On most prescription medicine they give clear instructions on when it is most effective to take them, either before or after a meal, in the morning or in the evening. I’m just wondering, when is the best time to pop vitamins. On the bottle of my GNC multivitamins, it just says take 1-2 to tablets daily, but doesn’t say when. I know with some medicine it is better to consume after a meal to help it be absorb more effectively. Is this the same with vitamins? I’ve also been told its better to break vitamins in half, and take part in the morning, and the other part in the evening for balanced absorption. Any ideas?
Usually it’s vitamins in the morning and minerals in the evening. Some vitamines, liek B, can keep you awake.
With multi I would take with breakfast or lunch.
never … eat your fruit and veggies … drink some pure juices
Sounds about right. Thanks MM for given an answer that directly addresses my question, and not some smartass remark that helps nothing.
I really hate ignorant comments like this.
If you’re on the lower end of the activity scale and eat a VERY balanced diet you will still be nutrient deficient. If you’re at all active it’s impossible to get the optimum amount of vitamins and minerals.
You’ll probably respond, “I don’t eat any vitamins and I’m as healthy as a horse”. First, it’s likely hogwash. Second it’s likely in spite of not taking any vitamins.
But don’t believe me. Just ask any serious athlete. Good luck finding one that doesn’t take any vitamins.
I was just wondering the same thing. Thanks for the info, Mucha Man.
Off topic, but reminds me that I, too, see no point in making unsolicited opinions/remarks in reply to someone’s serious question. There are other ways to comment besides coming off as a know-it-all. Rubs people the wrong way, is rude and useless, and more often than not are not taken kindly as “friendly advice.”
I take a water soluble b-complex and a multi-mineral c-complex (also soluble powder) every day sometime after breakfast, which is high in protein with hopefully balanced carbs and fats. I feel great.
I’m an excellent cook and I have tried to be fairly knowledgable about nutrition for years, but the fact is, I have a bunch of food allergies that have been counterproductive to good nutrition. I’ve lost a lot of muscle mass over time and I’m only now starting to build it back, through good food (the foods I can eat), weights, and cardio every day.
Just got back from the gym, sorry. Take the vitamins in the morning after a nutritious breakfast that is high in fiber, protein, meium in carbs and low in fat. I suggest making your own smoothies. Handfull of crushed ice and it’s the perfect way to start a day.
No more bacon and eggs sandmingers for me.
A lot of multi-vitamins these days have the timed-release feature, and those are meant to be taken early in the morning, so the stuff is released throughout the day for your body to absorb.
Generally taking vitamins with a meal is recommended as they often need the presence of other things like fats to help them get absorbed better. Do you really take separate multivitamins and mineral supplements? Minerals are more water soluble than many vitamins so they don’t need so much assistance from food for absorption.
Be aware that there are some combinations of minerals and amino acids that do interfere with each other’s absorption, and others that assist absorption (due to the formation of stable complexes in the digestive tract that reduce absorption, or suppression / induction of different uptake enzymes). This is not the place for a discussion on that: it’d take too long, and it’s well supported out there on the web already. Google! Look for vitamin C and D and iron and calcium interactions… and magnesium… and zinc.
If you take 2 pills of the same stuff, you could take one in the morning and one in the evening. that would be sensible way to smoothe out the high and lows of availability. Probably not best to actually break the tablets in half as some are actually fairly technical constructions with slow-dissolving coatings that only release the contents in the right place at the right time, and snapping them broaches that layer.
As far as “minerals in the evening and vitamins in the morning” goes, I have never been able to find any sensible support for that rumour whatsoever, but I have heard of it before. I think it is a bit like food-combining, a crazy notion that still sees currency among many ‘health’ food fanatics, but has very little if any basis in the science of nutrient absorption, ie, eat only protein or only carbs or only fat at any one sitting. Wrong: these food types do not interfere with each other’s digestion in any material way. In fact, there are totally different absorption systems for all these foods, and the presence of amino acids (from protein breakdown) in chyme (stomach contents released to small intestine), for example, stimulates the release of more digestive enzymes in the duodenum for the other kinds of food to be digested…
A little background info for you on Iron absorption and Vitamin C… don’t dismiss this just because it dates to 1980, it was discovered then as it’s pretty basic stuff.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol 355, Issue 1 32-44, 1980
Interaction of vitamin C and iron
S. R. Lynch and J. D. Cook
Food iron is absorbed by the intestinal mucosa from two separate pools of heme and nonheme iron. Heme iron, derived from hemoglobin and myoglobin, is well absorbed and relatively little affected by other foods eaten in the same meal. On the other hand, the absorption of nonheme iron, the major dietary pool, is greatly influenced by meal composition. Ascorbic acid is a powerful enhancer of nonheme iron absorption and can reverse the inhibiting effect of such substances as tea and calcium/phosphate. Its influence may be less pronounced in meals of high iron availability–those containing meat, fish, or poultry. The enhancement of iron absorption from vegetable meals is directly proportional to the quantity of ascorbic acid present. The absorption of soluble inorganic iron added to a meal increases in parallel with the absorption of nonheme iron, but ascorbic acid has a much smaller effect on insoluble iron compounds, such as ferric oxide or ferric hydroxide, which are common food contaminants. Ascorbic acid facilitates iron absorption by forming a chelate with ferric iron at acid pH that remains soluble at the alkaline pH of the duodenum. High cost and instability during food storage are the major obstacles to using ascorbic acid in programs designed to combat nutritional iron deficiency anemia.
urodacus adds: ferric oxide is rust. ferric hydroxide is less commonly eaten, but can come from iron utensils, storage hoppers, etc. most vitamin/minerals supply iron as ferrous salts, like ferrous chloride FeCl2. (ferric: hard to absorb, ferrous: easy to absorb)
Reading an article online makes me think if taking vitamin really help your health?
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleid=96D80253-E7F2-99DF-326CCCAF57732EFE&chanId=sa025
Is there any conclusion?
Fat helps the body absorb vitamins. Thus lunch is usually better than breakfast (because it is a larger meal and thus will have more fat). But Omegas should be taken in the morning. If you take any bacterial supplements they need to be taken with grains so that they have something to thrive on in the stomach. Calcium should not be taken around the same time as any caffeine as caffeine will hinder the body’s absorption of such.