Multivitamins,herbs,etc...

There's so many different pills out there to take for your health it's confusing. What do we really need if anything?

Should we have the fish oils,ginko boloba,one a days,and a whole cabinet full of pills or just try to get a proper diet? Maybe both?

I atleast take a mutivitamin everyday.

i take cod liver oil and vitimin b6 everyday
sometimes some st johns wort, i think pills too excess is a bad thing but heating healthily is the best thing you can do.
i tryed ginko tea didnt taste very nice

What i am really looking for is something to help me sleep! any suggestions

While it is true that a good diet will supply all the nutrients needed, it is still advisable to take a multi vitamin. Not just any vitamin but a whole food vitamin, one derived from plants and have the food chaperone's to deliver the nutrient's. I take Mens daily from mega foods. This is one of the top rated "smart" vitamins.

Another good supplement to take is flax oil for the heart and many other things. There are a lot of things to take, just need to find out your needs and work from there.

I take the GNC's Mega Man "sport" version along with my daily food wich always includes fish oil and flax. Depends on most people's diets I guess.

I'm bad for taking anything. Being in pain it is not hard to remember to take my medication and Ibprofen but multi-vitamins I can never remember to take. I even have my protein container sitting in our kitchen on the counter and I always seem to forget to take it on my off days. On my on days it is easy to remember. I also add to this my Omega 3,6 and 9 oil.

I think most things you can get from eating properly but a multi-vitamin I think is a good idea especially if you are lacking in stuff. If you have excess and it ends up being flushed down the toilet then so be it, at least you got the other stuff that you need.

If supplements were free I'd probably be popping 40 pills a day. As it is, we need to be selective, and accept that it's impractical to take every supplement that offers any sort of benefit.
In my opinion, eating loads of fruits and vegetables eliminates the need for multivitamins, and eating plenty of fish, eggs and oils eliminates the need for omega fatty acid supplements.
You should get plenty of antioxidants in your food, but I think everyone should take a high-quality antioxidant supplement.
For strength and enhanced athletic ability, creatine definitely works, whey is useful but not necessary if your diet and metabolism are in order, and some adaptogens can help.
I like to experiment with adaptogens/ nootropics for that quality that's advertised as 'overall health' , for extra energy (you can never have too much energy), and out of curiosity. I've tried reishi, gingko, ginseng, ashwagandha, piracetam, modafinil, idebenone, picamilon, St. John's Wort, DMAE and god knows what else. Idebenone and picamilon are what I take regularly, the rest I just toy with occasionally.
I also take a glucosamine-chondroitin complex because I'm paranoid about the damage I'm doing my joints with all this activity.
Valerian and melatonin are good for sleep. I used to take choline, B6, B12 and melatonin every night before bed to enhance my dreams. It works like a charm.

about a week ago i started taking xyience noxcg3. the stuff is a lil on the expensive side, but it is well worth it. it has given my stenght and stamina a boost. my workouts and runs are now longer. and my muscles recover in about 24 to 48 hours. so i can work out muscles multiple times per week. if you are looking to increase strength or stamina then i would definately recommend xyience

Omega oils, a 1 a day multi vit/min tablet, and glucosamine for my joints. Thats it.

Vitamins are designed to work in synergy with one another- loading up on one kind over another can easily do more harm than good, by throwing the system out of balance. Try loading up on vitamin A and I will see you in hospital- its toxic in high doses.

Think of your car. If you change your fuel mixture, you need to adjust your carburettor, maybe fit some high end plugs, change your HT leads and make sure your exhaust porting and your timing are correct.
Every change has a domino effect, which if not accounted for, hampers, not improves performance and reliability.
The body is just an engine made of meat.

'Performance' supplements rely largely on placebo effect.

Anyone remember 'Cybergenics'? When I was a kid I went on the 6 week 'phase 1' training/supplement plan from cybergenics. God knows what was in the tablets, but for those 6 weeks I devoted my entire focus to my eating and training, followed the plan to the letter. What do you know, I made some noticeable gains, and was really happy.
I decided to save up for the full advanced system (£90- $180). In the time I was saving, I carried on eating and training in a similar style to the phase 1 programme, but without the supplements as they were used up. I improved at the same rate without the expensive tablets! All they had done was given me extra focus and motivation to train hard and eat clean.
The money i was saving for more cybergenics went on eggs and gym fees, and was much better invested in those than 'wonder supplements.'

Train hard and eat clean. The simplest, greatest 'open' secret in the world of health and fitness. Easy to say, yet so difficult to do that a multi billion dollar industry based on marketing and lies has flourished on hopes of the naive and the lazy.

While the mass market of supplements is no doubt beyond confusing, a person has the responsibility to research what they may or may not be supplementing with.

It's so easy to fall to flashy advertising and slick "pseudo-research" that a guy could be dishing out hundreds of dollars per month---all for expensive urine.

IMO, one should attempt to eat the cleanest, most nutritious diet possible, 24/7. And frankly, that's just damn hard. So, supplementation fits in.

I've been dabbling in nutrition and supplents since I was a teenager, and I racked up a bit of knowledge based on research and trial-and-error. If I'm thinking about taking something new, I ask myself this two questions:

Is there any 3rd party research that's solid?

If not, chances are I won't spend my money. Sometimes, I will try something new to see if it does indeed have a desired effect on my body.

What I'm taking now:

Multi vit/min : Of course---fits in with the nutrition

Concentrated EPA/DHA fish oil: overwhelming postive research makes it a must-have, IMO

Vit C : I've always supplemented this at 1000mg a day, but recently upped to 9,000 mg a day.

Green Tea Extract (ECGC): Some incredible research on it's anti-oxidant properties. Started this in Jan to see if it actually have any thermogenic effects. None I've noticed, that's for sure!---but on an interesting side note, I fall asleep a lot faster. Weird.

ColdFX: Canadian-made supplement backed by a shwackload of research. Been taking it for over two years now, and I haven't had a cold or the flu in two years. Yes, it works.

Panax Ginseng: I cycle this, and it give a noticable boost in enery levels for me. There's some sports reserahc out there backing it with improvement in performance of trained athletes.

And that's it. Of course, there's creatine and whey protien, but those are beyond supplements

Quote:

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ColdFX: Canadian-made supplement backed by a shwackload of research. Been taking it for over two years now, and I haven't had a cold or the flu in two years. Yes, it works.

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I recently tried this Mike as I had a cold for 2 weeks ... but I am not having the results that you have as now almost a month and still a bit of a cold that I'm fighting off and I'm taking this stuff to the letter.

A friend of mine was one of the original test subjects and did not know if they were taking the real thing or a placibo. She is a welder and at that time she was working up in Fort McMurray at Syncrude/Suncor and to this day she is still taking this and has not had a cold either. After the testing phase and before it went on the market for the general public she found out she was taking the real thing and that sold her.

For me, I find most things don't work. I have taken way too much stuff in my life and I think for me I would have to up the dosage to get those affects. I can drink a whole bottle of Nyquil and be totally awake. I tried sleeping pills twice and I was wired awake. I ate 15 chocolate cover coffee beans and had to crap and then fell asleep afterwards. And you should see all of the bottle of meds I'm taking under my Sport Doctor's supervision for my neck, knee and bicep. I'm a walking drug factory.