Taking a ton of Vitamins...? Anyone know a good Sports Nutritionalist?

John Withrow

Background:  I generally eat healthy.  ZERO sweets.  Very little alcohol.  I try to eat natural and unprocessed stuff whenever I can which is most of the time.  I eat lots of fruits and vegetables and nuts for snacks.  I do eat a lot of regular way traditional carbs:  Pasta/bread/etc.  This is not a weight issue as I can manage calories just fine (when it is happens to be a priority for me).

I have been taking a whole range of vitamins/supplements for as long as I can remember.  I usually read some random article online or in some tri-rag and think "hey, that applies to me" then I start taking whatever was in the article and several months later, I can't remember why I'm taking a certain things or how it may be interacting with the other stuff I take.   I'm sure I just pee out half of the stuff every morning anyways, but more importantly I don't want toxic levels of certain things building up in my system over time.  I guess I'd like to hit the reset button and have a better idea of what/why I'm taking certain things. 

Here's a list of what I take just about every night:

Lipitor (10mg because I have high cholesterol regardless of my diet...), Niacin, Standard Multi-Vitamin and,  Vitamin C (I also drink about 2-3 Emergen-C packets every day with meals), Vitamin D, Vitamin E, Omega3,  Baby Aspirin

Here's other stuff I have taken in the past but not necessarily now:  Folic Acid, Garlic pills, Calcium/Magnesium/Zinc, Iron, various Amino Acids

Does anybody have any strong opinions about all this crap I'm taking?  Any good resources I could use?  Know any good dieticians or Nutritionist I could work with?

penlynwilson

Hi John,

I'm a Registered and Licensed Dietitian and also a board certified specialist in Sports Nutrition. If you like, I have an intern with me for a couple of weeks. I can have her review your meds and the supplements you are currently taking to see if there are any interactions or concerns. Let me know if this is OK with you.

John Withrow

Wow Penny! That was the fastest response I have ever seen to a new topic. That would be fantastic. Do you need actual dosages? If so, I'd need to check tonight when I get home, but assume they are all standard over-the-counter supplements in standard dosages.

penlynwilson

Hi John,

PM'd you about it. Happy to help!

mgraffeo

John, being on Lipitor, I'd expect your MD to have some strong feelings about things you should and/or should not take with it. Definitely worthwhile to have a discussion there, in addition to discussions with Penny.

For example, there are definitely concerns with taking Lipitor along with niacin

http://www.drugs.com/drug-interactions/lipitor-with-niacin-276-128-1711-0.html

penlynwilson

@Mike: I saw that, too.

@John: Did your doc prescribe both?

John Withrow

Well, kind-of. I think some doctor, some day may have... I go to see doctors as little as possible. In addition to high LDL (~270 and I'm 36yrs old 6'-1", currently ~200lbs), I had Low levels of HDL. I think I remember the Niacin was to help increase the HDL levels as discussed in my 10 second google search in which I found this: http://www.bastyrcenter.org/content/view/501/ Originally, I was also doing garlic pills to also try to lower my LDL levels, but gave up on it because of the terrible taste and burping. I have a strong family history of high cholesterol, but when I went on lipitor at age 31, I started with 10mg pills and cut them in half for 5mg dosage. My cholesterol went from ~260 to like 140 in a matter of months. At age 34, my doc upped the dosage to a full 10mg as my cholesterol started creeping back up. I read Mike's article and as I am a white male (not of Chinese descent) I read it to mean it might be less relevant for me.

An interesting thing I noticed when I read the article that I just dropped in is that I did have a full blood test before IMLou last yr and my wife noticed that I had relatively high blood sugar levels which seemed weird since I eat almost no "recreational sugars" as my wife likes to call them. Anyways, curious that Niacin might be a potential cause of this as mentioned in the article. I know my dosage of Niacin is well above 100mg ber day. For the 6 months leading up to IMLou (and since Jan 2nd of this yr) I did not have one bit of any of the following: chocolate, cookies, cake, doughnuts, ice cream, brownies, yummy muffins, or anything sweet and delicious! I did use normal products while training such as powerbar gels or gus (but never chocolate flavored), stinger waffles, and infinit on the bike. I wouldn't even drink chocolate milk as a recovery drink because it was a total mental challenge for me to not have chocolate which I have fought a lifelong addiction to...

mgraffeo

John, as a guy on statins starting at age 31, do yourself a favor and get over the 'doc as little as possible' thing. On statins, you need to have routine checks of your liver enzymes at a minimum. There are good reasons to think about supplementation of things like CoQ10. And, with any statin, there are reports of >10% of people experiencing significant muscle aches and pains, some of which can be mitigated by switching up things like dose and API.

My dad has been on statins since age 35 (nearly 30 years), and is probably a case study for a life extended by them. But he's in every year, and there always seems to be something his cardiologist thinks needs to be tweaked. Hopefully you're staring down the barrel of 50+ years on them. Take the right precautions. See your doc, regularly.