Top 4 vitamin/mineral supplements you think should be taken?

It’s not the same for everyone. You need to know enough about yourself and enough about supplements to choose what’s best for you. If you are going to dabble in this, get educated. This is not the way. I suggest getting a good book on the subject. If you have a good health food store and wellness center near you, they probably have some good books and also give you some good advice. Also, there are sites where you can find out which brands have been independently tested with good results.

I think get a blood test and find out what you need, but if you’re guessing…

If you have no tan take vitamin D. Doesn’t matter what color skin you have, it matters if you have “tanned” areas of your body.

The rest is a crap shoot, maybe just take a regular multivitamin if you want to.

You can consider iron if you are a menstruating woman and your conjunctiva and tongue are pale pink, but if you have too much iron it’s bad for you, downright dangerous. A multi plus iron for men’s trusting women will likely have 18mg iron.

Vitamin B12 is lowish in a lot of people and you pee out extra.

Extra vitamin C a lot of people like to take, but I’m not as gung-ho on it.

I really think getting a test is best if you have a reason to think you’re deficient in something. Why guess? Waste money on supplements? Not take enough? Guessing with your health isn’t usually a good idea.

Magnesium, flax/fish oil, Vit. D and MSM if your joints are getting creaky like mine are.
We have one of our older mares on MSM and glucosamine too and her arthritis has vastly improved. When we turn her out mornings she is galloping and frolicing like a young filly again. haha

I take a multi to fill in my kind of poor diet, glucosamine in probably vain effort to keep my joints from deteriorating too fast, and an occasional Tylenol 3.

It counts because I say so.

I take a multi vit. too…just because, can’t hurt, might help.
Thing is, you HAVE to pick a handful of criticals that you think make a difference to you. Who can afford to take like $400 a month in supplements. I have a friend that does and it is outta control.

@Seek My doc told me to take one Tylenol 325. mg. and one Advil together. It works really well. I was taking like 6 Advil a day for various muscle and joint pain issues but the one of each had really helped me the last month or so. I actually take a 500mg. Tylenol extra strength and the one Advil.

I would recommend doing some tests as advised by someone else too in order to check what is lacking. Show the results to general practitioner who can help you decide what can be the way ahead.

There’s so much conflicting information from ‘experts’ about what is healthy and what isn’t, that last month I paid out of pocket for a couple appointments with a certified nutritionist.

I presented her a menu of my food consumption in the past two weeks. She liked my eating program, but she suggested some simple ideas to increase my carb and fiber consumption, which were slightly on the low side.

But, being in the PNW, she recommends to all her clients that they take 5000 units of D3 daily.

Nearly all her work is from physician referrals, and is frequently covered by health insurance plans. As others have said, see a doc to get blood work done so you know where you are starting from. It’s my understanding that a lot of docs don’t get much nutrition education in school, so maybe ask for a referral to a nutritionist?