Are Multivitamin Supplements Really Essential to Your Health?

Are multivitamin supplements really necessary? In fact, yes; that’s especially true if your diet is deficient and doesn’t provide adequate nutrition, because they’ll fill in the nutritional gaps your diet doesn’t provide. That doesn’t mean you can eat unhealthily all the time and get away with it, but multivitamin supplements can give you nutritional support if your diet is less than optimal.

Most multivitamin supplements also include minerals. Some very important minerals that people can be easily deficient in are magnesium, iron, calcium and zinc. Multivitamin supplements also usually contain many different vitamins, including the ones listed below.

Vitamin A is found in many multivitamin supplements. Deficiency in vitamin A is uncommon unless you are elderly. It is vital for your immune system to function optimally, and it is sometimes taken to prevent bone loss and certain types of birth defects. But vitamin A should never be taken in large doses because it can be dangerous.

Beta-carotene is an antioxidant that is present in many multivitamin supplements; it can help increase white blood cells, and improve your immune system function. Vitamin A and beta-carotene both work to keep your eyes healthy.

Folic acid is an especially important nutrient during pregnancy and is included in prenatal multivitamin supplements. If you are deficient in folic acid during pregnancy, your baby can have a low birth weight and will also be at increased risk of neural tube defects, such as spina bifida.

The B vitamin family has quite a few members, with most included in multivitamin supplements. Folic acid is one of these, and pyridoxine is another. Vitamin B12 and pyridoxine help control the levels of homocysteine in the blood. Homocysteine, when high, can contribute to strokes, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease. Vitamin B12 can help fight anemia, heart disease and memory loss. Vitamin B1, or thiamine, is important for proper brain function. Niacin, also called vitamin B3, is a preventative for a disease called pellagra. Although pellagra is relatively rare, it can occur in someone who is deficient in niacin; people suffering from pellagra have inflamed mucous membranes, mental confusion, diarrhea, and scaly sores on the skin.

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.

Vitamin K, too, is another important vitamin, and its deficiency can cause osteoporosis (brittle bones), easy bruising, and bleeding.

Vitamin K, vitamin D and calcium (a mineral) are found in many multivitamin supplements; calcium is necessary to build and maintain proper bone mass. If you consume enough calcium (along with vitamin D and vitamin K), you can reduce the risk of bone fracture once you get older.

Multivitamin supplements can provide more than 100% of the recommended daily allowance of some vitamins, but in most cases, it’s not safe to consume very large amounts of any vitamin or mineral by itself. The levels included in multivitamins are usually safe, but if you take too many supplements in individual form and too much of them, extremely large doses could be unsafe.

Theoretically, your diet is supposed to be sufficient to provide 100% of your recommended daily allowance of the basic vitamins and minerals, but the person who eats a balanced diet with adequate vitamins and minerals every single day is rare in today’s fast-paced world. There are many multivitamins available, and it may take some research to decide which kind is best for you. If you start taking a multivitamin supplement and experience any side effects, it is a good idea to stop taking them and see if the problem goes away. If so, you should ask your doctor to recommend a multivitamin supplement.

There are about a dozen different vitamins and minerals recognized as important for humans to consume. If you are shortchanged on any of them for a significant amount of time, you could begin to experience deficiency symptoms. And again, multivitamin supplements can prevent these types of deficiencies, but are still no substitute for a healthy diet and lifestyle, one that includes good nutritious food and exercise, too.

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