The Strange Multivitamin Maze: Synergy, Absorption, and the Art of Multi Supplementation

Listen in as Dave Sherwin, the brains behind Mimi's Miracle Multi, reveals the hidden complexities of multivitamins. 

Through this episode, prepare to unlock the secrets of vitamin-mineral synergy and the surprising interactions that could revolutionize your approach to daily supplements.

Dave's expertise, shaped by rigorous research and collaboration with PhD chemists, promises to guide you through the often-conflicting studies on multivitamin benefits and absorption intricacies, ensuring you're well-equipped to make an informed decision on your vitamin regimen.

Dave Sherwin shares his holistic perspective, emphasizing the significance of diet, hydration, and detoxification—cornerstones of optimal wellness. You'll be inspired to color your plate with the full spectrum of nature's bounty and to contemplate the thoughtful selection of supplements like Mimi's Miracle Multi, designed to complement, not replace, a nutritious diet. 

Find episode links, notes and artwork at:

https://blog.dirobi.com

This show is for informational purposes only.

None of the information in this podcast should be construed as dispensing medical advice.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome to the DiRobi Health Show, the number five
best podcast according toFeedspotcom, which is kind of
cool.
I'm excited about it.
They rank podcasts based ontraffic, social media followers
and freshness, and it determinedthis is the fifth best, and I'm

(00:35):
pretty excited about that.
By the way, feedspot is kind ofa cool website.
I only discovered it because ofthis listing, and someone told
me that we were on this list andI went over and had a look at
it and it's a place where youcan aggregate all of your
favorite stuff, whether it'sblog posts, podcasts there's
anything you pay attention to,or any media outlet or blogger

(01:00):
or other creator that you like.
Feedspot is an aggregator whereyou can enter all your favorite
stuff and it'll just notify youwhenever there's new content.
So a nice place to kind of keepeverything organized, and so,
anyways, little plug for them.
Anything is there kind enoughto rank my site or this podcast,

(01:21):
I mean, on their website, and anice shot in the arm after all
these years of putting out thissporadic, irregular but
hopefully enjoyable and funcontent.
I love doing the podcast and Ihope you are enjoying it as well
.
Today, I want to talk to youabout something that came across
my radar years ago, I wascompeting at a fairly high level

(01:43):
.
I'd gotten very serious abouttriathlon.
I was competing at a nationallevel and working very hard on
running, biking, swimming.
That was how I was staying inshape, and I was also entering
races of various sizes anddistances and keeping me in
terrific shape.
During that time, though, I gotreally interested in

(02:05):
multivitamins, because I foundit very confusing.
I thought you know I'm workingout 15 hours a week.
I'm trying to eat really well.
However, I know I'm burningthrough all the carbs, fat,
protein and phytonutrients andvitamins and minerals very
quickly as well, and I wonderwhat the best multivitamin is

(02:26):
for me.
And that question opened up,but I think it was like two to
four years between when Istarted looking for one and then
finally actually ended upformulating one, because I just
couldn't find what I wanted,which might sound bizarre,
seeing as there are thousands oftypes of multivitamins, but
today I want to talk to youabout some of the challenges

(02:46):
that I ran into, and, as basicas a multivitamin sounds, it's
probably the most popularly usedsupplement of all.
The landscape is incrediblyconfusing, and I'm talking about
there are massive studies thatconflict with each other.
If you look at studies withliterally hundreds of thousands
of people in them, some say yougot to take a multivitamin,

(03:09):
others say they're no good, somesay that they mix too many
ingredients and some say theydon't have enough.
And some of the studies aredone on aging populations and
some of them are younger, someof them are men, some are done
on women and it's just a mess.
And I finally got to the bottomof it the best that I could and

(03:32):
talked to a couple of PhDchemists.
They came up with Mimi'sMiracle Multi, but along the way
I want to tell you some of theinteresting things I ran into.
First of all, there are vitaminsand minerals that conflict with
each other Not so much innature.
When we eat an orange, we getvitamin C, and that vitamin C is
readily used by the body.
However, when you put vitamin Cand copper in the same

(03:58):
supplement, there's plenty ofevidence that the absorption of
both will go down or nullify,even be nullified.
Another example is magnesiumand calcium.
Now, magnesium and calcium aretwo of the most readily
available and popularsupplements out there.
Pretty much everyone knows whatmagnesium and calcium is.
Not everyone knows whatchromium GTF is, or iodine or

(04:23):
some of the other zinc.
We know.
Magnesium, calcium, vitamin Care just.
They're big ones.
That's all I'm saying.
However, magnesium and calciumshould not be taken together.
They also conflict with eachother.
Vitamin C and copper I think Imentioned that one.

