is centrum a good multi-vitamin?

[JustinWest]

No it's ranked in the bottom 50 of 500 multivitamins. It has one of the worst potent vitamins and minerals because it is so widely produced. It is also very deficient in everything for a bodybuilder.

[lu1chy]

No it's ranked in the bottom 50 of 500 multivitamins. It has one of the worst potent vitamins and minerals because it is so widely produced. It is also very deficient in everything for a bodybuilder.

Centrum vitamins are junk. Sorry to tell you that. In fact, people who take multivitamins statistically live shorter lives than those who don't. The actual number is 5% in the study.

There is a very good reason for this. Synthetic vitamins are just chemical activators, not vitamins. In nature, vitamins and minerals are packaged in food with "co-factors" that are integral to the vitamins to make them work in your body. If the food is grown in good fertile soil, it will contain the vitamins with the co-factors. If they are made in a laboratory, they are made as "single elements" that have no cell resonance. A good example of this is the Centrum "B" vitamins are made from the petroleum distillate, Coal Tar. These are dead chemicals that your body will recognize as toxins. It does take the body a short time (a few days to a few weeks) to reject them completely, so they have an effect for a few days, but then damage your DNA of each cell. When the DNA is damaged, it shortens your life; simple as that.

Additionally, ALL pills contain Magnesium Stearate that is a "Trans FAT," immune suppressant, and inhibits the absorption of nutrients into the body by up to 80%. They always put about 5% of the total milligrams in the bottle (you have to add them up). So if you have 1,000 milligrams in the bottle, 50 milligrams will be this trans fat. Additionally, they all use talc to make the pills. This is a carcinogen. There are other excipients they put in that are just as bad for you.

The time to dissolve is important as well. Typically it takes them about 45 minutes to dissolve. That generally means that the bulk of the pill goes into your intestines and does not break up in your stomach. Since you need to have fat in your diet to digest the fat soluable vitamins, most of those fat soluable vitamins do not get digested.

They use ascorbic acid in Centrum and call it vitamin C, but it isn't. Same issue, ascorbic acid is a single element and it ends up extracting the co-factors from your body to make an attempt to complete the complex as found in nature. Ascorbic Acid won't even cure scurvy. It also depletes your body of calcium.

The calcium in that garbage is of very low, poor quality and generally ends up as toxic to the body being dumped into bone spurs, cataracts, or kidney stones.

If you look at about 97.5% of all vitamins, health food stores are no exception, they all contain junk and most are of the poor grade 1 or 2 herbs and many are not mixed properly with the right combination of ingredients and most of the so called natural vitamins are fortified with synthetic chemical activators to boost the potency.

GNC, Centrum, Puritan Pride, are all the same garbage. If you ask them to give you a professional lab test that shows how much of the garbage is digested when you take them, they won't do that and would be ashamed to see how much just does not get into your body.

This is why food is your best source of vitamins and minerals, but only if grown in fertile soil. The chemical fertilizers used on farms and insecticides have reduced the nutrient content by over 25% in the last 25 years and the antioxidant content is down by 50% in the last 25 years.

IT IS VERY DIFFICULT TO BE HEALTHY IN AMERICA TODAY.

If you want to see the benefit pills are giving people, just ask your local sewer disposal plant to show you all the pills they find or just take some "B" vitamins and look at your yellow urine to know what your body thinks of them. It's all junk. Medications are no better. They contain the same magnesium stearate, talc, and excipients as vitamins. All this stuff creates lots of free radicals in the body. Quantum Physics experiments done in Germany have photographic proof of what synthetic chemical activators do and how vitamins provided in nature work like they are supposed too.

Just look around at the genetically engineered foods now that are not labeled (thank you FDA) that do not allow you to trace where they came from if you get sick from them, and many people are getting sick. Every other country in the world labels GMO foods and people are rejecting them for good reason.

I have found only one company in my practice that makes and sells supplements that have good cell resonance and NO excipients and grade 10 herbs. By the way, they really do work as well. That can be found at: (800) 370 - 3447 and they will ship to you.

CorelPainterfriedmybra -- sorry, but those vitamins from that company may be only slightly better than the others. If you do QRA testing on them, you will find they have NO cell resonance and your body will not use them well. Try the company I suggested and I think you will see a huge difference. The best way to go is to be tested to find out what vitamins and minerals your body needs specific to you. When you get tested, you will know what will work and how much you need. It takes all the guesswork out of the process. Find a good Certified Nutritional Therapist in your area and they can help you.

good luck in your search for health
Source(s):
CNT, B.A. biology & chemistry
advanced nutritional research

[TOMIBOI]

No it's ranked in the bottom 50 of 500 multivitamins. It has one of the worst potent vitamins and minerals because it is so widely produced. It is also very deficient in everything for a bodybuilder.

Where did you get this info?

[shadar]

Where did you get this info?

You should ignore that number, it doesn't matter.

Just know that centrums are very cheap and you generally get what you pay for.

