The Nutrition in Complementary Care dietetic practice group of the American Dietetic Association has an interest in the role of alternative herbal, vitamin and mineral therapies in improving health and preventing disease. Their Find a Comp Care Nutritionist feature will help you locate a dietitian in your state. You can also find a dietitian at the American Dietetic Association. Include your zip code or city / state and the type of service you want (individual consultation) with expertise in alternative nutrition.

The reason I said you would make expensive urine is your body absorbs about 15% from a vitamin supplement, assuming you don't have a deficiency for a particular nutrient. The rest is excreted in your urine.

Depends on whether or not your diet contains enough food and variety to supply all the nutrients your body needs.

If you eat more than 1600 calories and a variety of food, you may be wasting your money and making some very expensive urine. Though, taking one multivitamin per day that has 100% of the Recommended Dietary Allowances for vitamins and minerals will not hurt you.

If you are consuming less than 1600 calories per day, you are not getting all the vitamins and minerals you need. In that case, I would suggest you take a multivitamin that has 100% of the RDA for all vitamins and minerals.

I cannot recommend one specific brand. In the US, multivitamins usually contain only 100% of the Recommended Dietary Allowances. Usually only 17 nutrients (protein, vitamin A, D, E, C, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, B6, folacin (folic acid), B12, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, zinc, iodine and selenium) plus some other nutrients are included. Vitamin K (involved in blood clotting) is only available by prescription because of toxicity.

To get higher dosages (greater than 100%) of vitamins or minerals, you would have to purchase each separately. Some, including Vitamin A (max. 25,000 IU), are limited to the dosage you can purchase over the counter without a prescription.

Your body prefers to extract the vitamins and minerals from whole foods and excretes excess vitamins and minerals from supplements via in urine or feces. Remember how you use nutrients is based on genes that are thousands of years old and depended on food, not pills. There is however research to support higher than normal intakes of some vitamins or minerals for specific disease prevention or treatment.

Pre-natal vitamins contain nutrients at levels recommended for pregnant women. Increased amounts of folacin (folic acid), iron, calcium and vitamin C (improves iron and calcium absorption) can be present. Folic acid has been found to reduce neural tube defects (spina bifida) in newborns and is extremely important prior to becoming pregnant.

Non-pregnant adults may take pre-natal vitamins. However if needed, a daily multivitamin that has 100% the adult Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) would be more appropriate.

An international unit of a vitamin varies. I use the following table from "Food Chemistry and Nutritional Biochemistry by Zapsalis and Beck.

Vitamin A, 1 IU retinol = 0.300 - 0.344 micrograms
Vitamin A, 1 IU beta carotene = 0.600 micrograms
Vitamin E, 1 IU tocopherol = 1 milligram

For beta carotene, I have calculated the following conversion for 25,000 IU of beta carotene = 15,000 micrograms.

If the multivitamin has only 100% of the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) for each nutrient in the supplement, it probably won't hurt you. There are RDA's for protein, vitamin A, D, E, K, C, B6 and B12, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folacin (folic acid), calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, zinc, iodine and selenium. The bottle label should give you the measured amount of each nutrient in each pill and what percent each pill contributes to your RDA.

Your body can absorb around 10 to 15% of the nutrients in a vitamin pill. The rest goes down the toilet as urine. So for every $10.00 you spend on supplements, you could be flushing $8.50 down the toilet. Your money would be better spent on food. The human body prefers to take a food, break it down and take the nutrients it needs. Remember that you are dealing with a cave person's body. I think you are depending too heavily on the supplement and not giving enough credit to the nutrients in your food.

A vitamin is like an enzyme or catalyst. It assists in a chemical reaction. By themselves, they will help prevent a nutritional deficiency and in persons on very low calorie diets (less than 1200 calories per day), vitamin supplements provide missing nutrients. Vitamins though are not enough. You need protein, fat and carbohydrate to build and maintain the human body. If you focus on eating a variety of foods, your requirements of vitamins and minerals will probably be met. Unless your doctor has recommended a specific vitamin for a health problem you have, you may be wasting your money on supplements.