21 replies to this topic

[Robert C]

For those of you who take a mild low dose multi (most values roughly around RDA levels), which one is your favorite and why?

I am a 51 year old male.

My favorite is the New Chapter Every Man's One Daily. A lot of vitamin supps upset my stomach but The New Chapter line does not. I have taken them for a number of years now. I know they are not cheap and some think the fermentation process is snake oil but I do believe that it contributes to making them GI friendly for me.

However they are not perfect IMO. They contain 1.5 mg of copper which seems too high in light of the new ADI being 0.9 mg. They have 15 mg of zinc and (their consumer support person told me) they want a 10-1 ratio of zinc to copper. I believe in taking a daily low dose multi and am always looking for the best one. Thanks!

[nameless]

I've tried the New Chapter Multi, years ago, and also bugged New Chapter to provide info on the forms of vitamins/minerals used (which they weren't so open about giving out). If it is more stomach friendly for you than other brands, I see nothing necessarily wrong with it. I am just unsure about the whole yeast thing -- if it's a good idea to consume yeast every day like that, etc. I also find their marketing somewhat annoying, as 'whole food' doesn't come as synthetic vitamins fed to brewer's yeast. Plus side (or negative, depending on how you look at it), is the yeast may be basically the same thing as Epicor (negative being if you are allergic to yeast).

As for favorite multis, I don't really have one. It's more a matter of multis that I dislike the least. AOR's MultiBasics and Vimmortal would fall into that category for me, but there are still flaws with each. They generally use the better forms of vits/minerals, but some of the doses are still off in my opinion.

I've also been looking at some children's multis, but haven't found a great one yet for adults (they typically contain iron).

As for the copper in Every Man, one solution is to simply break the tablet in half. That's what I used to do when I tried it. Yeah, lower doses of some other things in it, but partial dosing is probably all you need anyway. Although I seem to recall someone here mentioning copper in multis interfering with C/B12, causing some B weirdness... so maybe no copper at all would be preferred.

Edited by nameless, 07 June 2011 - 04:00 PM.

[Robert C]

I also have looked at childrens multis but never found one suitable for me. Usually full of sugar for one thing. I am looking for a multi with near the latest recommended amounts (not the 1968 'daily values') of most nutrients. Exceptions would be no iron (for men), and maybe one-half of the latest recommended amounts of copper (that would be 450 mcg) and folate (200 mcg). I don't think most manufacturers are sharp enough to know that the guidelines have been changes since the ancient "daily values."

[triplecrown]

I also have looked at childrens multis but never found one suitable for me. Usually full of sugar for one thing. I am looking for a multi with near the latest recommended amounts (not the 1968 'daily values') of most nutrients. Exceptions would be no iron (for men), and maybe one-half of the latest recommended amounts of copper (that would be 450 mcg) and folate (200 mcg). I don't think most manufacturers are sharp enough to know that the guidelines have been changes since the ancient "daily values."

I have been taking Dr weil's multi for a while now. http://www.iherb.com...ckets/7442?at=0

It basically comes in packets that have 2 multi-vitamins and 1 antioxidant blend per pack. I too just take half of the multivitamin pack, because a full dose has 1.5mg of copper and 15 mg zinc, I'm not really sure I want to take that much daily (even though I take other supplements that supposedly chelates copper, such as carnosine. I guess a blood test is the only sure way to find out though.)

Has anybody else tried Weil's muilti?

Also I was interested in trying Life extension foundations multi, but it has 35 mg of zinc(which seems quite excessive)

[nameless]

Looked at Weil's a long time ago. In my opinion, it's too high dosed, even at a half-dose. Bs are way too high, and A, E and selenium are too high.

LEF is even worse. They are kings of megadosing.

Vimmortal may be something for the OP (if the choline isn't an issue for you). Or use cronometer, if you haven't already, and see what your dietary intake looks like.

Edited by nameless, 08 June 2011 - 02:48 AM.