[dyurlova]

Reposting from other article because i am a newbie. Claims are that it is actually making harm!

The Truth Behind Centrum: Supplement Or Chemical Cocktail?

One of the most popular supplements on the market is the multi-vitamin Centrum. What many people don’t realize is that this multi-vitamin is probably doing more harm than good. Is Centrum a vitamin supplement or a synthetic chemical cocktail? And do we even really need to be taking supplements?

It has been well documented that our food supply isn't as rich in nutrients as it once was. This is due to several factors including mono-crop farming, depleted soil, earlier harvest for longer transports and the varieties being grown. Ideally we take multi-vitamin supplements with the intention of supplementing our existing diet.

The Purpose Of A Vitamin Supplement

I wish it were the case that we could get everything we need from a healthy and balanced diet. Sadly, evidence is not in our favour on that. As a society, we are experiencing steadily declining health. The Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) as outlined by our governments you'll find on the back of food packages and all supplement bottles just isn't accurate.

The RDI is the daily intake level of a nutrient that in 1968 was considered to be sufficient to meet the requirements of 97–98% of healthy individuals in every demographic in the United States. How they came to this belief is anyone's guess, but the reality is that our health has only declined since these numbers were presented. Since 1968, we have introduced thousands more chemicals into our environment, our soil has continually become depleted, our food supply has been adulterated and we've become sicker.

Let's say, for a moment, that the RDI is accurate, that it does in fact represent the ideal intake for a healthy person. Let's even assume it's the same requirements in 2016 as it was nearly 50 years ago. The challenge is that it's tough to find a healthy person these days. How many people do you know that are in perfect health? This means they sleep well, eat a clean diet, are drinking clean water, are getting regular exercise and don't suffer from any type of body pain, inflammation, digestive upset, allergies, skin conditions, hormonal imbalance, mood imbalance or any other type of bodily symptom.

When nearly 70% of the American population are on a pharmaceutical medication, we know we have a problem.
There is a big difference between the RDI and the actual intake levels that are necessary to maintain optimal health. Not being sick is not the same thing as optimal health. And of course variations in optimal intake levels would vary further to resolve the deficiencies that are causing much of what we are suffering from.

So, Where Does Centrum Fit In?

Centrum is made by Pfizer, one of the companies making that 70% of pharmaceuticals that Americans are on. Pfizer published 2015 profits coming in at 48 billion. In case you were wondering, that looks like this: $48,000,000,000.00. I would never go so far as to suggest that they make shoddy supplements to keep consumers needing their medications, but they are making shoddy supplements.

Centrum has massive sampling programs. With the same access to doctors offices as pharmaceutical sales reps, it's no wonder that it is the most recommended supplement by doctors. They get boxes of samples to dish out. Is it the best multi-vitamin available? Definitely not. Is it worth taking? Nope, probably not, unless you're hoping for purely the placebo benefit. All supplements are simply not created equally.

Facts About Centrum

Trust in the makers: Centrum is a product produced by the company Pfizer, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.
Dose dependant: The dosages of most of the nutrients in Centrum are negligible and not even close to therapeutic levels.
Nutrient quality: The forms that the nutrients are provided in are the cheapest and the least absorbable forms.
The non-medicinal components: Supplements that come in tablet form are often hard to digest and contain binders and fillers (more on this below). The "One A Day" marketing ploy: Water-soluble nutrients (vitamin C and the B-vitamins) are either used or excreted within about 4 hours. Thus, a one-a-day multi is completely useless and a sure sign that it is of poor quality.
Centrum, along with Kirkland, Walgreens and other store brands collectively set the bar very low. You can only go up from here.

Breaking Open The Centrum Tablet: What's Inside?

Understanding food labels is complicated enough. Understanding vitamin labels effectively requires a chemistry degree. What is important to note, are a few key nutrients as that can give you an indication of the overall quality.

SOME OF THE "VITAMIN" INGREDIENTS IN CENTRUM

Not all supplements carry the same quality of nutrients. Vitamins and minerals in their singular form can come in different forms. For example, magnesium comes as oxide, citrate and glyconate - citrate and glyconate being more absorbable than oxide. This often makes me wonder who is behind the studies that attempt to 'prove' that supplements do not prevent disease. It ultimate will depend on the quality of the supplement and of course, loads of lifestyle factors.

Here is some of what you'll find in Centrum:

Calcium as Calcium Carbonate: This is the least absorbable forms of calcium on the market. A very small percentage is actually absorbed.
Magnesium as Magnesium Oxide: The least absorbable, cheapest form of magnesium.
Iron as Ferrous Fumarate: This form of iron is incredibly constipating.
Vitamin E as DL-Alpha TocopherolThis is vitamin E and they are using two forms. The “D” form which is natural and the “L” Form which is synthetic. The “L” form is used to “water-down” the more expensive more bioactive “D” form.
The B vitamins: Citing anywhere from 1.1 mg to 15mg per vitamin is a concentration so low as to have no impact on energy levels, as outlined in their claims.
Nickelous Sulfate and Tin: I was unable to locate any references discussing a need for humans to supplement with nickel or tin.
THE "NON-ACTIVE" INGREDIENTS
Though it could easily be argued by any functional medicine expert that the entire pill is non-active given the low dose of poorly absorbable, cheap nutrient varieties, more harm may actually be coming from the non-active ingredients, the binding agents and colourants used to make the pill a pill.

