Too many supplements?

[Sarah94]

I am taking so many supplements now... like 40 pills a day (and that's not counting my medicines). Sometimes I worry whether "too many cooks will spoil the broth", so to speak (British idiom - don't worry if you don't know what I mean by that). They all have a reason for me to take them. And I still have a long list of further supplements that I want to try out! But I worry whether taking too many could reduce the amount that my body absorbs from each one? Is that possible or likely?

 

[valentinelynx]

"too many cooks will spoil the broth", so to speak (British idiom

LOL. Don't worry, that saying is common in the US as well. It never occurred to me that it's a Britishism...

I have the same concern that I take too many supplements. I take gobs of them. All of them I take for rational reasons, yet I cannot say any of them make me feel significantly better. For example, I take high dose EPA Omega 3 for inflammation, but don't notice any difference in my aches and stiff joints. I take Coq10 because it seems like a good idea for heart and muscle. The few ones I know are useful are: a. magnesium, because I need to take large quantities (about 2 grams per day) to keep my RBC magnesium levels in the low normal range, and b. phosphatidylcholine, which helps heal my gut and somehow (unexpected result) suppresses ectopic cardiac activity (PVCs and PACs).

Yes, some supplements can interfere with each other. For example, high intake of zinc, calcium and vitamin D apparently can inhibit magnesium absorption. Amino acid absorption is regulated and certain amino acids will inhibit the absorption of others. This is a complicated area. I suggest looking up each of your supplements' interactions to help decide how to time when you take them.

 

[andyguitar]

Yes it is possible. Particularly with minerals. You will have to check each individual thing you are taking.

 

[percyval577]

I used to restrict the time over which I took supplements, mostly three weeks. The effects havn´t been too strong, and I wanted to avoid any restrictions or even sideeffects (maybe I am overcautious). Only tyrosin I took for longer.


(Now I have found a combo (9 natural things + a metal management.
It works on top of a slow improvement. So, I am not going to stop that so far.)

 

[Wishful]

If you're taking that many, it would be hard to tell if any are causing you problems, especially in combination. Since there are some you need to take, I suggest stopping one of the non-critical ones at a time, for a week or longer, and seeing if there is any noticeable effect. If it's not having an effect, why bother taking it? The marketers want you to believe that it will have a marvelous benefit for you, but they just want your money. There's a chance that supplement 'x' will provide a slight benefit (maybe avoiding a cancer that you'd otherwise get when you are 97), but there's also a chance that it will cause a health problem. No one can prove that there would be a benefit or not be a detriment. You have to decide which is more likely for yourself. Then there's the third possibility: that it just makes your pee more expensive.

If you're after a noticeable benefit from a supplement, test it. If the reason for taking it is just a vague marketing claim, well, it's your money and possibility of health harm.

 

[geraldt52]

... There's a chance that supplement 'x' will provide a slight benefit (maybe avoiding a cancer that you'd otherwise get when you are 97), but there's also a chance that it will cause a health problem. No one can prove that there would be a benefit or not be a detriment. You have to decide which is more likely for yourself. Then there's the third possibility: that it just makes your pee more expensive.
.

I think that the third possibility is by far the most likely. There's a good reason why supplement manufacturers don't do double blind studies...because they know what the results will generally be, and that wouldn't be good for their business.

 

[percyval577]

@Wishful @geraldt52

For healthy people supplements might be nuts. I believe so.

For ill people it might be much more worth than currently known - only one needed to know what when to which amount. The body can be compared with a motor, can´t it?

In my case: E.g. vitamins B2, 1, 7 now (under certain circumstances) bring some nerves in my brain back to normal action, as it feels. I don´t think though that I have a defciency in the whole body, vitB2 - the strongest for me - would not come out of the body - but it does (it´s visible in the pee). I can literally tune parts of my body, i.e. here the brain (and only therefore [that´s the brain] I can tune it, I guess).

 

[Wishful]

For ill people it might be much more worth than currently known - only one needed to know what when to which amount.

That's the problem: knowing how much is needed, and how much is too much, and are there cofactors affecting the amount? We can't simply look up the optimum amount, because we're all different. that's why I said that the best we can do is to experiment to see what has a noticeable effect for us. If there's no noticeable effect, we don't need to spend money on it. For effects not readily noticeable, such as long-term cancer risk, it's a gamble and a matter of personal judgement. There's probably not much research done on long-term hazards of supplements, so we really don't have adequate information to make a good judgement.

 

[BeADocToGoTo1]

Not much to add from the great posts above, except to look for food that is high in certain supplements you are taking. For example, I will eat Brazil nuts (expensive, but cheaper than many pills) to get a boost in selenium, copper and magnesium. I will eat a can of sardines or have a spoon of cod liver oil for vitamin A, D, E. Some seaweed (with olive oil and salt) for iodine, vitamin K, etc.