(04:44):
Magnesium shouldn't be takenwith iron and zinc.
And again, magnesium verypopular, a lot of people are
aware of it, a lot of peopletake it, but if you mix it in a
moldy vitamin with iron and zinc, they counteract each other.
Another one is CNB12.
And I find that one interestingas well.
Zinc and copper I can'tremember if I've mentioned that

(05:07):
one.
And yet zinc for many people,if they start taking zinc,
really wakes up their system.
As a matter of fact, 12% ofpeople are deficient and 40% of
the elderly are too low on zinc.
But if you have a multi thathas everything, many of these
elements are conflicting witheach other and it's just not

(05:28):
going to work the way that youhope it's going to work.
And so what we decided to doafter doing all this research is
we found a few very interestingthings.
Basically, what I decided isyou know a whole lot of people
when it comes to see magnesiumand calcium.
Those really ought to be hadfrom diet as much as possible.

(05:52):
You see, we should be eating 5to 9 servings of fruits and
veggies every day, and when youdo, you're getting the best
possible forms of magnesium andcalcium.
In addition, if you are low onmagnesium, the best time to take
it is probably in the eveningas a topical.
Now, if you have stomachproblems, you can take a
magnesium to help with yourstomach.

(06:12):
But guess what?
If you aren't having a stomachproblem and you swallow
magnesium, you can also get theruns right, which you don't want
.
Magnesium taken as a topicalwill actually help you relax and
go to sleep better, and so thisis why in the Dirobi undiet,
we're so big on getting your 5to 9 servings of veggies,

(06:33):
because you should get enoughmagnesium, calcium and vitamin C
in their best possible forms.
And if you don't, these are veryreadily easy to buy supplements
very, very inexpensive.
I think you can buy 90 daysworth of vitamin C for about 10
bucks at Costco.
So if, and only if, you've hada nutritional deficiency test

(06:58):
that shows that you're low onmagnesium, calcium or C, I would
not supplement with those.
I just focus on getting morevitamins I'm sorry more
vegetables and fruits in yourdiet and for me, I cheat.
I love our greens and redsuperfood because it just covers
so many of these other bases,and I don't drink my greens and

(07:22):
red superfood with my multibecause of these issues that
I've just talked about.
I usually have it in theafternoon, hours after I've
taken my multi.
In addition, there are thingsthat many people are not
necessarily deficient on, butfor people over about 30,
they're fantastic to have.

(07:42):
For example, a chromiumdeficiency is very hard to
identify because we need it insuch small amounts.
1000 MCGs that's not milligramsnow, but MCGs, that's a
thousand seven milligram.
1000 MCGs of chromium GTF iswhat's called the clinical dose

(08:03):
for weight loss, lowercholesterol and blood sugar
management.
It's a very tiny amount.
It's hard in a nutritional testto determine whether you have
that in your body or not.
However, anecdotally, we knowfrom many, many people that when
they start getting 1000 MCGs ofchromium GTF every single day
or more, they do very, very well.

(08:24):
That's why we put it in ourMimi's Miracle Multi.
And so if you dive into theworld of multivitamins, as I
have done several times and as Irevisited for this very post,
generally speaking, I think whatyou're going to find is that
most multivitamins are trying tobe all things to all people,
and it's a marketing ploy.

