Discussion Board

I take VEG 1 from Vegan society designed specifically for vegans. It has B12, folic acid, iodine and couple of other B vitamins that vegans could be missing.

http://www.vegansociety.com/catalog/def ... p?cPath=33

This is exactly what it has:
Vitamin B2
Vitamin B6
Vitamin B12
Vitamin D
Folic Acid
Iodine
Selenium
The suppleme

If someone is following the McDougall program diet -- which means eating a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and starches -- won't he get everything he needs (except B12), including all the items on nina's list?

If not, what foods should we eat a lot more of to make sure we get the "missing" vitamins and minerals?

Dr. McDougall was speaking specifically to the idea of supplementing for prevention and treatment of heart disease, not pregnancy. Prenatal supplements contain only 0.4 mg of folate compared to the dose he was discussing which started at 0.8mg. I think it has been quite strongly proven that folate reduces spinal cord defects (there has been a definite decline in spina bifida in countries that supplemented cereals and bread with folate), so personally, unless he addressed this issue specifically and had something really compelling, I would take a PN vitamin only during the time of preconception and pregnancy. I think the potential benefits outweigh the risks for a brief period of time. It seems to be most important that a woman takes it preconception and in the earliest months. Just my $0.02.

Carroll: If you go to the original article, it's conclusion is that this study was too small to be conclusive--that at this time no particular conclusion can be drawn.

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/329/7479/1375

I guess in the end it comes down to whether a person could be very confident they were getting enough folate in diet for those few months that are so important, since it does seem quite certain that folate even in supplement form decreases the risk of neural tube defects. If a person was very confident they were getting enough dietary folate then it would not seem necessary to take a supplement. However, if one weren't certain, weighing the health of a babe now compared to risk of breast cancer later is tough--especially since we have no idea of the diet or lifestyle of the women in this study between when they entered the study and when mortality was examined (I believe they were just screened for weight, smoking, etc upon entry, not intervening years where risks for breast cancer could have drastically changed).

Just to add further to the discussion, this article seemed timely.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070104/ap_on_he_me/diet_folic_acid