Fat Loss 4 Idiots Opinion

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Multivitamin Supplements: Why They Are Essential to Your Health

By Hien Chung

Multivitamin supplements can be a good way to get the vitamins you need, especially if your own diet doesn't give you all the nutrients you need. That said, of course, multivitamin supplements can't do everything and won't replace the benefits of a healthy diet in general; they will simply fill in gaps for those times when you just can't quite eat right.

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 most multivitamin supplements. It's rare to be deficient in vitamin A unless you are elderly. However, vitamin A is necessary for your immune system to function at its best, and it is sometimes recommended to prevent certain types of birth defects or to prevent bone loss. However, vitamin A can be toxic in large doses, so it should never be taken to excess.

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 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.

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 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.

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. - 17269

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