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Saturday, November 7, 2009

Why Are Multivitamins Supplements Essential to Your Health?

By Hien Chung

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 vitamin supplements include vitamins as well as minerals. The minerals included are important to everyday health, and many people can be deficient in them. They include magnesium, iron, calcium and zinc. Multivitamin supplements also contain many different vitamins, as 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 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 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.

If you shop around, you can find multivitamin supplements that contain vitamin K. Deficiency in vitamin K can cause bleeding and leads to easy bruising and osteoporosis (brittle bones).

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.

While multivitamin supplements may provide more than 100% of your recommended daily allowance of some vitamins, it is not a good idea to consume enormous amounts of any vitamin or mineral. The levels in multivitamins are generally considered safe, but supplements containing individual vitamins sometimes contain doses large enough that they could be risky.

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 recognized vitamins that humans are recommended to consume in certain quantities. A long term shortage in any of them can cause symptoms of vitamin deficiency. While multivitamin supplements can do a great job of preventing vitamin deficiencies, they're not a substitute for a healthy lifestyle, including a healthy diet and regular exercise. - 17274

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