascorbic acid. But, my personal belief is that any vitamin C is better than no vitamin C, so if you are in a situation where all you can find is ascorbic acid, take it. Do not, however, take a synthetic beta-carotene. Food-based products? Are they better absorbed? More useable? Perhaps, but keep in mind that they also bring with them an increased risk of allergy. Time-Released? Save your money. There is no evidence that shows that timed released supplements are of greater benefit than regular. They are, however, more expensive. And they do contain additional chemicals designed to inhibit the dissolving process. In effect, you could end up digesting and absorbing less of the nutrients. If you want your nutrients spread out over time, simply divide the dosage. One pill after breakfast, and another after lunch. One of the current marketing strategies involves designing formulas for specific target groups. Women, men, post-menopausal women, the elderly, athletes, pregnant women, weight loss formulas. Targeting can be good in the case of therapeutic nutrition, but in the case of a multiple you are probably better off without the extras. For example, if you want to take St. John’s Wort for depression, buy it separately from your multiple. How much should you expect to pay for a good multiple?Generally, somewhere between $20. and $40. It is difficult to get a quality supplement for less than $20. and be highly suspect of anyone offering something cheaper than that. And, for the most part, anything over $40. is overpriced. When should you take supplements?The best time of day to take a multiple is after breakfast, or, if you are taking more than one tablet or capsule, after breakfast and lunch. Some multiples divide themselves between AM and PM, with vitamins being taken in the morning and minerals being taken at night. This is fine. In general, don't take B-vitamins too late in the day. B-vitamins are used to metabolize food for energy. We need our energy to be at its highest early in the day, and not in the evening. Tablets or capsules? There are pros and cons to both. Tablets require the addition of fillers and binders, and may be more difficult to digest and absorb. On the other hand, they also have the longest shelf life because the nutrients aren't interacting with oxygen. Organic or inorganic? Example: l'selenomethionine vs sodium selenite The first is organic. The latter inorganic. The first has low toxicity. The latter has mutagenic properties and may be inactivated by vit. C Chelated? The word chelate means "claw." A chelated mineral is one which is attached to a protein (or an amino acid.) It is assumed that a chelated mineral is more readily absorbed, because the protein it is attached to is easily absorbed. The label may simply have the word "chelated" in front of the name of the mineral, or it may footnote the fact that the product contains "amino acid chelates," or sometimes "Krebs cycle chelates." Elemental weight...It is important to know how much of an actual mineral a product contains. Often, the number of milligrams in a tablet refers to the total weight of the tablet and not to the mineral content per se. For example: which of the following would contain the most calcium? Example A: Two pills contain Calcium (Gluconate) 1000 mg. Example B: Two pills contain Calcium Gluconate 1000 mg. Example C: Two pills contain Calcium Carbonate 1000 mg. Answer: Example A would have 1000 mg of elemental calcium. Example B only has 93 mg of elemental calcium or 9.3%. Example C has 400 mg. of elemental calcium. The key to understanding why A has so much more calcium than B is that in the first example the word gluconate is in parentheses. That tells you that the amount of calcium is 1000 mg, and that the source of the calcium is calcium gluconate.
Listed below are some of the nutrients typically found in a multiple, the form they are usually in, and a reference range of usual quantities. When shopping, examine the label for vitamin C first, then vitamin E, and then B-vitamins. If the supplement in your hand doesn’t pass muster on these, put the bottle back and select another to examine.
Nutrient Form Usual Range C
ascorbic acid or
500 - 1000 mg. E d’alpha
tocopherol or 200
- 400 I.U. B-Complex 10 mg.- 100 mg.
A (Palmitate) 4000 - 10,000 I.U. Beta-Carotene
5 - 15 mg. B12 Cyanocobalamin
100-500 mcg folic acid (folate) 400-800 mcg D cholicalciferol or
400 I.U. K* phytonadione 100 mcg (125% RDA) Calcium citrate/ citrate malate
400-800 mg. Magnesium oxide, glycinate,
250-500 mg. Zinc picolinate, sulfate 15-25 mg Manganese gluconate or aspartate 2-5 mg. Chromium polynicotinate or
100-200 mcg Selenium selenomethionine 100-200 mcg Molybdenum amino acid chelate 100 mcg.(100% RDA) Iodine potassium iodide 150 mcg. Potassium* 99 mg.(3% RDA) Copper* sebacate 1-2 mg Iron* ferrous sulfate/
ferrous gluconate 10 mg
*A couple of notes:
What brand do I take? For several years now I have been taking a product called Spectra (Spectra w/o copper and iron) from DaVinci Laboratories. Click on the link below to check their catalogue. If you need additional help finding quality supplements or selecting the right supplement to meet your needs, contact me.
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e- mail: jackiestorm@jackiestorm.com BIO
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