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SUPER STARS DO IT SO WHY NOT YOU! <- click to skip to the crux of the matter
Taking vitamin and mineral supplements is regarded by some so called dietary experts as wrong because they believe that you should get everything you need from a balanced diet and taking too many overloads your body and is bad for your health. As a balanced diet is difficult to define & achieve and the earth in which our food is grown doesn’t have enough minerals for the food to absorb to do this any more, this is clearly misguided to say the least. In any case most of the supplements I recommend you take are water soluble which means if you take too many your body will merely excrete the excess! Why take the risk of being short of vitamins & minerals when for a small investment you can be sure that you will always have sufficient for your optimum level of health!
However, there is one supplement that you must take because without it the others are a total waste of time: amino acids which are the building blocks of the protein that your whole body needs to make every day to maintain all your body parts in a healthy state. Every body part is made of protein! For example the experts are always talking there being enough calcium in your diet to maintain your bones but the main structure of your bones is made of protein and without the right amino acids being available to maintain that structure there is little point in worrying about getting enough calcium to harden the structure and enough vitamin D to enable the process of incorporating the calcium and preventing the structure from becoming brittle!
There are 20 amino acids needed by your body but only 9 of them are to be found in your food and they are called essential amino acids. Your digestive system has to create the other 11 out of them and from the age of 25 onwards your digestive system becomes more and more inefficient at producing these and you only need to be missing out on one of them to have health problems of some kind and it is likely that you will be missing out on 3 or more! Therefore it makes sense to supplement your diet with all the amino acids as you have no idea which essential ones your are not getting in your diet, which non essential ones are not being produced in sufficient quantities, and which conditional ones you need at any particular time!
This is what I take every day:
I use Subscribe & Save at H&B to get a good discount as shown – prices checked as of 12May2024
- Amino 1000 (6 a day = £17 ->£9.35 for 190 = £2.07 a week
- ABC to Z Multivits & Minerals (2 a day = 12.99->£7.14 for 240 = 42p a week)
- Acidophillus 3 Billion (1 a day = £14.49->£8.69 for 120 = 51p a week)
- Super Strength Complete B100 & C500 (1 a day = £18.99->£10.44 for 120 = 61p a week)
- D3-25ug (1 a day = £21.98->£13.18 for 240×2 = 27p a week)
- E-400iu (1 a day = £8.99->£4.94 for 90 = 20p a week)
- TOTAL £4.08 per week with every 5th order free on Subscribe & Save terms at H&B, which brings it down to £3.27 a week – a small price to pay for a guarantee that you’re not missing any nutrients that you need in your diet!
The amino is king of course – without all the building blocks to repair the protein in your body the other supplements are a waste of time!
A good multi vitamin & mineral covers the daily recommendation for all vitamins & minerals that the body requires and the H&B one mentioned is a good one. Invariably a good one has 15mg of zinc. If they can’t get that one right then don’t use it! Zinc is a very important mineral for many processes in the body but please note that it is the absence of sufficient zinc in the body which causes stretch marks in pregnant ladies and body builders. Body builders know that and supplement with zinc accordingly but GPs can’t be bothered to tell pregnant ladies about it because they don’t believe it, don’t care or didn’t attend the one lecture in their 5-year training which covered that kind of thing! 😉 GPs in general are only interested in conditions that can be treated with medicines, operations or physical therapy. Deficiency of zinc is easy to determine because if you drink a solution of zinc sulphate and you’re deficient it tastes of nothing but it should taste disgusting. Those who suffer from anorexia would particularly benefit from taking zinc supplements because then they would be able to taste their food and maybe want to eat more!
Acidophilus contains 3 billion friendly bacteria in each tablet which are just as essential to your health as the other supplements. They ensure that your gut has the good bacteria (flora) it needs for efficient digestion. This is a particularly good idea if you have been taking antibiotics which may well destroy the good bacteria while it’s clearing up the bad!
There is no point in selecting one of the Vitamin Bs – you don’t know which ones you need – and they are water soluble which means that an overdose will at worst cause your urine to be yellower than usual! Vitamin B12 is known as the Celebrity supplement because the famous take Vitamin B12 injections (and goodness knows what else these days) to keep them feeling energetic and looking as young as possible!
Humans are one of the few mammals who don’t make their own Vitamin C and that is why supplementing it is a good idea! Only primates and the guinea pig share our fate! Vitamin C is something we associate with oranges but it is available in varying quantities in most fruits and without enough of it we get scurvy and our teeth fall out among other disturbing and life threatening effects. The Great Ape needs 2000-6000 mg per day so there is reason to suppose that the recommended daily amount for humans of 60mg (120g of oranges) per day is bit on the low side for optimal health! 😉 Mammals which do not make their own Vitamin C make up for it to some extent by recycling what little they have but in times of stress more is needed and those mammals that can make it themselves are able to increase its production by ten fold when necessary!
Vitamin D does a lot more than make your bones strong – it gives you energy as well! If you’re black you must take this supplement because not enough sun can get through your skin for the body to produce enough of its own! If you don’t you will become lethargic.
Vitamin E has several important functions. For example, it acts as an antioxidant, which protects cell membranes and this helps maintain healthy skin & eyes and strengthens the immune system.
