Can nutrients be taken together

Most of the nutrients that are daily supplements can be eaten together, and some combinations can also improve absorption efficiency. Only a few high-dose specific nutrient combinations need to be staggered, so there is no need to worry too much about the problem of "mutual conflict".

When I was helping a little sister who was preparing for pregnancy to adjust her nutrition plan, she had been taking ferrous sulfate supplements alone. After taking it for two months, her hemoglobin did not increase much and she was still constipated. I asked her to drink a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice or take 100 mg of vitamin C every time she took iron. , I went for a follow-up examination just three weeks later, and I found that the hemoglobin had increased by 12g/L, and the constipation was much less severe. This is because vitamin C can reduce the difficult-to-absorb ferric iron into divalent iron, and can also alleviate the irritation of the gastrointestinal tract caused by iron supplements, so the effect of taking it together is even better. Similar to the vitamin D supplemented with calcium that everyone often hears, many people still suffer from leg cramps after drinking milk and taking calcium tablets every day. After checking, they found out that the vitamin D level is not enough, and the supplemented calcium cannot be deposited on the bones. Taking the two together will get twice the result with half the effort.

Of course, this does not mean that there is no need to worry about all situations. I have seen a lot of content saying that "nutrients are incompatible with each other when eaten together". I specifically checked the clinical nutrition research in recent years and found that those so-called "eliminating nutrients" basically have prerequisites. For example, there is indeed a school of thought in the academic circles that if large doses of calcium and iron are supplemented at the same time, they will compete for the same transport proteins in the intestines and reduce each other's absorption rate. However, this "large dose" refers to a daily supplement of more than 200 mg of iron and more than 1 mg of calcium. In the case of 000 mg, the amount of iron and calcium in the multivitamins we take daily, or even ordinary single-dose calcium tablets and iron supplements, are far less than this threshold, and will not have any impact at all. If you really feel sick, there is nothing wrong with taking it one hour later. Also, if high-dose dietary fiber is eaten at the same time as iron and zinc, it may also absorb these minerals and reduce absorption. For example, if you have just eaten a large bowl of high-fiber salad with oat bran and chia seeds, and you take a zinc supplement immediately, it may indeed be at a discount. Just wait two hours.

Many people are afraid of being poisoned by taking them together. In fact, this situation rarely occurs in daily supplement scenarios. A user once said that he heard on the Internet that vitamin E and vitamin K should not be taken together, and he stopped taking multivitamins for a long time. In fact, the vitamin E in ordinary multivitamins is only 10-14mg, and the vitamin K is only tens of micrograms, which is dozens of times different from the dose that can cause interaction, so there is no need to worry. What you really need to be careful about is not to take too many supplements repeatedly. For example, if you have already taken a complex vitamin containing B complex, and then take several hundred milligrams of high-dose vitamin B tablets, even if you take them separately, you may have an overdose reaction of dizziness and numbness in your hands and feet. This is not something you should take together.

To put it bluntly, if we ordinary people just supplement basic nutrients every day, and swallow fish oil, calcium tablets, and multivitamins in a hurry in the morning, there will be no problem at all. If there are special circumstances, such as a doctor prescribing large doses of specific nutrients and specifically instructing them to stagger, just follow the doctor's instructions. You don't have to set an alarm every day to eat separately for this matter. Why bother to do it~