Pregelatinized Corn Starch: This is used as a binder to hold all of the ingredients together. It most likely a genetically modified corn, which presents a number of problems for sensitive people.
Talc: Has been implicated with increased risk of cancer.
Gelatin: Though not inherently a bad product, most of is manufactured from feed lot animal waste. And vegans and vegetarians best beware.
BHT: Butylated hydroxyanisole has been shown to be toxic to the liver, thyroid, kidney, lungs, and affecting blood coagulation. BHT can act as a tumour promoter.
Yellow 6 Lake: Why is there food colouring in a health supplement? Also known as tartrazine or FD&C Yellow #6, this chemical is banned in some European countries. Side effects of ingestion can include gastric upset, diarrhea, vomiting, nettle rash (urticaria), swelling of the skin (angioedema) and migraines, it's also linked to hyperactivity in young children.
Red 40 Lake: Contains chemical compounds, including benzidine and 4-aminobiphenyl, that research has linked with cancer.
Hydrogenated Palm Oil: Hydrogenating any oil converts the fat into an unnatural structure that has shown to be toxic to the body. It forms strong free radicals associated with increased risk of cancer and heart disease.
Maltodextrin: Several studies have linked maltodextrin consumption to the suppression of “good bacteria” in the digestive system increasing risk of gastro symptoms and intestinal inflammation.
Crospovidone: There is an abundance of documented cases of serious allergenic response.
Sodium Benzoate: Especially dangerous because of its destructive effect on DNA. This means that the sodium benzoate consumed today may still be causing problems in future generations. Sodium benzoate is known to specifically attack the mitochondria of DNA.
Sodium Aluminosilicate Used as a food additive for its anti caking effect.
The list of fillers, binding agents, and texturizers goes on. In fact, there are more "non active" ingredients on the ingredient label than actual vitamins and minerals.

The are more "non active" ingredients in Centrum than actual vitamins and minerals.To answer the original question posed, is centrum a supplement or chemical cocktail?

It's both. And that's not a good thing. When choosing a supplement the form of the vitamins and minerals does matter. Of equal importance as what is in that supplement is paying attention to what isn't. Keep the additives, preservatives, binding agents, food dyes and other harmful ingredients out. Studies often cite them as safe in small doses, but you're taking a daily dose. That adds up. You don't want anything in your supplement that can cause further harm to your health.

5 Things You Need To Know When Choosing Supplements

1. "One-a-day" multi-vitamins are a marketing-made myth.

Multi-vitamins are meant to provide nutrients our diets might be lacking. We want them to mimic food as closely as possible. Certain nutrients, like vitamin C and the B's, only last in the body about 4 hours. Thus, we need to keep the body topped up throughout the day.
Tip: Look for multivitamins that indicates a dosage of at least 2-3 times per day.

2. Drug stores are for drugs.

Drug stores are exactly that...stores that sell drugs, not supplements. They usually carry the lowest quality and cheapest supplements available. Cheaper supplements most often contain fillers and additives that may do more harm to our health than any nutritional value the pill could supply.
Tip: Buy drugs at drug stores and health foods at health food stores.

3. You get what you pay for

Often, the more you pay for a supplement the better the quality. For example, the cheapest calcium supplements are composed of calcium carbonate and calcium citrate. These forms of calcium are the least absorbable (meaning least effective) forms and the cheapest. The best form of calcium in supplement form is microcrystalline hydroxyapetitie complex (MCHC), which is basically ground up bone. This is the most usable form by the body and also the most expensive.
Tip: If you are looking for a specific nutrient, a little google search including the phrase "most bio available" or "most absorbable form" followed by the nutrient might be helpful.

4. Labels are misleading.

Choose a supplement based on your research, not what the label says. Labels often make claims that target a certain customer. Or, labels give dosages that are way too low. For example, vitamin D supplements will never recommend a dose higher than 1000 IUs (in Canada) due to Health Canada regulations. The latest research shows that most Canadians need at least 5000 IUs of vitamin D per day for optimal health.

5. Do your research or hire someone who has done it!

Although supplements are not prescription items, they should be treated as such. There's a specific dosage, for a specific person, at a specific frequency, for a specific duration that will elicit the optimal effect of the supplement. This can have consequences at both ends of the spectrum. The most common example seen in practice people not taking high enough dosages.
Tip: A product line can have one great product and the rest not be. Don't rely on a brand name but instead what is actually in the supplement. If that is too much for you, then find someone who can make the best recommendations for your needs.