Supplements

[Tim]

I wanted to get all your opinions on vitamin supplements.  Do they work or not?  I work for a vitamin company so I can get just about any kind of vitamin and even sport nutrional items on the cheap, however currently I just take a daily vitamin.  Does anyone take a specific type of supplement that they feel has helped in their health and training, such as recovering faster from hard workouts or do you feel that as long as you are eating a healthy diet (I do believe this includes french fries) you get everything that your body needs?     

[Sasha Pachev]

I've had good results with Dr. Christopher's herbal formulas. Currently I am taking hawthorn berries and cayenne pepper.

[Fredrick Teichert]

Good topic, Tim! I too, will be interested to see how people reply. I take multi-vitamins for insurance. I've tried various supplements on the recommendation of experts throughout my life but honestly haven't felt any different. I struggle with the claims people make about being re-energized by a pill. Sasha has the best formula for feeling re-energized: run a mile or two every three or four hours. It's like recess for school children and works better than supplements to keep your metabolism going. Oops! It appears that I have wandered off topic. Sorry! Maybe a little fish oil would help me focus better. I'll try it and let you know.

[Haynes Heaton]

I am in med school.  And we learn that there are more vitamin toxicities in america than deficiencies.  But most multivitamins are fine if you like.  Of course it can be good to have some protein in your liquid for long runs or very hard workouts.  And if you do not eat fish very often, fish oil pills are probably a good idea because of the myriad benefits of omega 3's.  I would say the primary vitamin/mineral that runners (especially women runners) can be deficient in which affects performance is iron.  If you do not eat red meat, be sure to eat spinach 3/week or take an iron supplement probably every day (which many multivitamins have).  If you are low on iron, your blood cannot carry as much oxygen which obviously makes you slower.  And it is very difficult to overdose on iron as your body stops absorbing most of it when it has enough.

[adam]

I take an iron/vit c combo supplement, a vit e supplement, and b12. While I don't notice anything much off the b12, the iron makes a very significant difference in my running, and vit e has shown to be helpful in muscle recovery (both when I use it and in scientific research).

i've also tried glucosamine, but it felt like it just numbed my legs so I stopped taking it. It may have just been the brand. I found calcium supplements to be unecessary for me as well.

[Sasha Pachev]

Oats are very rich in iron.

[Tim]

I think I will start an unscientific test and try taking different supplements each week and see how my body reacts.  I'm suprised about the glucosamine because I thought that would be beneficial. 

[Gokay Yamankurt]

If you are trying to build muscles, you can take whey protein. It is isolated from milk and has the highest biological value of a protein, meaning it can be turned into muscle faster than any other protein. Other than that, you can a garden variety multivitamin.

But in my opinion, it is not the supplements but the carbohydrates that you really need. They are stored as glycogen in your muscles and are burned to provide energy when you are running. It takes about 20 hours to replace the glycogen stock of a muscle, given that you take in 600 g of carbohydrates (about 1.5 pounds). When you run for 18-20 miles, you run out of glycogen and start burning fat, which is not burned as readily so running gets considerably harder (that's why it's called "hitting the wall"). So eat as much carbs as you need to keep your energy.

[Adam R Wende]

When I wrestled I took a lot of supplements. However, now I just eat a more balanced diet. Too many studies show that vitamins are just money in the toilet, literally... That being said during the winter I do still take a multi-vitamin, vitamin C, and a garlic pill.

[Fredrick Teichert]

Tim,
I want to see the results of your "unscientific" test. Tell us what works for you. I read a book several years ago in which the author claimed that nobody ever died from too many vitamins, so he proscribed megadoses of vitamins several times a day so that when your body needed them they were available. I tried megavitamins for a while and it seemed to take care of some chronic cramping I had in my calves that I couldn't treat with other supplements, but this approach has come into question recently. I don't think his book is available anymore, either. Apparently you can get too much of a good thing. I've heard this is especially true of iron (more for men than women).

[Tim]

I will try and post some results on my findings later next month.  For the next month I'm taking a multivitamin and a glucosamine supplement, I will include details of what is exactly in them later as there are many different types.  A guy at my work told me I should use a cream for the glucosamine instead as it is absorb better into the body.  He's getting me a sample of it so I will try that when I get it.

[Adam R Wende]

Fredrick, You are correct about some supplement use being drawn into question. In Feb of last year a paper was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA 2007 297(:842-857). In this paper they were specifically looking at antioxidant use, beta carotene, vitamin A, C, and E as well as selenium. What these doctors did was to compile all data published prior to Oct '05 on human studies with these compounds. After a bunch of different selection criteria they came up with 68 randomized trials with a total 232,606 participants covering 385 scientific publications. Their conclusion was that beta carotene, vitamin A and E supplementation actually INCREASED!!! mortality. Too much of a good thing was actually bad. The results from vitamin C and selenium were not conclusive. Before you throw out all your vitamins though keep in mind that sicker people may be more likely to opt for supplement use and I did not go back to look over what the break down of the individual participants was... In the meantime I still take some supplements from time to time including getting back out the glucosamine with some knee pain recently.

[Maria Imas]

Recently, I was taking fish oil, grape extract, green tea extract and CholestOff (plant sterols) - all on the advice of my cardiologist. Yes, I had progressive cardiologist back in NJ who looked into natural supplements before prescribing cholesterol lowering drugs. He also told me to keep running a lot.

Years ago, I used to take Endurox Excel (herb ciwuja + vitamin E) and I'm sure it helped with recovery and indirectly, performance because I could train harder. It could have been all psychological, but it felt like it was helping. I also read some materials about "adaptogens" - herbs that suppose to help the body withstand stress. They were (are?) actively used in Russia by some elite runners, and there are also some studies that point to their effectiveness. I don't remember all of the herbs, but one was rhodiola. If you google "adaptogens" you'll get lots of hits. It is an interesting topic, but I was a bit afraid to experiment with supplements cocktail.

[Sasha Pachev]

Maria:

Did you have high cholesterol levels? If yes, when, under what circumstances, and how much and how fast were you running then? If you did when you ran your marathon PR this is great news. It means your endurance can possibly improve a lot, and a good portion of it can come from the diet.

[Maria Imas]

Sasha,

I now have constantly elevated cholesterol (~220-240) and it has been slowly increasing with age. I first learned about it when I was 30, about the same time I ran my marathon PR, it was around 200 at that time. 2 years ago I had a very extensive testing done by the Prometeus lab in CA, which concluded that I have genetic predisposition to high cholesterol, especially LDL, unfortunately. My body produces too much of it, regardless of the diet (but of course, poor diet just makes it worse!). Running can raise HDL and shift the ratio of HDL/LDL, and diet can help for sure, but the doctors told me that at some point in my life I will need to go on drugs, when diet alone won't be able to do the job. My last reading, already in UK, was again 240, even while taking all the supplements I mentioned above. I'm trying to clean my diet again, but it's not easy when family is not supportive. I switched to eating a lot of fish and chicken, and cut red meat out, but sometimes I would still have it. I can do a lot more to do better with diet, it's a continuing battle. If I manage to get my weekly mileage back into 40s, I believe it would help raise HDL. The highest HDL I ever had recorded was around 80. I really don't want to go on drugs due to side effects, it's bad enough that I may have to take blood thinners for life!