Multivitamin supplements can be a good way to get the vitamins you need, especially if your own diet doesn’t give you all the nutrients you need. That said, of course, multivitamin supplements can’t do everything and won’t replace the benefits of a healthy diet in general; they will simply fill in gaps for those times when you just can’t quite eat right.
Multivitamin supplements often include minerals. Some of the minerals that people are prone to be deficient in are iron, magnesium, zinc, and calcium. Multivitamin supplements contain many different kinds of vitamins, including the ones listed here.
Vitamin A is one of the vitamins multivitamins supplements usually contain. It’s relatively rare to be deficient in vitamin A, unless you are older. You need vitamin A to have your immune system function at its best, and it’s also important to prevent certain types of birth defects and bone loss. However, it can be toxic in large doses, so avoid overuse.
Beta carotene is an antioxidant in multivitamin supplements that helps increase white blood cell numbers and boosts the body’s disease fighting immune activities. Together, vitamin A and beta carotene keep the cells in your eyes healthy.
Folic acid is an especially important supplement to take during pregnancy, and is included in most prenatal multivitamin supplements. If you are deficient in folic acid while you’re pregnant, your baby could be born with low birth weight or neural tube defects such as spina bifida.
There are quite a few B vitamins, and most of them are found in multivitamin supplements. Folic acid is technically a B vitamin. Pyridoxine is another. Along with B12, pyridoxine is important for controlling levels of homocysteine in the blood. High levels of homocysteine can lead to heart disease, strokes, and Alzheimer’s disease. Vitamin B12 can also help fight heart disease, anemia, and memory loss. Thiamine, also called vitamin B1, is important for proper brain function. The vitamin niacin, also called B3, prevents a disease called pellagra. Pellagra is relatively rare, but it is caused by a deficiency in niacin and results in scaly sores on the skin, inflamed mucous membranes, diarrhea, and mental confusion.
Vitamin C strengthens your immune system and is an antioxidant. It helps keep your skin healthy, and aids in wound healing and in the prevention of scars.
Adequate amounts of vitamin D are essential to making sure you absorb enough of the mineral calcium. If you don’t get enough vitamin D, you can have fractures, bone loss, and can experience a disease called rickets. This can cause severe bone pain to occur. Vitamin D can be manufactured in the body if you get enough exposure to sunlight, but it’s often necessary in multivitamin supplements because today, many people don’t get enough sunlight. In addition, the deficiency is very painful and detrimental. However, it can be toxic in large amounts, so don’t overdo.
Some multivitamin supplements also contain vitamin K. Vitamin K deficiency can lead to bleeding, easy bruising, and brittle bones, or osteoporosis.
Calcium is among the mega minerals that are important to good health, and is found in many multivitamin supplements. Along with vitamin D and vitamin K, it’s necessary to your diet in order to maintain adequate bone mass. You need enough calcium in your diet or through multivitamin supplements for good health, and it also reduces the risk of fracture in bones for older people.
Multivitamin supplements’ labels may say that they provide more than 100% of your recommended daily allowance of specific vitamins, but it’s important to be careful not to overdo taking in these vitamins. Most multivitamin supplements’ levels are safe to take on a daily basis, but if you supplement vitamins individually, you could unwittingly overdose on vitamins, thus incurring significant risk.
Although it’s possible that your diet provides 100% of your recommended daily allowance of the necessary vitamins and minerals, it’s relatively rare that any one person can do so every single day, especially with the lives most of us lead. There are lots of different multivitamin supplements available on the market, and you may need to do some research to decide which one is best for you. If you experience side effects when you begin to take a multivitamin supplement, stop taking the supplement and see if the problem subsides. If it does, ask your doctor to recommend a multivitamin supplement for you.
About a dozen vitamins are recognized as important to consume in recommended quantities. If you shortchange yourself on any of them, you can get symptoms of vitamin deficiency. Multivitamin supplements do a very good job of filling any nutritional gaps in your diet, but they are no substitute for maintaining a healthy lifestyle, with regular exercise and a healthy diet included.
Taking multivitamin supplements over a period of time will enhance your body’s general health condition. Visit www.discount-vitamins-and-supplements.com for a huge collection of multivitamin supplements products available at your fingertips.
categories: vitamins, supplements, nutritions
