Vitamins

[Guest Camicochan]

So I figured it would be a good idea to take daily vitamins, as a lot of people do, but as I was browsing at the drug store I noticed a lot of these multivitamins are designated as women's or men's. My line of thinking is that, being on hormones, I would tend to have female body chemistry and nutrition needs. I also remember that when I compared the results of the big long blood test to a listing of serum levels, everything was in the female range and in a lot of cases would have been quite off compared to the male ranges. So is my thinking correct? Has anyone heard any more official opinions on this?

[Guest Erika]

Be careful not to get vitamins loaded with potassium or vitamin k if you are on spiro.

[Guest Elizabeth K]

On HRT for over a year - testing in the woman's normal range, I thought the same thing, maybe women's vitamins made sense.

The potassium is in men and women's vitamins - and the spiro does not mix well with it

BUT the major difference I could see was in the iron. We don't menstrate - so have none of the blood replacement needs - yet many women taking vitamis don't either. And iron is not good for my wife as she has a genetic inability to use it - Thalsemia (sp?) So a vitamin or suppliment CAN be useless or even harmful to you.

I was concerned with calcium. I origially thought estrogen leached-out calcuim. Now I find estrogen 'blocks' calcium absorbtion - so suppliments in vitamis are not the effective way to go. I will talk to my doctor about that to see how I can get calcuim protection. On HRT my nails are now fragile. Osteoperosis (sp?) for women runs in my family .

Commercial general vitamin suppliments probably won't hurt you - so buy those for women if it works for you. It's really a marketing ploy.

BUT watch out on the mega-vitamin thing! Especially the single vitamin or suppliment ones.

Lizzy

[Guest nymphblossom]

Probably more important than mens or womens is with or without iron. Too much iron is bad and generally only menstruating need a supplement. Use the vitamin that makes you feel best, but avoid the extra iron unless your doctor has specifically told you that you need it.

Blossom

[Guest i is Sam :-)]

The ones I got were labelled for vegans. i'm not but they were the ones that didn't contain potassium.

Yeah the difference between men's and women's is likely just iron, and maybe folic acid?

taking more calcium should still help a little, since there's a chance that at least some of it will be absorbed.

No vitamins or minerals are anywhere near as well absorbed from pills as they are in real food so they're no substitute for a proper diet. My reason for getting them however was because I'd seen it recomended to boil veg to death to remove the potassium, which in the process also removes everything else, so I wanted to make sure i'd stay healthy.