i am very much against using MTHF for 2 reasons: 1st is cost vs benefit. it looks good on paper because it a hot ticket supplement, but we have no real evidence of it being worthwhile or safe. 2nd im very much against bypassing any ratelimiting enzyme system in the body... it better to supply the 'base ingredient' and allow the body to convert as it needs.
I'm fine with that,
if we therefore continue with folinic acid: by 'the base ingredient,' do you mean folic acid per se? While the question isn't resolved and the studies are not consistent, the metabolism of folic acid is highly unnatural, leaving unmetabolized folate in circulation even at low doses (
here,
here, and
here), and there's reason to suspect it may cause some cancers, as I believe you know (
here and more recently
here,
here,
here, and
here), and a more tenuous possibility of an increase in atherosclerosis.
I believe this was the current ration of Vitamin E, maybe this is acceptable.. or something close to this?
30iu A-tocopherol
1.5mg B-tocopherol
125mg G-tocopherol
42mg D-tocopherol
that ratio is acceptable to me, we could even go lower on the non-alpha t's. i think the a-t should be cut down to 100% DRI (22.5iu, 15mg). Ideally I would like to mimic the ratio found in vitamin E dense foods...I'm unsure what this is, I will have to look into it.
First: Anthony, the above numbers don't seem to add up, and also don't seem to comport with
the label. Can you please clarify?
I'm with ajnast4r on bringing the IUage down to the RDA, and with mimicing the balance of E vitamers in whole-foods diets.
The top quintiles of tocopherol intake in the NIH-AARP study, for instance, were >8.8 mg α-tocopherol and >18.2 mg γ-tocopherol. I would regard this ~1:2 ratio as a ceiling to what one might get in a healthy whole-food diet: it's mostly attributable to N. American's relatively high consumption of soybean oil. An European cohort, by contrast, would have a a
2:1 α:γ ratio, per PMID 15256801. Provisionally, I'd say throw in the standard mixed tocopherol stuff up to the amount required to reach 15 mg α-tocopherol, let the others fall where they may, and see how that actually breaks down with dietary intake. If that's ≤30 mg γ-tocopherol, we're golden.
my thoughts on carotenoids are as such:
lutein & lycopene should be entirely dropped.
pro-A carotenoids should either be completely dropped or kept 25% DRI or less, but only if the brand has bioavailability studies. one thing we never totally hashed out was the varying bioavailability depending no prepparation(lipid coating, etc). even the RE's have different values for supplements. I could easily see ingesting a normal dose but absorbing 10x above normal.
Lutein intake or serum levels have been pretty consistently found associated ith lower risk of ARMD, which has also been demonstrated for supplements in a clinical trial. Lycopene has been found associated with lower risk of various cancers, of which prostate is the most consistently and widely attested. Alpha-carotene has been associated with lower risk of total mortality ... etc.
I've given my reasons, above, for not being alarmed about the negative finding on lutein, and suggest retaining lutein at a lower dose representative of mid-level dietary intake. I also recently gave my reasons for not being alarmed about the
negative-looking study on serum lycopene.
I really don't think that the bioavailability question merits the very severe restriction you're proposing here. The
purely synthetic forms don't have this much difference, and these are natural forms and in some kind of oleoresin, beadlet, or trituration that is unlikely to have equivalent bioavailability. And people get most of their lycopene from cooked, fat-containg Italian sauces already.
retinol should go imo... too small to matter, waste of money imo. the lycopene should go, especially since its non-nutrative.
Conversion of carotenoids into retinol may be limited, and there may be some advantages to having preformed retinol, if only in the GI. A normal, healthy, non-vegan diet would certainly contain some.
Lycopene is certainly
nutritive: I take it you mean it's not an essential nutrient or precursor to same. But again: it's present in a healthy diet, and the evidence is pretty strong that it's protective against a variety of cancers.
Should MK-4 be added? Or should the amount of MK-7 be increased?
I may be in the minority, but I feel the current amount is too low, seeing as a great deal of people should be taking a partial dose of the multi. So let's go hypothetical and say a person takes 1/3rd dose/daily. That's 15mcg of MK-7 daily. Rotterdam was > 30mcg (if I remember right). Even a half dose/daily is below this number.
And yes, some is better than none. But what rationale is there to leaving the dose at 45mcg? I wouldn't consider 90-100mcg to be a particularly dangerous dose, when compared to natto intake. An alternative is to include some MK-4 instead, perhaps?
First, the reasoning that doses should be boosted "seeing as a great deal of people should be taking a partial dose of the multi" applies to
all nutrients. The whole point is that people actually do get nutrients from their diets (and should be encouraged to maximize this option): the multi is there as a
supplement to the diet,to
top up what's left. It
shouldn't provide all you need with anything less than the full day's dose -- and no one should take a full day's dose. The rationale for leaving the dose at 45 µg is thus, quite precisely, that these doses are in line with the highest intake groups from food in Rotterdam and EPIC, and is associated with health benefits; going beyond this to expose people to doses outside the dietary norm, even for unusually high-MK4 diets.
At 6 caps/daily, the [Mg] dose is rather large.
The dose is only half the RDA ...
Should the form of magnesium be changed? Could we switch to citrate, malate, etc. (or whatever form is more compact) and get the cap number decreased? Perhaps lower overall cost of product as well then.
I would certainly prefer we switch to another form: glycinate is insanely bulky, isn only marginally more bioavailable than oxide (and less than citrate and probably gluconate -- see
here and
here), and the bioavailability of minerals is largely a bugaboo anyway.
Would it make sense to not include any folate at all, regardless of form? Those with MTHFR abnormalities will probably need more than supplied in the multi anyway. Those without it are probably fine from diet.
I would almost agree with you for the general population, because of the widespread fortification of grain products. However, we're here for healthy people too
. Folate is risky; folinic acid or MTHF
should not be, though of course I'd've said the same thing about any number of nutrients a decade ago ...