[Logan]

If your trying to go the all natural "whole food" route, MegaFood is probably best.

[Robert C]

Yes maybe the Megafood vitamins are closer to what I want. From what I can tell they are very simiiar to New Chapter, fermented USP vitamins. I don't believe they get their various nutrients from the natural appearing ingredients, but rather ferment the nutrients like New Chapter then add the natural stuff on top of that. Seems like marketing but they might fit the bill for what I'm after.

What do you all think about Megafood's products in general? Good reputation?? Have some of you used their products? Thanks!

[nameless]

In my opinion, Megafood basically is the same as New Chapter EveryMan.

Same process: feed vitamins to yeast, put pictures of fruits/veggies on box, then market it as 'whole food'. It is very misleading, which makes me skeptical of them in general.

[Logan]

In my opinion, Megafood basically is the same as New Chapter EveryMan.

Same process: feed vitamins to yeast, put pictures of fruits/veggies on box, then market it as 'whole food'. It is very misleading, which makes me skeptical of them in general.

There is plenty of reason to be skeptical, especially because none of them want to go too far in explaining in detail exactly how the process works. I have to believe them though, and if it ends up being what they say it does, I don't see why it would matter much what synthetic isolate they started with, the final product is in a natural food form.

Megafood does several things that separate them from the competition. They use Refractance windo drying which uses infrared light instead of the heat that most window drying facilities use. Refractance window drying allows for creating fruit and vegetable powders that are more likely to have maintained a high potency of all the compounds that give fruits and vegetables all their nutritional value. Megafood is also the only vertically integrated company within their competitive market. They have all their own facilities and do their own testing for herbicides and pesticides. They are also the only company to start with nothing but raw fresh organic foods and herbs. Everything in their multivitamins is organic. Well, maybe not everything, I'll have to take a look at the fillers used to make the tablets. They don't get USDA organic certification because it would cost too much money and time and just is not worth it. Besides, I'm not sure we can trust everything with a USDA organic certification anyway. I also like that they do not use anything with soy and are the only company to have validated soy free multivitamins. I will admit though that fermented soy, soy lecithin, and soy oil are all things that probably should not be an issue with anyone.

Edited by MorganM, 08 June 2011 - 05:23 PM.

[Robert C]

I've always been skeptical that the fermentation process makes the vitamins more absorbable but like I said, the New Chapter vitamins are definately more GI friendly for me. In my experience New Chapter has a good customer service dept. Whenever I have called they answer my questions and always tell me what the starting vitamin forms were before the fermentation process. For example, they told me that the vitamin E is all 8 types.

[david ellis]

For those of you who take a mild low dose multi (most values roughly around RDA levels), which one is your favorite and why?

I am a 51 year old male.

My favorite is the New Chapter Every Man's One Daily. A lot of vitamin supps upset my stomach but The New Chapter line does not. I have taken them for a number of years now. I know they are not cheap and some think the fermentation process is snake oil but I do believe that it contributes to making them GI friendly for me.

However they are not perfect IMO. They contain 1.5 mg of copper which seems too high in light of the new ADI being 0.9 mg. They have 15 mg of zinc and (their consumer support person told me) they want a 10-1 ratio of zinc to copper. I believe in taking a daily low dose multi and am always looking for the best one. Thanks!

Funny that you should ask, what you are looking for is here at Longecity. Longecity has designed a safe multi with very high quality ingredients. that meets your requirements. It is available here. It is the best that I know.

[hivemind]

RDAs ARE NOT optimal amounts. They are more like the minimum.

[Robert C]

Thanks for the tip David. I'm new here and didn't know about the product.

Trip, I agree that RDA's are in most cases not optimal amounts, but I try to be conservative and supplement with a low dose of required micronutrients and get the extra from a healthy diet. Not everyone agrees this is the best way to go. I've seen so many health fads come and go that I'm skeptical about the safety of high dose vitamins and minerals.

