Vitamins & Painkillers: a contrary view

eshear.posterous.com

9 points·emmett··4 comments

The author claims Lipitor is a vitamin, and complains that Lipitor is left out of the market size for vitamins.

Lipitor is of course not a vitamin. It's a statin. Vitamins are determined based on what's essential for an organism. It's a bit tricky since the body's own reserves of some vitamins can last for months, but as I recall, the determination of what's essential included observations of people nourished by IVs (and hence all nutrients could be traced).

Somewhat related: I've always been under the impression that vitamins are a scam. Is it actually helpful to take a multivitamin? Are there specific single-ingredient vitamins that one should be taking that have proven beneficial? I look at the vitamin aisle in the grocery store and can't help but make comparisons to all of the other scammy/fad health trends.

Exactly - I never buy vitamins because i'm under the impression that i have enough vitamins in my food. The body can only process so many vitamins an hour, and you get no benefit from having extra vitamins that pass through your system.

Have you seen the movie limitless? Make some pills that augment my abilities :)

It really depends on your diet, but vitamin D seems agreed-upon to be worth supplementing, since most people don't spend enough time in the sun to get the appropriate dose.

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