The market today is packed with a massive range of multivitamin supplements that claim to lend a hand in every type of ailment. Many consumers also take the bait and buy these pills without knowing the serious side effects that they are capable of. So should you have multivitamin supplements in your diet? We examine their benefits and shortcomings and leave the choice open to you.
Advantages
There are many people who find it difficult to get the right amount of nutrients from their food. The reasons can be plenty - Cooking is known to destroy certain types of nutrients and minerals. Vegetarians and non vegetarians who are accustomed to eating a certain type of food will most certainly lack the vitamins provided by the other type of food and therefore may require these supplements. Also as we age, our body's metabolism rate reduces and it fails to generate the adequate amount of vitamins required for proper functioning. Multivitamins can help in such cases because many a time, a single tablet can deal with the lack of two or more vitamins (therefore the name multivitamins). There are others for whom genetic factors plays a key role in the inadequacy of certain vitamin supplements. For such people, multivitamin supplements can prove to be a massive boon.
Disadvantages
The downside is that if the amount of a certain vitamin exceeds the desired level in the body, it can lead to severe toxicity and also result in a condition called as hypervitaminosis. Excess amounts of vitamin D in the body have been known to cause dehydration, vomiting and kidney stones while surplus of vitamin E can lead to high cholesterol levels and blood pressure problems. Hair loss and conditions such as osteoporosis are also other side effects resulting from overkill of vitamins.
Thus using multivitamins can either be good or bad for your personal health depending on the way in which you use them. These supplements should be strictly taken on the recommendation of a doctor because normally if a person eats an adequate amount of nutritious food, the body is more than capable of producing the desired amount of vitamins and nutrients required for its proper functioning.