Drugs have powerful effects on the elderly and since often the elderly are required to consume varied meds in clusters, they are particularly vulnerable to harmful side effects. Moreover, they need nutritional support to help fortify their vital organs and brain and bones from such side effects. Note also that the elderly often have dental problems and so they desperately need supplemental nutrients in liquid forms since their mouths cannot chew tablets. Therefore, I'd like to know more about supplement nutrition programs and research about this.
The naive general public think the Drs. are knowledgable about nutrition but six out of seven graduating doctors felt they were inadequately trained to counsel patients about their diets. The average amount of time spent by Drs. talking to patients about nutrition is 10 seconds. YET every diet, every pharm. commercial, etc. will always say, check with your doctor. It's a catch 22. So I agree with Llamalover, we have to take responsibility and do our homework and discuss with Drs. It's a little harder to dismiss your concerns that way.
I did call Walgreens and asked if they offered information on what supplement a patient should take with a specific drug to counteract the side effects. The pharmacist was hesitate to answer. I gave an example. If you take a statin should you take COQ10. She answered, some Drs. Recommend. I ask if I had other drugs I wanted to know about could she tell me what supplements I might want to add and she said yes, she could look it up. So it doesn't roll off her tongue and I've NEVER had a pharmacist say would you like an order of COQ10 with that Statin but she didn't turn me away when pressed. I was surprised. Of course I should follow up with will that interact with other drugs the patient is taking. Not a scientific study lol
But more info than I expected.
The National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements has a section called "dietary supplement fact sheets" which has info on vitamins, minerals and some nutraceuticals and botanicals. They have a link for a Mobil app and also to the FDA for warnings. Her book is an interesting read and a great reference. She covers liquid vitamins as well. It's not a book that tells you which brands. It tells you how to get the vitamins from food, how to tell if you are deficient, how to read a label etc.
Even Dr Michael Greger (author of How Not To Die and who runs NutritionFacts.org) who wants you to get all your needs met through eating the right diet recommends two or three supplements.
Every pharmaceutical manufacturers has their own formula, thus one has to search around to find the right manufacturer where a patient can easily take the pill with minor side effects.
I have the above issues with pills, and surprising just last year found out my Mom had the same problem.... we were surprised to find that we both had narrowed down the pills to just manufacturers that worked the best for us :)
I agree with Ferris above, there are no supplements that can erase the side effects. In fact, the supplements have "fillers", "binders", and "coatings" on their pills and even in liquid form.
I would love to be able to get a multivitamin that is small in size for Mom. Right now we give her children's chewables, but she can just handle 1 a day. Adult vitamins are too large in size for her. We've tried liquid vitamins but had issues with caregivers not handling it properly.
If you have a specific situation in mind about a person you are taking care of, I assume you've talked about this with the doctor. What have you learned?