POZ Community Forums
Meds, Mind, Body & Benefits => Nutrition & HIV => Topic started by: newbieguy on October 03, 2011, 10:25:49 am
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I'm on Atripla for a little over a year with good results so far, have always taken a multivitamin (Once A Day Men's). My doctor recently prescribed me something called Prenavite, which is a prenatal vitamn. Could someone tell me more about it, and is it safe for men to use?I heard somewhere that HIV patients benefit from such a vitamin, is this true? It won't mess up my hormones or cause a loss of testosterone will it? Thanks for any responses.
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Prenatal vitamins will not have any effect on your hormones, of which testosterone is one.
They are simply tailored to a woman's dietary needs while pregnant or breast-feeding. And that's where you might have a problem.
Men have much lower iron requirements than women, and taking too much can cause problems. According to the NIH, a man's RDA for iron is 8mgs a day - and Prenavite has a whopping 50mgs as pregnant women need more iron (27mgs). Click here (http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/iron) to learn more about what the NIH has to say about your dietary requirements for iron.
Excess iron can also make it harder for your body to absorb zinc, whether you're male or female.
You might want to ask your doctor why he wants you to have so much iron.
edited to fix dodgy formatting
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Every HIV doctor (so 3 of them) I've had has told me to take a multi-vitamin specifically without iron because I am a male, which aligns with what Ann is saying. They may have inquired how much lean red meat I have, which is always sufficient for my normal iron needs.
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Our doctor also told my partner that if he wanted to take a multi-vitamin, to take one that did not include iron. I forgot to mention that before, So thanks Missy Peepee for reminding me. :-*