Multivitamin Supplements: Why They Are Essential to Your Health
Multivitamin supplements are a convenient way to prevent vitamin deficiency when your diet does not provide adequate nutrition. While multivitamin supplements don't mean you can eat unhealthy foods all the time and get away with it, they do provide backup nutrition when your diet falls short of 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 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 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 is an antioxidant and a booster of the immune system that helps keep skin healthy and helps in healing of wounds and scars.
Vitamin D is necessary to properly absorb calcium, a mineral. If you're deficient in vitamin D, you can experience fractures, bone loss, and a disease called rickets, which can lead to extreme bone pain. The body can manufacture Vitamin D if you have enough sunlight exposure, but it's usually included in multivitamin supplements because it can be difficult to get. However, it's toxic in large doses, so be careful how much you take.
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.
Although in theory it's possible to get everything you need from your diet, it's rare to get enough vitamins and minerals every day from your diet, in adequate amounts. There are lots of multivitamin supplements available, and it's important that you do some research to determine the best one for you. Monitor yourself carefully if you do decide to start taking multivitamin supplements, since any side effects may be detrimental; stop taking them if you do experience side effects and see if the side effects go away. If you do experience side effects, ask your doctor to recommend a multivitamin supplement for you.
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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