(08:45):
They have a list of a ton ofdifferent things and the people
look at it and go, wow, there'sso much in here.
This has got to work for me.
I'm so happy I found thislittle white pill that has a
hundred things inside of it, andboy won't I be healthy.
And the fact is, you just won't, because they won't have enough
of what you need.
They'll have some things thatconflict with each other, and

(09:09):
those cheap ones are all goingto be synthetic ingredients as
well.
And again, not all syntheticingredients are unhealthy.
I've been in the supplementindustry a long, long time.
I know that there's purists outthere that claim that no
synthetic ingredient can worklike what comes out of food.
Now, I generally agree withthat.
However, again, as in manythings in health, there's nuance

(09:33):
there.
Regardless, we use the highestquality product we can in every
single one of our formulations,just because it is better.
So I'm not here making anargument for synthetics only to
say that they're not the devilthat some people would say that
they are, but I still avoid them.
So I don't know why I'm spendingany time talking about that

(09:54):
actually, but generally speaking, I would suggest trying to get
your vitamins minerals, from acombination of a diet with the
right ratio of carbs, fats,proteins that are all sourced
from whole foods.
You're getting many vitaminsand minerals from there, getting
five to nine servings of fruitsand veggies a day and doing a

(10:16):
high quality, minimal sort offormulation, like our Mimi's
Miracle Multi that isn't tryingto be all things to all people,
but has those things thatscience has told us most people
are deficient in and some ofthose things that just make you
feel terrific, like Maka andKoleen and CoQ 10.
So we have vitamin D3, we haveK1 and K2, which, by the way,

(10:40):
now we've talked about thingsthat conflict.
Did you know there's certainthings that ought to be together
, like vitamin D3, k1 and K2?
Modern science has told us alot in the last five to eight
years, especially about mixingD3, k1 and K2, including people
having less bone breakage, lessproblems with osteoarthritis,
less osteoporosis, and so that'simportant to mix those together

(11:05):
.
B vitamins, of course, arecritical.
I already talked about chromium, gtf, iodide zinc.
These are some of the thingsthat are not only important but
are more important than many ofthe others.
Our body needs all of them.
However, some of these thingsgive us more bang for the buck

(11:27):
than others, and so that's alittle bit of the story behind
Mimi's Miracle Multi, as well assome of the story on why some
of these other products are, youknow, have so much confusing
evidence behind them, why thereare so many people who poo poo
multivitamins, and probably forgood reason.
But, generally speaking, many ofthese things are very, very

(11:50):
difficult to get from food.
We know this because eventhings like the Smithsonian has
kept examples of foods and seedsthat were grown in the 1800s,
and we can compare the amount ofminerals and vitamins in foods
from 150 years ago to thosegrown today, and the difference

(12:11):
is depressing.
And I contend that very, veryfew people can optimize their
health fully on food alone, andI know that's against the common
wisdom and I know it shouldn'tbe that way.
Wouldn't it be great if we justcould eat three square meals a
day and completely optimize ourhealth and have all the energy

(12:34):
and vitality and longevity thatwe hope for?
I don't believe that ispossible and that a wise
supplement strategy thatincludes those things that are
really going to work doesn'twaste money on things that are
going to conflict with eachother or cause other problems is
the ultimate strategy.
It's another reason why atdirobycom, we don't have a

(12:57):
vitamin shop full of products.
We just have those things thatwe think will fill in those gaps
.
And then we teach the undiet yes, eat whole foods.
Yes, eat the right balance ofcarbs, proteins, fats.
Yes, get your exercise in, ofcourse.
Do all of those things.
However, when you supplementthat with a smart supplement

(13:19):
strategy, it'll make all thedifference in the world and you
can finally achieve those goalsof hitting your ideal body
weight, having the energy thatyou want, keeping up with your
kids even after they are allgrown up, and you still can go
out and do all the fun thingsyou want with them in your life.
Well, many, many people who aresimply letting their health

(13:41):
slide, unfortunately, and notchecking off all of these daily
habits and daily intakes betweenfood and supplements that they
ought to be in this modernsociety to both feed their body
and give their body the stuff itneeds to keep some of the
things out of their body thatthey shouldn't have.
We got to get all the stuff weneed and we got to be able to

(14:02):
expel the junk that we're takingin on a regular basis through
our environment, pollution,plastics, chemicals, etc.
And when we're firing on allcylinders and we're fully
hydrated and we're getting allthose things and our body is
eliminating very, very well,then we have optimal health.
So I hope you've enjoyed thesethoughts and ideas on the

(14:27):
conflicting research aroundmulti and various elements and
why we've constructed our Mimi'sMiracle Multi the way that we
have.
Until next time, this is DaveSherwin, wishing you health and
success.