Help me absorb my vitamins & prevent my cold!!

April 13, 2009 7:52 PM

How fast do vitamins & Minerals absorb into the body?

Alright, i am coming down with a cold, it is setting on fast and bad. I don't want it! My question is, does it help to take more vitamins then the recommended daily value?

I take Emergen-C as a supplement.

The first number is the amount, % is percent daily value

Emergen-C (super orange)
The first number is the amount, % is percent daily value

Vitamin C (as Mineral Ascorbates)
1000 mg 1111 %

Vitamin B1 (THiamine HCI)
.38 mg 25 %

Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin)
.43 mg 25 %

Special Niacin Complexes
10 mg 50 %

Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine HCI)
10 mg 500 %

Folic Acid
12.5 mcg 3.1 %

Vitamin B12 (Cyanocobalamin)
25 mcg 416 %

Pantothenic Acid
2.5 mg 25 %

Potassium
200 mg 5.7 %

Magnesium
60 mg 15 %

Calcium
50 mg 5.0 %

Zinc
2 mg 13 %

Manganese
1 mg 50 %

Chromium
10 mcg 8.3 %

Quercetin (Bioflavonoid)
10 mg *

Alpha-lipoic acid
2 mg *



So i guess my question is how long should i wait until i take another? If i take two at the same time do they build up and take two times as long to be used or does one just get passed on? If they do not stack how long should i wait until i take another?

posted by Black_Umbrella to health & fitness (16 comments total)

In answer to your question, no it does not help to take more vitamins than the recommended daily value. Your body can only process so much at any given time and the rest turns into very expensive wee-wee.
posted by turgid dahlia at 7:55 PM on April 13

No matter what you're taking, don't go past the recommended dosage unless you've been given the go-ahead by your doctor.
posted by hermitosis at 7:58 PM on April 13

The NIH has an actual Office Of Dietary Supplements that will provide you with loads of information, incidentally.
posted by turgid dahlia at 8:01 PM on April 13

If they do not stack how long should i wait until i take another?

For daily vitamins, wait one day.
posted by qwip at 8:06 PM on April 13

So why would the manufacturer put more then 100% of a vitamin / mineral in?
posted by Black_Umbrella at 8:09 PM on April 13

So why would the manufacturer put more then 100% of a vitamin / mineral in?

It's a gimmick. You pee it out, as Vitamin C is water-soluble (unlike some vitamins, which are fat soluble).
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 8:11 PM on April 13

IANAD, but I respectfully disagree with hermitosis - while it's a bad idea to go above the RDA on fat-soluble vitamins, because they stay in your body and can be toxic, but it's fine to go above the RDA on water soluble vitamins because you will just pee any excess out.

I'm sure that C is water soluble, but not sure about any of the other ones you listed. Anecdotally, I know a number of people (my father, a few friends) who swear by taking many, many times the RDA of vitamin C to head off a cold.

Taking a lot of C will make your pee yellow, but no harmful effects (as far as I know). Taking even more (no idea how much) will eventually give you an upset stomach (but no permanent harmful effects, as far as I know).
posted by insectosaurus at 8:14 PM on April 13

So why would the manufacturer put more then 100% of a vitamin / mineral in?

I forgot to preview - as I understand it, the RDA is the minimum amount needed to stave off malnutrition (for example, scurvey). The RDA is not necessarily the amount needed for optimal health.
posted by insectosaurus at 8:15 PM on April 13

Even though you hear it all the time, there's not much evidence that vitamin C is very effective at preventing the common cold.

You could read around about it.

I would say get some rest and your favorite medicine for cold symptoms just in case. I was popping sudafed every 4 hours for a couple days last week. No fun.
posted by rancidchickn at 8:19 PM on April 13

I'm going to disagree with the prior comments. The RDA is just a guide, there is no way that any of us could know how you are going to absorb the nutrients. While there are vitamins that are helpful in mega-doses, there are also vitamins that are very harmful in mega-doses. If all you are doing is trying to get your RDA just take one everyday. However if you are trying minimize the effects of a cold, you might want to try an extra capsule of zinc. I'm not a doctor however, so you should talk to your doctor about specific nutritional supplements.
posted by bigmusic at 8:22 PM on April 13

B and C vitamins are water soluble. Going a little above the RDA is fine, although overdose is still possible at megadoses, as shown in the linked chart. At best, megadoses of C may reduce the duration of your cold by about 10%, but it won't block it completely.

So I'm pretty sceptical of Emergen-C's efficacy. If you're feeling sneezy and congested, I know people who swear by irrigating your nose with a saline solution.
posted by maudlin at 8:23 PM on April 13 [1 favorite has favorites]

Since you are dealing with symptoms of a cold which most likely includes a stuffed nose, I'm going to describe a technique that was taught to me when I was a teenager that should instantly relive a stuffed nose. This was done to me by a nice old Indian Mexican lady and it blew mind at it's effectiveness. I have no idea how it works or why, I just know it does. With colds it seems to work ok, but it works amazingly well when sinus's are stuffed up due to allergies. The only caveat is it hard to do alone, it is more effective if some one does it to you. All it is basically a massage so there is really no harm in trying it out.

