Week 10: Nutrition — To supplement or not?

My twin sister and I were anemic as children. Every morning for breakfast, we found a small glass of orange juice with iron in it in front of our plate. To this day, I cannot drink orange juice without remembering that awful taste. There was no way we could eat enough iron-rich foods to correct our anemia. My mother certainly tried that, too. How much liver can a 6-year-old skinny girl eat?

Little did my mother know, mixing the iron with our orange juice allowed the iron to be better absorbed than had we taken it alone. Most vitamins and minerals work best when coupled with other nutrients.

Nutrients in food are better absorbed than if taken in supplement form. Foods contain many more nutrients than can be put in a pill. One reason dietitians recommend eating whole foods or those as close to nature as possible is because we know that it is the best method to obtain all the substances a food can provide.

Compare brown rice to white rice. One cup of brown rice has five times more vitamin E and four times more magnesium than one cup of white rice. It also has more vitamin B6, copper, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium and zinc.

Fruits and vegetables are rich in hundreds of important chemicals that are not available in supplements. And, as I mentioned earlier, having more than one nutrient together maximizes its absorption.

Does this mean you shouldn’t take supplements? No. Dietary supplements can play an important role by complementing our regular diet if you have difficulty getting enough nutrients. Many of us try hard to eat the “right” foods every day to give us all the right nutrients, but even so, we may fall short of certain ones. One such nutrient is calcium. To maximize its absorption, calcium requires other nutrients, such as Vitamin D. Remember, no nutrient works alone.

Most of us benefit from a multivitamin/mineral supplement. People who are on diets providing less than 1,200 calories per day need a multivitamin. Pregnant women and older adults and most people with chronic health conditions have altered nutrient needs and usually will benefit at least from a multivitamin/mineral supplement.

If you decide to take a vitamin or mineral supplement:

• Read labels carefully. Look for serving size and the amount of nutrients per serving. Look for expiration date. If your supplements have expired, discard them.

• Avoid supplements with megadoses. In general, choose multivitamin or mineral supplements with 100 percent Daily Value of all the vitamins and minerals. Do not choose ones with 500 percent Daily Value for one nutrient and 20 percent Daily Value for another. The exception is calcium. Calcium-containing supplements would be too large to swallow if they provided 100 percent Daily Value in one pill.

• Look for “USP” on the label. This ensures that the supplement meets the U.S. standards for strength, purity, disintegration and dissolution.

• Store vitamin and mineral supplements safely in a dry, cool place, away from children.

Finally, if you are older and have chronic health conditions, check with your doctor before taking anything other than a multivitamin/mineral supplement. This includes herbal supplements. Some supplements interfere with medications or make certain conditions worse.

Mary Snyder is a clinical dietitian at Baptist Medical Center Nassau.