Multi vitamin recommendations please

[ally1986]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for recommendations for multi vitamins that will help with tiredness and general wellbeing please?!

Usual story - I have a [nearly] 2 year old who has just started waking up in the night, I work full time, and I'm knackered .

I've tried Floradix liquid but it's a bit of a faff. Has anyone tried the tablets? Or can recommend anything else?

Thank you! x

I wouldn't touch multivitamins as they contain synthetic vitamins like folic acid and cyanocobalamin that many people cannot tolerate. There are a few good brands I could recommend if you really want to, buy with your issues it's good to start with a base of magnesium, selenium and a D3/K2 combo.

Magnesium malate for energy. If you don't like big capsules you can buy magnesium oil. It prickles your ski for a few seconds.

I think you need to ask for a blood test first to assess any deficiencies and you would be better off taking single supplements than a multivitamin. Who doing your blood test, ask for an Omega 3 index as well. I found out I was dangerously low despite eating more than 800% of the recommended food intake.
For selenium a single brazil nut will give you around 90ug which is more than 150%.
My issue with multivitamin is as PP said, the folic acid, the betacarotene.
Ask for blood and more specifically:
Iron
B12
VitD
Omega 3
the big culprits when it comes to tiredness

Agree that you should visit your GP & get bloods taken to pinpoint any deficiencies.

However I do use Centrum multivitamin (the women’s version) without negative side effects You only have to take one a day to get the full dosage which is a massive plus.

Tesco multivitamin with iron works for me, plus extra Vit D over winter.

Agree with blood test recommendation.

LiliesAndChocolate are you in the UK? I don't think my GP would order blood tests on request. It would have to be his decision as to whether they were clinically indicated.

If you eat a varied diet you don’t need to buy supplements. You’re just wasting your money and lining someone else’s pockets.
Ask your GP for advice. Tiredness can be symptomatic if other underlying health issues or it could just be part of running around with a wakeful toddler.

My GP has done my vit D, folate, iron and B12 but partly because of family history and the medication I am on. I think these would be the standard with OPs symptoms. I am not sure if they would agree to the others. Magnesium is safe I believe and so long as selenium isn't taken in massive quantities is fine. I did used to go to a private clinic overseas and they were very hot on prescribing vitamins for optimum wellbeing. Their advice was to start one at a time a few days apart so you know if it is actually working and to avoid unnecessary tests and expense.

I recently changed doctors and the new one ran a whole slew of blood tests. All good except I was borderline deficient in vitamin D, which came as a shock as my daily multi supplied 2000 IU. So now I'm taking an additional 2000 IU separately as well.

I think the multi's are cheap insurance that you're getting the minimum of what you need. I'd be seriously deficient in vitamin D if it weren't for the multi. A good general recommendation is to get it in a gelatin capsule. The large, hard tablets are slightly cheaper to make but often don't dissolve completely. Twinlab is a very good formulation that you can get in the UK.

Twinlab Daily One

I've had another look and the higher potency multi I take is available on the amazon UK site as well:

Life Extension Two Per Day 120 Capsules

It gets the higher potency and breadth of vitamins by requiring two capsules per day. I take one in the morning and one in the evening, but you could just take both once a day.

Also recommend Life Extension it is a very high quality brand.

I’m a vegetarian and also have vegan days, I can’t sustain a decent iron or vitamin d level etc through diet alone. My GP has no problem with me taking a multivitamin, they’re well aware.

@BeerandBiscuits no I am in Australia, but pay myself for Omega3, which I am very glad to do, as every deficiency can lead to brain shrinkage and cognitive impairment.

Extra vitamins are not a cheap insurance. Supplementing with vitamin unless there is a deficiency can actually do more harm than good . So calcium and vita D supplement can cause precancerous polyps in the bowel which could turn into cancer.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29496722

Most importantly folate increases risk of breast cancer : Please note the factor risk, multivitamin is listed with alcohol and smoking.

[ Folate was significantly positively associated with invasive and estrogen receptor-positive/progesterone receptor-positive breast cancer, and this association was suggestively stronger for bloods collected post-fortification. Several nutrient/breast cancer associations varied across subgroups defined by age, smoking, alcohol, multivitamin use, and MTHFR status (p-interaction 

There is also evidence that vitamin D lowers the risk of CRC

sciencebasedmedicine.org/vitamin-d-and-the-relationship-to-colon-cancer/

Other studies found no evidence of adverse events from multivitamin consumption

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17764205

and fortification of foods with vitamin D and folate have well documented public heath benefits

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3319130/

My doctor has no problem with my taking a multi. She was the one who pointed out to me that I'd be dealing with loss of bone mineral density now if I hadn't been taking the multi that gave me the 2000 IU of vitamin D.

No intervention is purely beneficial or adverse.

I take multivitamins. I have the Chewyvites. 12 essential vitamins and minerals. Are these not good for me then?