“Patients may not realise they are duplicating ingredients, exceeding recommended amounts, or taking products that could interact with prescribed medicines,” says Prof Victoria Tzortziou Brown, president of the Royal College of GPs. “More is not always better.”<\/p>\n
For example, taking a multivitamin, along with a vitamin B6 supplement could lead to a double dose – and too much vitamin B6 over a long period of time can result in nerve damage. <\/p>\n
Taking a cocktail of iron, calcium and magnesium together can reduce absorption rates. <\/p>\n
And some vitamins, like A, D, E and K, are fat soluble so the body stores them for longer, so it might not be necessary to take them on a daily basis.<\/p>\n
“Social media is convincing people they need these supplements to achieve health,” says UK-based nutritionist Kristen Stavridis, who feels she is fighting a losing battle, “but more often than not, it’s just not true.”<\/p>\n
For an adult with no underlying health conditions, she recommends a balanced diet, with vitamin D supplements in the winter months, and perhaps a multivitamin and fish oil if needed. <\/p>\n
For some women, who are more likely to be iron deficient, supplements can help, but they should only be taken over a short period of time until levels have bounced back.<\/p>\n
Stavridis’ main message is to prioritise food, and if you do think you are deficient in a certain nutrient, consult a doctor, as you shouldn’t assume a supplement will fix it.<\/p>\n
Make sure you look at the recommended daily amounts (RDAs) on the label, she adds, and check your supplements are not clashing with any prescription medication.<\/p>\n
It took several months for Ginger to recover from the operation to remove the kidney stone. She’s feeling healthy again and is back at work.<\/p>\n
“The funny thing is,” she says, “I feel just as energised and healthy as I did when I was taking all those different supplements.<\/p>\n
“Now I just take one multivitamin a day – and hopefully that’s good enough.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Patients may not realise they are duplicating ingredients, exceeding recommended amounts, or taking products that could interact with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,85,46,543],"class_list":["post-501957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}