Vitamins and Supplements Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Our diets in the modern age are becoming less and less likely to provide the vitamins and minerals we need for our health. Exhaustive farming techniques have stripped the nutrients from the soil, while pasteurisation, pesticides and other chemicals work to “clean” what we eat and drink of important vitamins and minerals. Pesticides in particular kill important bacteria that create the balance needed for a healthy gut.

12 Vitamin Mistakes You Might Not Know

Vitamins and supplements, which some 50 percent of Americans take regularly, might optimize your health — if you’re smart about how you use them. Here’s what to know about popping those pills safely.

Unless your doctor recommends one for a specific reason, this daily habit may be worth skipping. “For the most part, multivitamins are a poor investment, says Les Emhof, MD, an MDVIP-affiliated physician in Tallahassee, Florida. “They just give you expensive urine.” In an editorial published in the Annals of Internal Medicine in 2013, Johns Hopkins University researchers concluded that popping a multi does not lower disease or mortality risk. Experts agree that your best bet is to get vitamins and minerals from whole foods.

Every body is different, so choosing vitamins and supplements willy nilly — or trying brands your friends have recommended — isn’t necessarily what’s best for your individual needs. Dr. Emhof gives his patients a blood test to suss out common deficiencies such as vitamin D and B12, and then doles out recommendations based on the results. For other issues, your doctor may suggest supplements based on medical history. For example, if you are grappling with nighttime leg cramps, you might have a magnesium deficiency — not a potassium deficiency, he says.

If you’re living in the northern part of the country during a snowy winter, you’re probably short on vitamin D — but it’s also likely true for people living in the sunny south, says Dr. Emhof. “I live in Florida, and 90 percent of my patients are vitamin D deficient,” he says. While the Institute of Medicine recommends that adults 70 and younger need 600 international units (IUs) of vitamin D per day, Dr. Emhof says some people may need at least 5,000 IU. “You need a blood test to determine the right amount for you,” he advises.

This mineral, along with vitamin D, is key for skeletal strength, but too much calcium might be a bad thing. Research in the Journal of the American Heart Association recently showed that taking a calcium supplement was associated with 22 percent higher odds of atherosclerosis, or clogged arteries. Eating calcium-rich foods, on the other hand, was found to be protective for your ticker — so continue to bone up on yogurt, cottage cheese, and leafy greens.

We’re all into boosting gut health these days, so if you’re taking a probiotic, make sure it has enough going for it to make it worthwhile. “So many supplements don’t have enough varying strains of bacteria, and that won’t do anything for you,” says Dr. Emhof. He tells his patients to look for one with 10 strains, like the Ultimate 10 Probiotic. Another good option is Just Thrive Probiotic, 100 percent of which has been shown to survive the harrowing journey to the small intestine through stomach acid, where many other probiotics are killed off.

If some is good…more must be better, right? Not so much. Popping megadoses of vitamins, particularly vitamin E and vitamin A, hasn’t been shown to protect against heart disease, and may even raise your risk of dying, points out the National Institutes of Health. Plus, these supplements could actually increase your risk of cancer. Which vitamins should you take?

Look at the array of supplements you pop daily — are they all compatible with your medications? While it’s easy to assume that “natural” supplements and herbs are harmless, they can interact with certain prescriptions and have dangerous consequences. In fact, one in six older adults are taking a potentially harmful combination of drugs and supplements, reports a 2016 study from the University of Illinois at Chicago. The lesson: Be open with your doctor about everything you’re taking — even if it seems benign. And be aware that there are also potential downsides to certain drug and food combinations.

Iron supplements are so important to treat symptoms of anemia, but getting the dosage right can be tough. (Not to mention, side effects such as nausea often accompany them, making the mineral hard to stick with.) A new study in the journal Blood suggests that waiting longer intervals between taking each dose may help improve absorption. The research is still preliminary, but if you’ve been wrestling with GI complaints after popping your iron pills or not seeing improvement in levels, this may be one strategy to ask your doc about.

