Multi vitamins in summer?

[Widgetone]

Being of a certain age (65) would it be sensible to continue to take these throughout the year?
Up to now done them from end Oct to end March, but as daylight hours increase and my diet also probably gets better in spring/summer...
Advice please!

 

[Cowabunga]

Summer climate makes little difference to vitamin intake or requirement apart from Vitamin D, but only if you spend most of your time in the sun with bare skin, risking skin cancer in the process.
I’d cover up reasonably and keep taking maybe half dose of vitamin D and keep taking the others. Since a multivitamin tablet is unlikely to provide sufficient D in Winter, maybe just keep taking the multivitamin and supplement with extra D during the darker months.

 

[Widgetone]

Summer climate makes little difference to vitamin intake or requirement apart from Vitamin D, but only if you spend most of your time in the sun with bare skin, risking skin cancer in the process.
I’d cover up reasonably and keep taking maybe half dose of vitamin D and keep taking the others. Since a multivitamin tablet is unlikely to provide sufficient D in Winter, maybe just keep taking the multivitamin and supplement with extra D during the darker months.

Thank you for your reply, appreciated.

The thing is, the multivit ( Centrum 50+ ) label says, irrc, 100% of RDA on a number of certain vitamins. Read somewhere that one is literally peeing away any excess digested.

 

[Gong Farmer]

RDAs, to put it politely, are 'very conservative'. Vit C is the one that is peed away if excess taken but this still only happens at doses well above the RDA.

It has been said that standing in the sun for 10 mins with a T-shirt on (so arms, face and neck exposed) will create the necessary Vitamin D, but this again likely refers to the RDA which is known to be very low compared to optimum for this vitamin.

 

[deleted user 837354]

Consuming excess vitamin D is great. Go for it... absolutely nothing to go wrong there... [not really].

Anyway, for the average adult with no pre-existing conditions, I would say that consuming a multivitamin all year round would not do you any harm. The fluxes of vitamins and minerals in the body is carefully controlled in the main so yes, you will be excreting a lot of them, even the magical vitamin D everyone is keen on (no one can agree on what the optimal level of serum vitamin D is).

In the main, these things make a lot of money for big pharmaceutical companies.

 

[DrWazzock]

I’m 55 so not that old but I’ve started taking Voost Multi vitamins. This is the first year of my life when I’ve begun to feel “old”, really tired etc but I reckon these multi vits have helped a lot. My diet isn’t bad by any means but I think the pills even up any deficiencies and seem to improve energy levels.

 

[deleted user 837354]

One supplement I have read a lot about in scientific literature is dietary supplementation with glucosamine and chondroitin. It seemed to have a beneficial effect on the cartilage in the animal models they used (mice) but they seem to be to be very expensive and I'm not sure if humans see any benefit from it.

 

[steveR]

Multivit and Glucosmine+Chron tablets daily... All year round.

Was recommended the Gluco/Chron tabs about 15 years ago by a knee specialist! He closed the consultations, with "I'll see you in 10 years for a new knee....." All good so far, and knees still holding up

 

[deleted user 837354]

Multivit and Glucosmine+Chron tablets daily... All year round.

Was recommended the Gluco/Chron tabs about 15 years ago by a knee specialist! He closed the consultations, with "I'll see you in 10 years for a new knee....." All good so far, and knees still holding up

Sounds promising. I will read up more on it (got plenty of time on my hands now for a bit) and come back to this thread.

 

[Cowabunga]

One supplement I have read a lot about in scientific literature is dietary supplementation with glucosamine and chondroitin. It seemed to have a beneficial effect on the cartilage in the animal models they used (mice) but they seem to be to be very expensive and I'm not sure if humans see any benefit from it.

I’ve a friend who swears by it but I took it for a few months and it didn’t do a thing for me.

 

[deleted user 837354]

I’ve a friend who swears by it but I took it for a few months and it didn’t do a thing for me.

I've not written well in terms of clarity here- the studies I read about were investigating the effect in animals from dietary supplementation were all trying to look at any change in the rate of degradation over time rather than repairing joint tissue that was already suffering from the effect of aging if that makes sense?

 

[robs1]

Multivit and Glucosmine+Chron tablets daily... All year round.

Was recommended the Gluco/Chron tabs about 15 years ago by a knee specialist! He closed the consultations, with "I'll see you in 10 years for a new knee....." All good so far, and knees still holding up

I started to get woken up in the night by joint pain, I started taking gluco and it really helped don't take it everyday but feel pain if I stop for a while

 

[steveR]

I started to get woken up in the night by joint pain, I started taking gluco and it really helped don't take it everyday but feel pain if I stop for a while

One thing I have noticed, is that the recommended dose has dropped a lot since I first started taking Glucosamine, no idea why?

Herself now takes one a day and seems to be seeing some benefit, even if it is a little soon...

 

[Cowabunga]

Must admit that since April, I’ve taken nothing. I’m still alive and kicking so far. Will resume as Autumn sets in, I’ve no doubt.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Consuming excess vitamin D is great. Go for it... absolutely nothing to go wrong there... [not really].

Anyway, for the average adult with no pre-existing conditions, I would say that consuming a multivitamin all year round would not do you any harm. The fluxes of vitamins and minerals in the body is carefully controlled in the main so yes, you will be excreting a lot of them, even the magical vitamin D everyone is keen on (no one can agree on what the optimal level of serum vitamin D is).

In the main, these things make a lot of money for big pharmaceutical companies.

And you would absorb a pebble faster than most of them, people see yellow pee and think they got their money's worth

 

[mixedfmr]

Vitamin D is taken in by our skin, but in diffrent degree
Wife is fair , and dos nt tan, so she gets a bigger dose
Me I tan like a Nixxxr ( a saying at the time, and one of our cows names), and the tanning stops the sun getting through, so i need a dose

 

[deleted user 837354]

And you would absorb a pebble faster than most of them, people see yellow pee and think they got their money's worth

The ones I take (when I actually remember) do make urine impressively luminous yellow and also make me feel better about my utter failure of a life, so I consider I am getting the full £19.99's worth out of them.

As I have mentioned in the past, not even the real experts in endocrinology seem to unilaterally agree on the utility of taking these things, even vitamin D which seems to have a role in a lot of important processes, yet despite this, the evidence seems to be a little confusing, even for older people (i.e. 75 years and above).

The Endocrine society recently released a clinical practice update on this very topic, which was a bit confuddling in of itself, they mention the utility of vitamin D, particularly in older people but don't believe people should be routinely screened for deficiency of it.

Vitamin D for the Prevention of Disease

The 2024 guideline on vitamin D for the prevention of disease updates and replaces the 2011 Evaluation, Treatment, and Prevention of Vitamin D Deficiency guideline and focuses on the use of vitamin D to lower the risk of disease in individuals without established indications for vitamin D...

www.endocrine.org