There is a lot debate right now on whether supplements are beneficial. I’ve taken a multivitamin previously because I’ve heard it helps maintain good health. Most of the research out there shows that it prevents heart disease and improves your defense system among many other benefits. There are also some recent reports that reveal that it doesn’t help. There may be a reason why some research shows this. I have a system that may make vitamins more effective.
Take Vitamins When You Need Them the Most
I’ve mentioned before that the body is amazing at adjusting to outside elements. When you stop drinking water, your body adjusts by retaining water. I’ve already mentioned that there’s reports that the brain adjusts to caffeine when it’s consumed at a consistent level. I believe this is the same situation in regard to how your body reacts to multivitamins.
One of the main reasons for taking multivitamins is to provide a better defense system to colds and flus. I usually get sick in the fall, winter and spring. Rarely, if ever do I get a cold or flu in the summer. For this reason, I stop taking vitamins in the summer. Why take vitamins when you’re the healthiest? I want to save them for when I really need them. For this reason, when it starts to get cool outside, I start to take a small number of multivitamins; this may be one every two or three days. As fall turns into winter and it’s colder outside, I feel like my body needs to increase my defense system, so I increase the amount. I continue this system into spring since my body is still battling the 40-degree temperature swings outside. Once the weather is nice, I stop taking vitamins. This way it acts as a rebooting system, where my body returns to taking care of itself without relying on extra supplements.
Take A Vacation from Vitamins
I also use this system if I go on a warm vacation in the middle of winter. The warm weather refreshes my body and builds up my immune system. This is when I take a vacation from vitamins since my body can use a small reboot so that they’re even more effective when I go back to the cold weather.
Omega-3
Another supplement I take is Omega-3 oils. I take them because they have a ton of research backing up their health benefits including improving heart disease, stress, and inflammation. For a long time, I was worried that I was jumping on a fad that would one day be rebuffed. It wasn’t until I began eating cereal with flaxseed that I noticed that if I chewed on an uneaten seed, it actually had a fishy flavor. This proved to me that Omega 3 oils are found in other natural elements and not just a one source gimmick.
If you have a problem with the fishy taste from the pills, you’re not alone. I’m the same way. I found out there’s a reduced chance of the flavor coming back up if I swallow one before a meal instead of during or after. This way the oil has a better chance of staying down since the food is on top.
Glucosamine Chondroitin
For a while, I took this supplement because I thought it helped rebuild joints. As much as I wanted it to work, there wasn’t enough research that showed that it did. And after much thought, if there wasn’t not enough proof to show that it worked significantly, then it must not be that beneficial. And if there’s not enough proof that it works, then why put my body through the extra burden of consuming another product.
Take Supplements with a Meal
PLEASE NOTE: I always take a vitamin during a meal. They are in a concentrated form and the body needs to digest it with other foods so that it’s not a shock on the filtering system. Your body needs the other fats and fiber to soften the process. Taking supplements without food is putting stress on your kidneys and liver, and stress on your body is not healthy.
Other Supplements
I’m not a believer in taking any other supplements except the ones mentioned above or at least ones that are in a multivitamin. For some reason, the FDA does not regulate supplements like they do medications, so I stay away from them unless it has a lot of research behind it from credible sources. If anything, some of these supplements may be putting more stress on your body because they’re a concentrated form and your body can’t handle extreme amounts of one thing.