Do you take vitamins or any other supplements?

A question about : Do you take vitamins or any other supplements?

Do you take vitamins or other health pills/powders? I used to think of them as a bit of a waste of money, but now I'm not so sure.

In the past I've had to take vitamin D and Iron when ive had blood tests come back low. I would nip into health food shops to grab nibbles and see people spending Ј80-100 on pills and be shocked.

Recently I've read more and more people swearing by them and saying the RDA is the bare minimum (I know the water soluble stuff you can't OD on, but the fat soluble you can), and I also only just read that vegetarians should take vitamin B which I never realised.

If you take them then do you find they have made a difference?

Best answers:

• I do take supplements but I don't spend that much on them and I don't take them every day.
  Every other day, I do take cod liver oil, evening pimprose oil, calcium & magnesium tablets. From time to time, I do take Vitamin D (during winter).
  Cod Liver Oil was suggested by a nutritionist.
  I also think it helps with skin.
  Calcium&magnesium helps with my tiredness after gym.
  However I do have a balanced diet already and don't think they would fix anything broken.
  Have you tried speaking to your GP to have a test to look at your levels ? This might be a good start.
• just omega 3 fish oils if I do not eat much oily fish that week.
• I used to take a daily multivitamin, but they changed the formula so that it was no longer veggie and included ridiculous doses way over the RDAs.
  Later on, I needed to be referred to an NHS dietician & I feel much healthier now that I know which foods to avoid. I think years of undiagnosed intolerances were reducing the efficiency of absorbing nutrients from my food (thanks to the, errr, "fast-track" reaction to eating the wrong things!), so now I am getting everything I should.
  I cook from scratch most days and no longer feel I need self-prescribed supplements. I don't trust all the pseudo-science in the ads!
  I take Echinacea if I have the inklings of a cold.
• I take a cheap (own brand) multivitamin. No idea if it makes a difference or not, have read conflicting things about cheap/expensive vitamins...hard to know what to think
• I've always been ardently against this image that Men's Fitness etc want to put across that if you buy the same supplements as an athlete, you'll be just like them....
  But that said, I do take a few...
  Generic Berocca- Either covering my bases in terms of a healthy diet or giving myself very expensive urine....that said, I never got bit by any mosquitos on holiday & I was the only one of my friends on it....
  Whey Protein- Post workout
  Cod Liver Oil
  Garlic (It was like Ј10 for a years supply)
• I buy quite a few supplements ordering from the USA because they are cheaper and stronger. The list would be too long. The only one I buy in the UK high street is the H&B Triple strength Fish Oil, but only during the penny sale.
• I was looking at supplements in a shop yesterday for my husband who is a bit run down after being ill. It's so confusing, there are so many and you can spend a fortune.
  His diet could better though so a multivitamin probably won't hurt. But do you get cheap or expensive?
• I used to take Berocca, but I can't say I ever noticed any difference in my mood, skin, energy levels etc.
  I've since cut out processed foods and fill the day around my family meal with fruit, veg and cereals, and found my skin has cleared up better than at any time in the past 15 years.
• Spatone a liquid iron supplement as I don't absorb iron easily and have had terrible problems with anaemia this is the only thing that has worked for me, B12 as I am a vegetarian, a multivitamin pill, and evening primrose oil from simply supplements.
• I only take my daily multivitamins but other than that, I prefer eating fruits and vegetables. I was also advised by my doctor to take iron for 2 weeks, stop for a month and back to taking it again for 2 weeks. I used to take other vitamins before but I tend to forget taking them after a while, so now, I'm only taking one daily along with iron.