[ChooseAName]

Vimmortal was a good idea, but contains too much lutein (supplementation increases cancer risk) and choline bitartrate (causes side effects in some).

[nameless]

It's difficult to say there is a definite link between lutein/cancer based on that study.

A 10 year questionnaire study isn't exactly super reliable. And since it found a risk in individual supplementation only (not multi), it could be due to super high megadosing or taking lutein in isolation. I agree though, that without knowing what doses were used in the study, there could be some risk.

As for choline, there is also that choline/rodent article in relation to heart disease that recently came out, which could be a concern... maybe.

But for Vimmortal, keep in mind most will only take a partial dose, so risks may be minimized somewhat. Although when you go partial dose with it, some other vits/minerals really turn into baby-sized doses.

[niner]

Vimmortal was a good idea, but contains too much lutein (supplementation increases cancer risk) and choline bitartrate (causes side effects in some).

Thanks for the pointer to this. I looked up the original paper, and although they looked at a very large population (~78K people), they had this to say about lutein:

Although there were only 2 lung cancer cases in the individual lutein supplement use category, the respective mean and median daily doses among users were 1.5 mcg (standard deviation, 0.7) and 1.0 mcg, and only 0.22% of participants had used the individual supplement for 6 years or longer, the results are strongly suggestive of elevated risk associated with lutein use.

It really doesn't sound like they have any statistical power among users of individual lutein supplements; if there had been one fewer (or one more) cases of cancer, the results would have been wildly different. Most of the "signal" was coming from users of lutein-containing multis, but at a median dose of 1.0mcg, can they really attribute this to lutein? The lutein use probably came from a few mainstream multis like Centrum that had "window dressing" doses of lutein, but healthy doses of various other vitamin and mineral substances were coming along for the ride as confounders.

If you aren't a smoker, your lung cancer risk is relatively low. Their case dataset was 92% current or former smokers. I don't think they have a strong case against lutein at any rate, but even if they did, they're only looking at a single endpoint, one that a non-smoker isn't likely to get. Lutein has benefits as well as this possible risk. If we had a way to look at all-cause mortality and morbidity, the case for lutein might be a lot stronger. I'm continuing to take it, primarily for skin health and UV resistance.

I happened to revisit this paper, and found that they had published an errata, which changes everything. Had I looked at table two more closely, I might have noticed it. There weren't TWO cancer cases with lutein, but TWENTY. Further, the average dose of the individual lutein supplements was 20mg, not 1.5mcg! So there is a case against lutein in this data after all. I guess paranoia got the better of me, because I stopped taking lutein at the end of last summer. This errata provides some backup for that decision.

Edited by niner, 05 February 2012 - 04:21 AM.

[Logan]

Niner, how much lutein do you take? I've been taking 20 mg about 5 days a wk.

[Robert C]

Nameless, is this the choline study you were refering to?

"A Choline-Deficient Diet Exacerbates Fatty Liver but Attenuates Insulin Resistance and Glucose Intolerance in Mice Fed a High-Fat Diet"

[chrono]

Nameless, is this the choline study you were refering to?

"A Choline-Deficient Diet Exacerbates Fatty Liver but Attenuates Insulin Resistance and Glucose Intolerance in Mice Fed a High-Fat Diet"

I think it's "Gut flora metabolism of phosphatidylcholine promotes cardiovascular disease." See discussion here.

[Robert C]

That study was a bit over my head but I take it that the study implied there might be some risks with choline supplementation. I wonder if the rodents were mega dosed with choline? Any comments on the quality of the study?

[niner]

Niner, how much lutein do you take? I've been taking 20 mg about 5 days a wk.

I stopped taking lutein a while back. In my post above is a link to the newly discovered (by me, anyway) errata to the paper we were talking about, which changes everything in that post. I'm posting this now mainly to bring the edit to people's attention.

[Mind]

Vimmortal is my favorite low dose multi. Discussions on tweaking the formula will be ongoing during February 2012.