♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Hi folks, Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- I'm Chris, the pharmacist.
- And tonight we're gonna be talking about
will vitamins boost your immune system and health,
as well as this being science-based,
and we're gonna get this information from Chris,
who's a pharmacist and he's done a lot of research,
and recent research to get this covered properly.
So you know what, you're getting good information,
but before we gonna any further, Chris,
you know what we need to do.
- We got to show some stuff.
- Yeah.
Normally we have a giveaway and this is a future video.
So, what you wanna do is go to bobandbrad.com,
go to the giveaway section
and you'll see what the giveaway is.
You can sign up for it there or on the Facebook,
it's pinned to the top of the page,
check on that and go there for information
on how to get involved.
Twitter and Instagram as well as TikTok we are on,
but there's no giveaway on there.
So, I don't look for it there, all right.
So, I need to talk about this, Chris,
and just bear with me here,
but today with all the highly processed foods,
carbohydrates, that's a big buzzword,
now is the carbs and then sugars.
Everything has got sugar in it from milk to, it's amazing.
Do we need supplements with all this,
if you will, garbage in our food,
some people refer to it as,
or do we get enough vitamins in our food
because if you look at the cereal,
you look at the ingredients, it's like, my goodness,
all these vitamins in here, really good
'cause there's a lot of sugar in there.
So that's what we're gonna talk about.
- Yup. - This is gonna be
a controversial subject.
Some of the things that are brought up,
there's gonna be people as strong feelings,
put them on the comment section,
it's nice to read them,
and then we get people
talking back and forth. - Yeah.
I think it's good to have that interaction
for sure. - Absolutely.
So, should we start with vitamins?
Are they important for our system,
our immune system particularly?
- Oh, yeah, I mean --
- In today's world-- - Today's world,
we're COVID pandemic society, so yeah, I mean,
all nutrients are good nutrients.
- Sure. - And I guess
at the end of the day, no matter what we do, I mean,
your immune system is good health,
it's a 24/7 job, 365 days a year.
What you need to do is make sure you're eating well.
So getting things through your diet.
- Right. - Make healthy food choices,
you wanna make sure you're exercising
'cause that's a huge driver of your immune system.
You wanna make sure you're getting your sleep
because that's a huge driver
of our immune system - Okay.
- And you wanna drink plenty of water,
that's a huge driver of our immune system.
So there's four things there
that are very, very essential and critical.
- And the vitamins and minerals is just one part,
but without the other three...
- Yeah, just think of yourself as,
I guess we're gonna use four points,
so it'd be like a pyramid.
If we take one of the leg,
and if you kick a leg or two out,
it's not gonna stand so well.
- Sure. - So I mean,
we live in an Americanized society or a lot of us do
that where it's not always conducive
to get the most nutrition.
I mean, I've been a victim of going through drive-through,
I'm sure you've gone through-- - Yeah.
- Drive-through once or twice. - Absolutely you're
in a big hurry, you got things to do
or you just don't have time
to get proper diet. - Am hungry I got to go.
And that's not gonna necessarily,
even those foods do have some of the nutrients that we need.
If you go to subway, I mean there's gonna have fruits
and veggies and the grains
and everything else. - Sure.
- Ready fortified with your folates
and your B vitamins,
and all the stuff that you get from fruits and veggies,
Natural foods have other ingredients in there,
which is why it's always best
to get your nutrients through food,
but when it comes down to it,
sometimes we just can't do that.
- Right. - So maybe taking
a daily multivitamin is a reasonable answer,
and we wanna make sure that within that multivitamin,
it's got just certain ingredients
to make sure it's doing the job for you, so...
- Right, and then also,
I think we're not gonna get into this too much,
but there are people with certain health conditions
where you may need to take
a lot of a certain specific vitamin,
you know some specific. - Oh yeah, I mean,
if you have something like,
we'll just pick on osteoporosis.
