| This advice is not useful when physicians exist that will tell you a non-useful thing--or even a wrong thing--according to current consensus among nutrition specialists, because nutrition is not their specific area of expertise. For instance, overdose quantities may be different among the various vitamers of a specific vitamin. Your physician will advise you not to supplement ADEK because people have overdosed on retinol or ergocalciferol, whereas you can eat carotene until you literally turn orange, and 15-30 minutes of daily midday sunlight can make 10000 to 20000 IU each time. The danger of vitamin D oversupply (even as cholecalciferol) is calcium related, which is why you have to balance it with vitamin K (as menatetrenone), but it's called vitamin K from the German for "clotting factor", so then your doctor worries about clots. But vitamin E (as RRR-alpha-tocopherol) is also an anticoagulant. It's almost as if you have to consider every vitamin as just one part of a balanced system of nutrition... So in order to give you good advice, your doctor would have to have detailed and intimate knowledge of your current nutritional state and your physiology, but we only have 15 minutes and I don't want a malpractice suit for giving you the wrong advice, so just f' it and give 'em the boilerplate: "You don't need to supplement. Just eat a balanced diet with plenty of dark green vegetables, and get some exercise." So there you go. I just saved you a copay, unless your particular physician has an interest in nutrition-based medicine. Don't get your vitamins from the corner pharmacy or the grocery store. Most of them will use the cheapest chemical that technically qualifies as a particular vitamin. You need specific vitamers if you intend to exceed the general recommendations. Do your own research, and remember that you can damage your own body by doing something stupid with it. If you consult a physician, make sure they have enough training and education to be credible with respect to nutrition and biochemistry before you fork over money for an office visit. You can read the same articles and papers that they read, if you are motivated enough to do so. |