Vitamins & Supplements Archive

Flavonoids may help protect against Parkinson's disease.

Q. Should I be drinking the orange juice that has calcium and vitamin D added to it?

A. Major brands are selling orange juice with about 350 milligrams (mg) of calcium and 100 international units of vitamin D added to each 8-ounce serving. Many Americans don't get enough vitamin D, so I am happy to see the addition of vitamin D. I have some concerns about the additional calcium.

Q. Is it true that you can get a tingling feeling from taking too much vitamin B₆?

A. Vitamin B₆ is a water-soluble vitamin that's involved in over 100 different enzyme reactions in the body, many of them involving protein metabolism. Adults need just a small amount — less than 2 milligrams (mg) a day — and a wide variety of foods contain B₆, so a reasonably balanced diet provides most people with all they need.

Q. Should I have my magnesium level checked regularly to make sure I'm getting enough for my bones?

A. You need adequate magnesium, and not just for bone health. It's central to hundreds of biochemical reactions throughout the body and essential for proper nerve, muscle, heart rhythm, and immune function. It also helps regulate blood sugar levels and promotes healthy blood pressure. We get most of the magnesium we need in food (good sources are whole grains, legumes, and dark-green leafy vegetables). Most multivitamins also contain some magnesium.

It was once thought that taking vitamin E could reduce the risk of prostate cancer. However, recent research suggests this is not the case. Back in 2008 one large study, known as the Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer Prevention Trial (SELECT), showed that not only did vitamin E fail to decrease the risk of prostate […]

Frequent blood testing after a heart attack can deplete red blood cells.

Anemia — having too few oxygen-carrying red blood cells in circulation — is a blood problem that plagues millions of people. Among anemia's many possible causes are diets poor in iron or folic acid, kidney disease, internal bleeding, and cancer.

Q. Could you discuss the benefits of creatine supplements for older, postmenopausal women? Are there any drawbacks?

A. Creatine is a substance made in our bodies from the amino acids arginine, glycine, and methionine. Amino acids are the chemical building blocks of protein; we get them from dietary protein. The body makes 1 to 2 grams of creatine a day, and we also get creatine from certain foods, such as fish and meat. Most (95%) of the body’s creatine is located in muscle, though some is found in other tissues, including the brain and retina.

Although a recent article on healthy aging in the Washington Post suggested that taking vitamin E can help men prevent prostate and other cancers, that isn’t what the evidence shows.

Weight, warm skin, and the angle of the sun are among the determinants.

When an Institute of Medicine (IOM) panel made long-awaited vitamin D recommendations late in 2010, one of the messages was that most Americans probably have enough of the vitamin circulating in their blood to get its main proven benefit, protection of bones. But in 2011, the National Center for Health Statistics released data that paint a less rosy picture. According to the center's numbers, almost one in three Americans has vitamin D blood levels below 20 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml), the threshold that the IOM panel said is needed for good bone health. Besides, many experts think the IOM panel was too cautious and that we'd be better off if our vitamin D levels were considerably higher than 20 ng/ml.

Millions of women and men take calcium pills to strengthen their bones and ward off osteoporosis. Whether taking calcium is good, neutral, or bad for the heart is a matter of conflicting studies and lively debate. Australian researchers have sounded another note of caution in a controversial paper they published in the medical journal BMJ.

The Australian team took a fresh look at data from the Women's Health Initiative Calcium–Vitamin D Supplementation Study. It randomized 36,282 women to a calcium–vitamin D supplement or to a placebo. The results of the trial, published in 2006, showed a small improvement in hip bone density but no effect on hip fracture. The researchers reported that the numbers of heart attacks and other cardiovascular problems were the same in both groups.