- Right. - I mean, you're gonna need
vitamin D and you're gonna need calcium.
- Sure. - So I mean that's,
and actually magnesium little vitamin K.
So these are all things that work synergistically together
to help to improve bone health.
Multivitamins is gonna generally
these days be fortified with vitamin D,
it's been a buzzword, we've known a lot about it
for a lot of years,
it'll be D3 it's gonna be colecalciferol.
So, it's one of these things
where you just look at your labels
and just make sure you're getting,
roughly you wanna get anywhere from six to 800 IUs a day,
and your doctor will tell you if you need to take more.
- IUs?
- International units.
- Okay, and that's-- - That's yeah.
- It's yeah, most multivitamins
will be in IUs, - Okay.
- Some newer ones are going to micrograms,
but for the sake of simplicity,
we'll keep it at IUs. - Okay.
So we're establishing already that
obviously you need vitamins,
you need minerals to stay healthy.
- Yes.
- You should be able to get them all from your diet,
if you're eating properly.
- Correct.
- If you have a health condition,
maybe you need more of one or another,
but let's talk about particularly people
who are generally healthy
and they're here to find out.
- Yeah. - Okay,
I'm not sure I eat,
instead I'm one of those people, I'm always busy,
I'm always running, doing fast food,
I'm worried about having good health.
- Yeah. - And I'm stressed a lot.
I think I should take a vitamin.
So, a multivitamin is probably the way to go?
- I think so, generally speaking, I mean,
the supplement industry is a $31 billion industry.
That's a big number folks.
- Vitamins supplemented--
- Yup, yeah, when I came out of college 25 years,
it was about a two to $3 billion industry.
So, it's expanded in 25 years. - Wow.
- So it's definitely grown,
it's definitely got a market
and it's definitely got a place.
And I mean to market that, that's one of the things
we have to be careful with vitamins,
a lot of these are super doses when you're looking
at some of the individualized supplements.
- Sure. - So I think
for the average person, that's reasonably healthy,
but sometimes can't eat perfectly well,
a multivitamin is gonna be the way to go.
So you can just go to any health food store,
any pharmacy, heck any grocery store, Amazon, you name it.
- Yeah. - I mean, they're gonna all
have good multivitamins.
You wanna look for something steered for
like something that's at least USP certified
because that's the standardization
and that stands for United States Pharmacopeia.
Basically standard are what's in that bottle,
is in that bottle.
- You said, USP. - USP, USP.
- So if you look on the bottle, somewhere on there,
- Yup, yeah, so-- - USP,
and what does it say after that?
- Basically, it's just gonna tell you that
the ingredients that are in that bottle are certified,
so if you have, we'll call it 600 IUs of vitamin D,
you can bet your dollar
that it's 600 IUs of vitamin D - Okay.
- Or 15 milligrams of vitamin C or 18 milligrams of iron.
- So there are supplemental vitamins or vitamins out there
that may have how much of a vitamin are in there?
And if it doesn't say USP,
it may or may not or may have some garbage
in there maybe to speak. - Yeah,
it could have some things
that are maybe not as good as what they should be.
They could have some things that shouldn't be in there
and they may not even have the exact amount of dosage
that it says it does.
- Okay. - So you wanna look
for a high value, well-respected company,
that's going to be giving you
the nutrition needs that you need.
- So, if we're looking at it and we know,
let's pick one vitamin, for example,
vitamin B12 or something, - Okay, sure.
- Typically what's the range someone would need for that.
- Yeah, you don't need a heck of a lot for B12,
you're talking about just two to three micrograms.
So that's a really teeny tiny, so that's milligrams.
- Okay. - So the fat of a 1000 less.
- Okay. - So teeny tiny for vegans
and vegetarians listen up,
these are people that we probably do want them
taking a straight up vitamin B12 supplement or a B complex,
because how do you get B12, through meat.
So, basically it's all through your animal products.
So, for people that have that lifestyle choice,
which by the way, they're eating better than most.