Speaking of iron, if you’re donating blood, you may want to pop a supplement afterward, suggests a 2015 National Institutes of Health study. Doing so helps cut the time it takes for your blood to recover its iron and hemoglobin counts by more than half, and can possibly help you avoid iron-deficiency anemia, a common side effect of regular blood donation.

Have you heard about the disease-busting, anti-inflammatory power of turmeric? It’s one of the most buzzed-about ingredients today because it’s rife with the powerful antioxidant pigment curcumin, which may offer protection against dementia, among other benefits.However, a curcumin supplement is best taken with food for proper absorption, notes Dr. Emhof. Though there’s nothing wrong with a supplement, you’re better off sprinkling turmeric on your food at meal times. Add the yellow spice to rice dishes, casseroles, slow cooker recipes, and even smoothies.

Don’t assume that what’s on the label is actually what’s in the bottle. At least that’s the takeaway from the New York State attorney general’s office last year when they revealed the results of tests on major supplement brands. Their labs discovered that 80 percent of herbal supplement labels were misleading, as reported in the New York Times. A good place to look for quality supplements is on the Consumer Lab website.

Vitamins and supplements may be a nearly $28 billion dollar industry, but that doesn’t mean all doctors are up to speed. “Unfortunately, medical schools traditionally don’t teach nutrition,” Dr. Emhof says. So while you want to ask your doctor questions about the supplements you should take (and are taking), know in advance that he or she may not have all the answers. Your doctor can order a blood test, however, which will highlight any shortfalls in your diet that might suggest a need for supplementation.

Do Supplements Cause Cancer?

You might want to shift your focus from your morning supplement routine to your diet if you’re looking to reap the benefits of vitamins, a new study says. Researchers at Tufts University have found that nutrients from food are associated with living longer — but the same can’t be said for vitamin supplements.

The researchers analyzed data on more than 27,000 adults in the U.S. to evaluate the link between dietary supplements and mortality. They found that the “lower risk of death associated with adequate nutrient intakes of vitamin K and magnesium was limited to nutrients from foods, not from supplements,” a statement on the research says.

Additionally, the researchers found that getting enough vitamin K, vitamin A, and zinc via a balanced diet lowers your chances of having cardiovascular disease. Getting enough of those three via pills, though, doesn’t have the same effect. On top of that, the researchers found that getting too much calcium from supplements — defined as at least 1,000 milligrams a day — increases your risk of dying of cancer. But that relationship doesn’t exist if you’re getting that much calcium from food, the study found.

Another interesting finding from the new research: If you take vitamin D without being vitamin D deficient, you could be increasing your chances of dying of cancer. However, more studies are needed to solidify this finding, the researchers warn.

“As potential benefits and harms of supplement use continue to be studied, some studies have found associations between excess nutrient intake and adverse outcomes, including increased risk of certain cancers,” Fang Fang Zhang, MD, PhD, lead author of the new research, explained in a statement. “Our results support the idea that, while supplement use contributes to an increased level of total nutrient intake, there are beneficial associations with nutrients from foods that aren’t seen with supplements.”

To be clear, there are a handful of legitimate reasons to take supplements. For example, you might want to consider taking zinc, copper, and B vitamins if you have inflammatory bowel disease. If you have osteoporosis, it’s possible that you’ll benefit from taking vitamin D and calcium. But most of us can probably get the vitamins and nutrients we need from eating a variety of nutritious whole foods, Heather Caplan, RD, previously told Health.

If you are going to use a supplement, keep a few things in mind when shopping for vitamins from our buyer’s guide: For starters, avoid buying supplements made in China, where relaxed regulations could lead to contaminated products. You should also avoid discounts when you’re shopping for supplements; the recommended dosages of cheaper products are less likely to match established standards. Refrain from taking supplements that include kava, an ingredient linked to liver damage; chromium, which is associated with anemia; bitter orange, which is associated with heart attacks and strokes; and contaminated L-tryptophan, which is linked to neurotoxic reactions.

If you do need to take a supplement to treat a medical condition, make sure you’re cautious when choosing which one to swallow each day. If you’re healthy enough to avoid supplements, though, focus on getting enough vitamins through a balanced diet instead, research advises.

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