Multi-Vitamin, Anyone?

I’ve decided to try taking a multi-vitamin. Labeling is very confusing on these puppies… Some have even come up with “Men’s formula” versions, that contain lycopene (even though recent studies suggest you have to eat the whole tomato). The problem is that with 20+ ingredients you really have to start making trade-offs, since you can’t get exactly what you want. (Although I suppose you could take 20 individual pills a day, but that seems excessive.)

To make informed choices you need real facts. It turns out that science-based Recommended Daily Intakes (RDIs) are hard to come by as well.

I feel I don’t need the 18 mg of iron every day that comes in the general “adult” formulation (the recommended daily intake for men my age is 8 mg) so you’d think the men’s formula would be of some use; surprise… it has no iron at all. grr…. The men’s formula also has 3 times the RDI of some of the B vitamins, which seems excessive.

I wound up buying the generic “adult” version at the store (before I had all these facts). I think next time I will chance the men’s version, which has more selenium (good against prostate cancer) and less iron, even if it does provide too much B6 and B12.

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› health     2004-01-12 00:58   ...2