- Right.
- But sometimes you don't get quite what you need, so--
- Sure. - For them a multivitamin's
probably gonna help, or they could supplement
a B12, supplement. - Sure.
- But I would prefer a B complex,
'cause they're a little bit more realistic
with the doses-- - Right.
- That they contain.
- Right, so now that's kinda of going back and forth here
'cause we just mentioned if you're eating well
you probably don't need a supplement--
- Yeah, you gave me a curve ball,
(Brad laughing) but there's an exception
to every rule I'm trying--
- Sure. - To hit it.
So, it's one of those things where--
- 'Cause I know vegans out there--
- Oh, yeah, it's huge. - Very proud of themselves.
- And they should be-- - Yeah.
- It's nice.
You're not gonna have a problem
with the vegan because they eat
better than just about everybody.
- Yeah. - So I mean,
it's a lifestyle that they choose
and they know how to extract nutrients better than most.
- Sure, sure. - They really do.
They're very well-educated group of people.
- So, one of the concerns is,
and I don't think some people are aware of this,
if you're taking supplemental vitamin
or just eating a healthy diet
and your body gets already what it needs,
and then all of a sudden,
if you get an overload of a vitamin or mineral--
- Where does it go? - Yeah, what happens?
I mean, is it bad for you or?
- Yeah, our bodies are pretty interesting things
and basically in a lot of cases, but not every case.
And when we get too much in the B vitamins
are really used to pick on because they're water soluble,
you excrete them, you get expensive urine.
So, I mean, from that standpoint, it all goes to,
hey, you're throwing your money out the toilet.
(Brad chuckling) So, I mean, it's kinda
of one of those things where we do wanna
be kinda careful with that.
So, when you're looking for your vitamins,
some of these things have just mega doses.
I mean, actually in my pharmacy yesterday
on the way out of the door, I said,
well, let's see what's in this B.
And I saw a B12 supplement that had a 1000 micrograms,
which is like 16, and actually at 16,000 times
the recommended daily intake.
So-- - 16,000 times the--
- 16,000. - So that's just gonna go in--
- Yeah. - And most of it's
going right out. - And most of it, yeah.
Your body's gonna extract what it needs that,
but the reason they dose it
that way is for specific people
that have issues like pernicious anemia and things,
but that's a sidebar.
- Sure. - But I mean,
for the most part, if you're gonna use a B vitamin
and you're vegan or vegetarian lifestyle,
I'd either go with a B complex or a multi
because it's gonna be reasonably balanced, properly dose.
- Sure.
Well, the other thing is, I'm thinking,
I'm not opposed to taking vitamin supplements.
- Sure. - But at the same time,
I'll forget to take it, so.
(both chuckling)
- Yeah, I mean, that's the case for many people
compliance is key. - I really do.
I focus on my diet, I eat vegetable, my vegetables--
- Yup. - And I really backed off
on the carbs in the last couple of three years--
- Yup.
- It's been very beneficial.
So, you carry on, I got to get back to you--
- Yeah, oh yeah, I mean, so from that standpoint, I mean,
no matter what you choose, like I said, food is best,
but I mean, a good multivitamin is gonna get us
what we need to do.
So I mean, whether you're looking at vitamin D,
which has stuffs that stimulate our immune system,
helps to minimize the risk for upper respiratory infection,
good for our bones,
I mean, it also like good for our mood,
it's the sunshine vitamin,
so ideally if we could get it through
standing outside, but hey--
- Sure. - You live in Wisconsin,
not conducive this time of the year
to getting outside and getting that--
- Sure. - 10 to 15 minutes
of direct exposure to the sun.
Plus the earth changes-- - So that's all I get
10 to 15 minutes of direct exposure,
you say that, and I've heard that before,
but if you're out there
and you have your gloves on and your coat
and everything covered up, - Exactly.
- So does your face.