It can absolutely create issues. For example, I have trouble with vitamin D supplements, even in multis, now since I took way too much for too long (gives me achiness and skin pain) and my calcium levels went up. I had wired but tired, frazzled feeling with too much B6. My copper-to-zinc balance was off in the blood due to zinc supplements. Certain things like evening primrose oil will kick in a migraine. Too many fishoil pills and my LDL increased. And so on.

I am all for testing and paying close attention to changes in symptoms. Taking supplements you do not need will not help, at best. Supplementation can be great and is partly how I was able to tackle many nutrient deficiencies, help mitochondria and some metabolic pathways to function better. It also allowed me to tweak supplementation as it pointed to over-supplementation during certain times. But, it is difficult to know when is something helping, in your own personal case.

You do have to ask why are you deficient in certain nutrients. Is it diet imbalances, malabsorption issues, dysbiosis issues, or an underlying medical issue for which you just need more. The latter as well as the unknown is obviously the toughest. Experimentation with supplements is also very personal as your requirements and reaction to supplements can be completely different to someone else. As was mentioned in the other posts, perhaps try to take a break from them and slowly reintroduce one by one whilst listening closely to your body's reaction.

 

[Goldfishbowl]

40 pills a day seems excessive to me. A good Multi vitamin, magnesium, fish oil and probiotic would be sufficient as well as a few supplements tailored to your needs.
Diet is so important too.
A Dr once said to me you should take a break from supplements now and again as taking them long term lowers there effectiveness.
Also if there is no improvement in 21 days then they may not be working for you.
Also it costs a lot of money which could be spent on tweaking your diet which in the long run could have a more beneficial effect on your health.

 

[percyval577]

That's the problem: knowing how much is needed, and how much is too much, and are there cofactors affecting the amount? We can't simply look up the optimum amount, because we're all different. that's why I said that the best we can do is to experiment to see what has a noticeable effect for us. If there's no noticeable effect, we don't need to spend money on it. For effects not readily noticeable, such as long-term cancer risk, it's a gamble and a matter of personal judgement. There's probably not much research done on long-term hazards of supplements, so we really don't have adequate information to make a good judgement.

I agree.

But if it is true that the body can be tuned (or mistuned) then it´s nevertheless a chance.

And in so far it´s good luck that probabaly one major part of the complex illness we are suffering with is the brain, because we should well feel the effects (if there are any). And in a complex system like our body an influence on one major part might not be bad news for another one (in this case of an complex illness, well without serious damage, as it seems).

I think for sure one is right in saying that a helpful or even curing influence on the illness may affect other subsystems of the body, and might even be detrimental. Yes, that´s a question of which risks you are willing to take.

 

[percyval577]

In addition, our disease could well easily be a complex homeostasis which is out of tune. I guess the following finding (which is to be published soon, hopefully, and to be confirmed of course) would say so.

Perez et al accpeted 03 Mai 2019: Genetic Predisposition for [ME/CFS]: A Pilot Study

Results: 5693 SNPs were found to have at least 10% frequency in at least one cohort (ME/CFS or reference) and at least two-fold absolute difference for ME/CFS. Functional analysis identified the majority of SNPs as related to immune system, hormone, metabolic and extracellular matrix organization.

CADD scoring identified 517 SNPs in these pathways that are among the 10% most deleteriousness substitutions to the human genome.

From the abstract. My paragraphing.

In the case that it is a complex homeostasis out of tune, an influence by nutritional stuff might even be the best chance (and only one needed to know ... ), as long as threre aren´t (already) any irreversible changes which would be lasting in itself, but this really doesn´t seem to the case in mecfs.
True, cancer is complex enough, and nobody would want to rely on nutritional stuff, at least not alone. What shall we say about Huntington (where one gene does not function, for its sequence is too long, if I am remembering right)? These diseases are probably less complex, but the changes are not restricted to an homeostasis, instead the body in its structure is affected.
MDD might well be a complex homeostasis out of tune, and only such a disease. Here medicals work (as opposed so far to mecfs), but they do not change the generel direction in so far that they would cure the illness, instead they are very slowly loosing their good effects.
Wouldn´t it be better, if the homeostasis could be brought back into balance by nutritions? And, btw, cancer cells rely on glycolysis (at least in most mutations), so even here it should be basically possible to influence the disease to some extent by nutrition and it´s stuff (avoiding high blood sugar levels).

The questions remained, nonetheless, what is the core of our illness (explaining PEM),
giving some hint, hopefully.
(And for severely cases probably the question remeained, where were to beginn with - after this approach -, because other effects of any stuff provided to the body in higher concentrations may outcompete good influences. Hopefully such an influence still were possible.)