Other Supplements
There is little point in taking supplements like omega 3 as there should be plenty of that in your diet if it includes fish and the small amount available in capsules is a total waste of time! The same applies to many of this kind of supplement where the daily requirement is many grams. You should instead eat the food that contains it or take the vitamins or minerals that your body needs to produce it. For example hyaluronic acid which is the ingredient your skin needs to keep it well moisturised and that is the secret of looking younger because as we age our skin loses moisture resulting in a loss of firmness and pliability. Now what’s the point of taking a supplement of 250mg a day of hyaluronic acid if your body needs to make 5 grams a day! Taking extra magnesium is what enables your body to make enough of it’s own hyaluronic acid which is why I take two multi vitamins & minerals tablets – it’s cheaper than buying a separate magnesium supplement and a man of my frame-size and activity-level probably needs extra anyway! 😉 While I’m on this subject please note that the cholesterol in the food you eat is irrelevant because your body breaks down all the fat you eat and makes it’s own cholesterol. Goodness know who started that ridiculous rumour! Lol (Except that it’s not funny – just sad!)
Having said that I do have turmeric & black pepper with my food at least once a day: 10 Proven Health Benefits of Turmeric and Curcumin
I’ve been taking these supplements for many years now, and have forgotten many of the reasons I was persuaded to start or continue taking each one. I will review my reasons and add them here over the coming weeks for your edification. Meanwhile you can judge for yourself whether they work or not. How many 76-year-olds do you know who can go salsa dancing energetically 6 times a week for 3 to 5 hours a session? My natural low density eating habits also help to make me feel as fit as a fiddle:
- having a 36 inch waist with a six pack that shows
- being the correct weight for my height, frame-size & muscularity
- being able to not only touch my toes but put the palms of my hands on the floor
- having a normal blood pressure of 120/80 and
- having a resting pulse rate of 54 beats per minute which is typical of an athlete!
My digital scales assume my heart stroke volume is the average of 70ml but it is in fact 107ml making the volume of blood pumped per minute 6L which is the average!
Money matters!
At Holland & Barratt I always wait for the half price or BOGOFAP (Buy One Get One For A Penny) or 2 for £10 offers before I buy some more supplements! As a result I spend less than £6 a week which is less than the cost of three cappuccinos which I save ten times over by always carrying a thermos flask of hot water with me to make my own hot energy reviving drinks when I’m traveling around the country to salsa events! Even if I didn’t drink coffee I have been saving twenty times that amount because I gave up smoking 40+ a day over 8 years ago (in 2012)!
Also I never drink alcoholic beverages. I’m not teetotal – it’s just something that doesn’t mix well with keeping good balance while salsa dancing and I have no particular taste for it as I would rather simply quench my thirst with a swig of Apple & Blackcurrant Squash (no added sugar) – my favourite drink. How much do you spend on smoking and alcoholic beverages a week and do you take any notice of the people who say it may do you harm? 😉 I would hazard a guess that taking supplements is much safer than indulging in either of those activities and much more likely to do you good! 😉 How many times have you heard somebody say of an older person with a lot of energy: “He must be taking his vitamins!” which shows that’s it’s embedded in your subconscious so you know it makes sense! 😉
DO YOU NEED TO DO IT?
Here’s a typical article called Do I need vitamin supplements? Most of the facts it contains are useful and accurate but the opinions it expresses are doubtful to say the least:
Opinion: Most people can get all the vitamins and minerals they need by eating a healthy, balanced diet.
Response: How many people actually know what a balance diet really is and actually eat one?
Opinion: Many people choose to take supplements, but taking too much or taking them for too long could be harmful.
Response: Well it hasn’t done me any harm!
NB: There are a small number of people who find that taking supplements is uncomfortable because it make them feel sick and nauseous but that’s not due to the supplement itself – that’s due to a reaction to the fillers used to make the tablets. My ex is one of those people and she could only take D3 because it’s a tiny tablet with hardly any fillers. More and more of these tiny tables are coming out according to H&B so keep an eye out for them if you suffer from this minority problem. Meanwhile if you’ve got plenty of cash to spare you could try injections instead – read on! 😉.
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SUPER STARS DO IT SO WHY NOT YOU!
Have a look at the article that appeared in the Daily Mail on 31st May 2016: The toxic truth about the £450 vitamin jabs that Rihanna, Cara Delevingne, Rita Ora and Madonna all use to stay on top of their game
“A female acquaintance described it as ‘feeling like Superwoman for three days afterwards.”
“Another close male friend said he was ‘swinging out of bed feeling immediately awake.’ “
“Leaving the clinic, I chat briefly to a woman called Faith, a vitamin-IV-junkie who I guess is in her mid-thirties. ‘The infusions are fantastic,’ she enthuses. ‘They make you look and feel so young and healthy.’ Faith, it turns out, is 52. Suddenly, a few hundred pounds doesn’t look very expensive at all.“
It turns out the toxic truth phrase in the title is just attention grabbing because the possible toxicity from taking too much only gets a passing mention while the benefits are given in much more detail and are unquestionably true because, from the evidence presented, without them the super stars mentioned in the title or the article wouldn’t be stars let alone super any more! 😉