Which vitamins can I not take together?

Many users are currently asking Google this question: “Which vitamins cannot be taken together?” It aims in the right direction – but is still slightly wrong.

Imagine a brunch consisting of: cheese, nuts, oatmeal, sunflower seeds, milk, potatoes, avocado, strawberries, eggs, meat. There they are all in there, the 13 vitamins that the body cannot produce itself and which we therefore have to feed from the outside. If we do not do this for a long time, there are severe deficiency symptoms.

We could combine the food mentioned without any problems. Why should it behave differently if vegans or vegetable muffle prefer these micronutrients as powder, pills or juice? There is no logical reason. Accordingly, Ingolf Cascorbi from the Institute for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology in Kiel recently answered the question of a daily newspaper editor: Clinically relevant interactions between vitamins are not known; the simultaneous intake of usual doses does not expect any additional health risks.

“Usual doses” means in this context: much does not help much, but can even harm. This applies in particular to the four fat -soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, which you can easily overdose (donkey bridge for memory, based on the name of a large retail chain: EDEKA). In contrast to water -soluble vitamins, they cannot simply be excreted via kidney and urine, but accumulate in the body, which can lead to symptoms of poisoning. In recent years, cases of severe vitamin D poisoning have become known, triggered by a concept that is common on the Internet, in which it is recommended to take extremely high doses.

If you can apparently combine vitamins freeway, this does not apply in the same way to minerals – neither with each other nor in the station wagon with vitamins and, above all, not in the station wagon with medication.

Here are a few examples that affect many top sellers among nutritional supplements – that is, those who are most frequently bought after a representative of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University in Hanover in cooperation with the Society for Consumer Research GfK Germany: the vitamins C, D and E, the minerals magnesium, calcium, zinc and selenium.

Vitamin D strengthens the immune system and supports bone growth and bone density. Since it is only contained in a few foods such as fat fish, eggs and some mushrooms and about half of the population has suboptimal mirrors in the blood, according to the Robert Koch Institute, or even has a deficiency, a vitamin D supplement with around 800 to 1,000 IE can be useful in the winter months. For cuffs, mind you, because it would also be enough to recharge the sunlight in a T-shirt and short pants during the lunch break. Then vitamin D in the skin forms from a preliminary stage.

Now calcium is often added to the vitamin D preparations, and caution should be exercised with this station wagon. Vitamin D can only promote calcium installation in the bones if there is enough of it, but the calcium day requirement for adults is only 1000 mg. This dosage can also be found in some preparations from the drugstore or the pharmacy.

If someone also drinks a glass of milk and consumes two cheese slices, they already consume twice as much calcium as necessary. For vegans: spinach, rhubarb and whole grain products also contain a lot of calcium. Overdose can cause nausea, abdominal pain, kidney dysfunction, itching, rashes as well as kidney and urinary stones in the long run. Against this background, the magazine Ökotest even advises that the combination prompt with calcium and vitamin D3 can only be taken in consultation with the doctor.

In some health portals you will find the recommendation to take vitamin K in addition to a vitamin D substitution curgeon to prevent calcium surplus in the blood (hypercalcaemia). In this way, “vascular calcification” can be prevented. This is not scientifically proven, the consumer advice center summarizes – nor does the claim that the use of both vitamins could have positive effects on bone health. Yes, the opposite is even the case when it comes to the treatment of osteoporosis, for example. The current says: “Vitamin K2 should not be used for the specific therapy of osteoporosis.”

The mineral magnesium is the opponent to the calcium and in the case of sports due to its relaxing effect against sore muscles and cramps -while calcium promotes muscle contraction. However, one should know that magnesium reduces the absorption of iron and zinc, which is why you should not take the preparations at the same time if, for example, iron because of iron because of anemia.

Even the mineral selenium cannot be combined as desired. It should not be taken with vitamin C preparations at the same time, otherwise its inclusion in the body can be reduced.

Interactions with other nutritional supplements are one. However, unwanted interactions with medication are also dangerous. Vitamin K2 and the similarly built Coenzyme Q10 reduce the effect of anticoagulant medication, as a result the risk of stroke and heart attack increase.

Calcium and magnesium reduce the absorption of some antibiotics and the effect of biphosphonates that are used against osteoporosis.

Vitamin D can interact with certain drainage agents and cardiac medication in danger.

The vitamins C and E can weaken the effects of chemotherapy due to their antioxidant properties due to their antioxidant properties – namely, they destroy cancer cells by oxidative processes.

The list of possible interactions of nutritional supplements with medicines could be continued for a long time. Unfortunately, the package inserts here are incomplete, the consumer advice center provides a good overview.

Basically, everyone who swallows food supplements should make it clear: you should deal with them like medication. They have side effects such as medication in high doses. They interact with each other and with medicines, inhibit or reinforce each other. Above all, chronically ill and cancer patients should never take pills and powder from the drugstore on their own, but only in consultation with their doctors.

Unfortunately, the legislator is still treated by the lawyer, such as food, which is often criticized by nutritionists – and hopefully changes at some point.