Experts Prefer Multivitamin and Vitamin D
On the heels of recent reports suggesting some common vitamins are not as beneficial as originally thought, CNN’s Empowered Patient asked four prominent medical doctors about their daily regimen of supplements. The four experts were: Dr. Andrew Weil, director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine; Dr. Christiane Northrup, author of “The Secret Pleasures of Menopause;” Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health; and Dr. Melina Jampolis, who specializes exclusively in nutrition for weight loss and disease prevention and treatment. The results were surprising.
While one might reasonably suspect that such prominent integrative medicine, public health and nutrition-focused doctors would ingest an array of exotic vitamins, minerals and other supplements, the reality was just the opposite. All four took vitamin D daily, and three of them also took a multivitamin. Two of the four also took magnesium, calcium, CoQ10, and/or fish oil/Omega 3. See the list below for the breakdown.
It’s interesting to note that while Dr. Weil, for example, said he believes “vitamins E and C are important for optimum health as part of our antioxidant defenses,” he doesn’t take them as separate supplements himself (presumably they are included in his multivitamin or ingested in food rich in those vitamins). So, if these noted “experts” aren’t taking all of the other separate vitamins, minerals and herbs being touted to consumers, then . . . ?