It's kinda hard to explain, so my explanation is going to do a step by step with two people.

Both sit down across from each facing one another.

The stuffed one puts her hand out facing upward exposing the soft part of her arm and her wrist and rests her knuckles on her knee. This arm should be the same side as which you are stuffed up.

The massager, puts lotion on her hands and starts massaging the arm right about where a person gets stuck with a needle to give blood.

The massage is mostly done with the thumbs, cradling the arm with the other fingers and massaging down with the thumbs. Basically a twiddling of the thumbs motion pushing the flesh down towards the wrist.

Often there is a little "knot" underneath the skin. (I'm pretty sure these knots are something in the lymphatic system) If the massager doesn't find one, this is fine. But if the massager does, this is what we were looking for. There are a few other places on the arm these might be, but this is the most common spot.

Massage this knot down to wrist. This knot is very tricky and often tries to escape your thumbs so be nimble. If you found no knot, just continue to massage down towards the wrist with your thumbs. Massage all the way down to about a half inch from where the palm starts. This should take all of about two minutes.

Now the massager grasps the snuffed up one at the wrist with one hand and just below the elbow with the other hand and pulls the arm skin taut. So pulling down with one hand up with another would make the skin tighten up. At that point the knot disappears and the nose opens up. Now repeat on the other arm if it is also stuffed up.

I've done this with maybe 20 people in the last 16 years and it opened up around 90% of their noses. It lasts anywhere from 2hrs to 12hrs. But it's such a simple technique that it's not really that troublesome to do again. At no point during this massage should there be any pain, I've never had anyone claim pain, but I'm a gentle massager. So if there is pain you are being too rough or there is something else wrong.

I'm not a doctor, a masseuse or a health professional in any capacity. I am simply sharing my experiences of how I go about getting noses unstuffed. I hope this works for you and I wish you a speedy recover from your illness.
posted by bigmusic at 9:11 PM on April 13 [6 favorites has favorites]

bigmusic: Do you suppose their sinuses clear because they're having an adrenaline reaction? Because I swear I'm about to have a panic attack right now just thinking about an old lady manipulating slippery, unseen lumps (Clots?! Bacteria clusters?!) in my veins... Hey, whatever works.

no it does not help to take more vitamins than the recommended daily value.

Did you know the American Academy of Pediatrics recently doubled their RDA of vitamin D for infants, children, and adolescents? Guidelines change; nothing is set in stone.

If you don't want to worry about the fat-soluble overlap, why not buy ascorbic acid crystals and stir as much as you like in orange juice? I think it tastes better, too.
posted by aquafortis at 10:22 PM on April 13

aquafortis - nope it wasn't even remotely distressing at all. When I first had it done I was amused mostly. I'm not one to believe in folk remedies at all. I was just placating her mostly. I think I may have rolled my eyes a few times in fact.
posted by bigmusic at 11:16 PM on April 13

I'm pretty sure that type of massage is a lympatic massage the more I poke around online.
posted by bigmusic at 11:18 PM on April 13

I take vitamin supplements just to make sure I get what I need because of a shitty diet. (I don't like to eat a lot of the stuff that I should.) I do know that I get sick less often when I'm taking them. But I'm not sure of their effectiveness in stopping disease once it's already taken hold.

However, what always works for me when I'm feeling a cold coming on is to drink orange juice. I tend to buy the stuff with extra vitamins mixed in, but I doubt it matters. Just a metric ass-load of OJ (=16-20 ounces with every meal), multiple times a day. I have no idea why it works. Nothing cures a cold like a large orange juice and an egg mcmuffin. What I do is maintain the OJ diet until a few days after I'm feeling better.

What I also do is try to give my body a chance to fight the disease- I try not to take things that fight my body's natural reactions. For example, a stuffed up nose isn't actually stuffed up with snot usually. It's inflamed tissue making the airways smaller. The "standard" treatment is to take Sudafed- but in my experience, all that does is dry things up and prolong the inevitable. The tissues are swollen because the body wants blood flow to get there to fight the viruses. Preventing that just lets the viruses do their dirty work easier. And (gross) makes the snot more viscous and harder to expel. So if I'm clogged, I up my water intake and humidify my enviroment and maybe take a Mucinex to get things flowing. If I HAVE to be coherent and productive during the day, I do what I have to during the day, but then retire to my nest in the evening and let it all hang out. Including getting more than enough sleep. I look at an illness like a cold or the flu as something that's GOING to happen- I can delay the process, but that just prolongs it. So I devote as much time to letting it work its course as I can.

(Yes, the RDA recommendations are just the minimums recommended to not get rickets and pellegra and various other diseases. If you look at the amount of vitamins in various foods, you can see that it is very easy to exceed the RDA in one well chosen meal. I wouldn't overdo taking vitamins, especially if I was getting sick, because the stress of eliminating extra vitamins might compete for energy needed to fight the cold. Maybe not. But I think it would be very hard to OD on vitamins.)
posted by gjc at 4:17 AM on April 14