- Yeah. - It seems like you'd need
more than 10 to 15 minutes.
- Well yeah-- - As opposed as out there
in your bikini uniform--
- Yeah, when we're just wearing
short sleeves, et cetera. - Yeah.
- Yeah, and again, with the skin cancer risk,
you still gotta be wearing sunscreen even in winter.
So, if you're out there for longer than 15 minutes,
you better be protecting that skin.
So realistically--
- Sunscreen, doesn't block the vitamin D benefits.
- You're gonna get a very small amount absorbed,
so it's not enough.
And we're already not getting enough--
- Okay. - In the Northern climate.
Your know, multivitamin in most cases,
they do have enough already in there.
- Right. - And that's at 600
to 800 IU level like we were talking about
earlier in the show. - Sure, sure.
- So again, it's very, very important,
but it does a lot of good things for the body.
So you wanna make sure
your vitamin contains that D and most do.
- Sure, the next thing I wanna talk about is,
let's say we have someone who's generally healthy,
not taking any meds, a normal lifestyle,
and they come on to a crisis in their life
or something that last a number of weeks or months,
putting unusual stress-- - Sure.
- And/or physical demands on their body,
say a new job, family changes,
or something that you're just overloaded.
- Yeah.
- Can the excess vitamins are they needed?
Is that gonna help you
get through it? - Yeah, there's some actually
really good studies specifically with the B vitamins
and there's eight of them.
So, I mean, so that's a--
- There's eight B vitamins-- - Separate B vitamins.
And actually it's funny when you look at B1 through 12,
you look at them, they're all kinda of,
there's B1, there's B2, B3,
B5, B6, B7, B9 and B12.
(Brad chuckling)
So, I mean from that standpoint, you look at all these,
I am a nerd, so
(both chuckling)
fully admitted, I do have problems.
- So B's are good
for stressful. - B's are good stress.
Yeah, so I mean,
and actually a little bit of vitamin C too, so--
- Sure. - A lot of the balanced
B complexes, which is a type of multivitamin,
the C enhances the absorption of the B vitamins.
- Yeah. - So that's why it's important
if you're looking for that one to get it,
because yeah, if we're working really long hours
and with this COVID society,
we have people are doing things
that are probably far more unusual.
So they're probably working two and three jobs--
- Sure. - And a lot of cases
just to make ends meet,
that puts tax on your body, puts tax on your immune system.
- Right. - So those B vitamins
do support that.
And so as we're going through all these stressors,
our body kinda tends to burn through those things.
- Sure. - So,
and if we're on the go like that,
and we're not being able to eat probably properly timed
or properly nutritious meals, - Yup.
- You'll probably gonna need to supplement those.
Most of the multivitamins again are gonna address
those needs to get you what you need.
So it's just a one a day vitamin that you can handle,
and again, if you're taking while,
like we were talking about earlier,
something good more is better,
and also well, I better take a B complex too,
'cause I'm going through so much.
Water-soluble vitamins, you just excrete them out.
- Yeah. - So just pick one that
you know you can stick with and be good with it.
- Right, and even talking about
the vitamins, supplements, how to take on,
what to watch out for, but again,
I wanna go back to the four things you mentioned.
- Yup. - First of all,
if you're eating good food,
fruits, vegetables and meats, all good quality food,
and you're eating it regularly,
probably you don't need any vitamins--
- No. - Because again you're making
expensive urine.
So, you can certainly be healthy without a supplement.
- Yeah, you don't need it if you're eating well.
If you're eating perfectly all the time, it's a waste.
- But again-- - But--
- Not just a diet, but, I'm a physical therapist,
we both understand, you need to get some exercise.
- Huge. - You don't have to be
a marathon runner.
- Nope. - Get out and walk,
do exercise to get things moving,
and then again, what was the other thing you mentioned?
- Sleep. - Sleep. (chuckling)
How could I forget? - Yeah.
We got it's almost like a bed right here.
