Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Which Multi-vitamin is coming out on top?

These notes are very rough, but represent my evolving supplementation plan, and evaluating cost vs. benefit. So, if anyone out there is interested, let me know and I can make more sense of this. I know one friend out there who is interested :-)
Bottom line what I figured out here is that I want to streamline and stock only the Doc's Best Multi, and won't be ordering the Mercola Children's Chewables. I figure here that it will in the end not really be much more expensive for me to give Doc's Best to my kids. They will take 2 per day (less than the 3 I figured below). My hubby doesn't take the multis every day, though once we move he'll be taking them more often. He and I will probably take maybe 3 or 4 of the 6 recommended capsules per day, so cost will be less than $2 per day for each of us.

**In order to avoid the stearates, which I'm guessing will affect absorption of all the other supplements, need to avoid the Twinlab dots. My overall plan will heretofore avoid all stearates. Doc's Best will help me do this for adults and kids.

$8.95 shipping on DrRons.com on all orders under $250. If you purchase 5 bottles of Doc's Best Multi, this will get you there (purchase with a local friend?).
I order 2 bottles at a time, but buying the 5 would save money in the long run.
$128.85 for 360 capsules. Adult dose is 6 capsules per day (60 days) which is $2.15 per day. Kids would be half that at $1.07 per day.

One Mercola bear is 30 cents, so the full dose is $0.60 per day
plus Twin Dot = $0.13 ($7.49/60)
up to 73 cents per day.

Benefits:
-Don't have to take the magnesium stearates in the Twinlab D+K dots (the main purpose in which is to get the vit K)
-other nutrients in the Doc't Best that don't come in the Mercola bears such as: more appropriate dose of zinc/copper, more variety B vitamins, plus: potassium, R-alpha lipoid acid, Co Q-10, and Grape Seed Extract.
-Noteably you get higher amounts in the half dose for kids of Doc's Best of these: Vit C, Vit E, the B vitamins, Selenium, and many of the other items.
-Don't have to purchase on Mercola's site in addition to Doc's Best (going to order Doc's Best for us adults anyway).

Other supplements:

cod liver oil - going to take this anyway
Carlson D drops = 3 cents per day
Vitamin C gummies - could eliminate if cost is a factor (it's just an incentive, that's all)
Amazing Grass greenfood - not going to take it all year round anyway. Take this mostly in the winter?
Magnesium - I would still like to find better ways of getting more magnesium and silica, regardless of which multi-vitamin they take (not a deciding cost factor)

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