subject: Are Multivitamin Supplements Really Essential To Your Health? [print this page] 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.
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 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 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.
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.
Vitamin D is essential to proper absorption of the mineral calcium. A deficiency of vitamin D can lead to bone loss, fractures, and a disease called rickets, which can result in severe bone pain. Though vitamin D can be manufactured by the human body from exposure to sunlight, it is included in multivitamin supplements too because the deficiency can be so painful. However, that doesn't mean that you should take mega doses of it.
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.
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.
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.