- Yeah.(laughing)
So you sleep, exercise, nutrition and just be happy.
- Well, reducing your stress does have an effect
on your immune system. - Wow.
- So I mean, but there's some other nutrients,
there's some minerals out there
that stimulate our immune system like zinc and magnesium.
- Sure. - So there's a lot
of stuff out there when you get a complete multivitamin,
a little bit of vitamin A,
these are all things that work synergistically in our body.
There's thousands of little chemical actions and reactions
that are going on to that stimulate our immune system.
But like I said, those four pillars
that we kinda talked about were the sleep,
the rest, the good nutrition and exercise are huge.
- Yeah. - But,
vitamin can supplement that.
And if we're not getting it through our diet,
it's certainly gonna help us to hopefully be healthier,
especially in these extended really unusual times.
- Right, right.
So, I got more questions, but--
- Fair way. - Well,
you go into say your store and like you had mentioned,
there's a whole wall full of vitamins.
So again, we're not gonna pick out certain brands--
- No. - On here, but again,
look for the U-- - USP.
- USP on the label.
- Yup.
- Look for exaggerated amounts of volumes of such--
- Avoid exaggerated amounts.
The super-vitamins are not gonna help you.
- Yup. - You're just gonna end up
excreting them. - Yup.
- And again, for even partially nutritious diet,
a lot of the things that are in our diet
are already supplemented in our cereals--
- Yeah. - Our breads, our grains.
- Sure. - With the folates
and things of that nature,
so we wanna be mindful of that 'cause too much can be bad.
- Sure, sure. - In some cases.
- If you're taking medications,
make sure you talk to your doctor.
- Yup, very specifically on that.
'Cause there's certain interactions,
my favorite one to pick on
is always the blood thinner warfarin
'cause of vitamin K, but certain antibiotics
with the minerals like magnesium and zinc and calcium.
- Yeah. - Can inhibit how
and how certain antibiotics are absorbed.
If you're taking things like Tums or antacid,
they slow down, say the thyroid medication,
not to make people's heads roll,
their eyes roll back in their head, but
(Brad chuckling) you wanna be careful
with the timing of nutrients.
- Yeah. - It's one of those things
that certainly can help.
Iron is another big one that you wanna be careful with,
it's best on an empty stomach.
- And then outside of iron,
I'm thinking, most vitamins,
I think you had mentioned before when we were talking,
you need to have a diet,
whatever is in the food,
so your body absorbs it. - Yup.
- And you have a complete system working,
it's not like you can take vitamins
without eating healthy. - Correct.
Yeah, there's no shortcuts Brad.
I mean, there just isn't.
And so we, what a multivitamin's gonna do
is to supplement what we're not quite getting.
- Sure. - And so it's just gonna
provide the benefit,
but yeah, you can't just go on coffee, cigarettes
and water and vitamin,
(Brad chuckling) and it's just not gonna work.
I mean, we said some things
that are pretty bad there-- - Right.
- But it's just not gonna help us get through that.
- All right, wow, so very good.
I think there's good news and bad news here.
I mean, mostly good news.
You don't need to take a vitamin if you're eating well,
and if you're not, you're concerned, go ahead.
But make sure you take some good ones
and not too much of it, so, I don't know, Chris,
I'm exhausted here, - Yeah.
- My mind is...
- Well, there's a lot of nutritional facts
that we kinda of talked about
we probably have glossed over a few
that we could maybe--
- Yeah. - Consider another program
another time, but--
- (chuckling) Exactly.
- But, yeah, I think that the end of the day,
go out there, try and get your rest,
try and get your exercise, eat well,
get your sleep, drink your water,
those are gonna be the bigs.
- Yeah. - And when you can't do it,
I think it's really safe to say
that a good multivitamin it's gonna help you.
- Sure, all right, very good.
Thanks for tuning into us and we'll catch up next time.
- Sounds good guys.
(bright tone)