January 13, 2008
The Importance of Multivitamins
A multivitamin is a nutritional supplement containing many different types of vitamins, as the name suggests. However, many brands of multivitamins also contain minerals, trace elements, and other nutritionals. Multi-vitamins are convenient because it is not necessary to take dozens of individual vitamin pills each day. Instead, these all-in-one vitamin pills contain many vitamins in controlled dosages.
The controlled dosage of each individual vitamin in the pill is provided for your protection. Dosages are usually measured and presented in a percentage of the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA), in micrograms (mcg), or sometimes in International Units (I.U.). Most vitamins in the tablet are included at the 100% RDA dosage, meaning that the capsule contains all of that particular nutrient you would need for a day. For nutrients listed in the ingredients as less than 100% of the RDA, the vitamin manufacturer expects you to get the remainder of those vitamins from your daily diet.
Multivitamin pills are not a replacement for a healthy diet, however. Instead, they are a supplement to healthy eating. Today's fast paced lifestyles, and the correspondingly fast paced fast foods, do not typically supply all the necessary vitamins and minerals your body needs for good health and nutrition. Instead, these rather unhealthy diets are more likely to provide you with large amounts of only a few essential vitamins, and little or none of others. Taking a daily multivitamin by a reputable manufacturer helps even out the nutrient deficits in your diet.
Do not be alarmed if the combination of your daily diet and your daily vitamin provide you with more than 100% of the recommended daily allowance of one or more nutrients. First of all, different people have different nutritional requirements, and may need more of that particular supplement. Secondly, the extra amount of the nutrients you consume are not likely to be large, and the unused part will normally be flushed out of your system with other bodily wastes. Be aware, however, that deliberately taking mega-doses of certain vitamins can be unhealthy. Almost any material can be toxic to the body if taken in excessive doses!
Remember to take your multivitamin tablet on a daily basis. Taking a pill once a week, or once every two to three days, will be helpful. However, most nutritional supplements containing Vitamins C, D, E, B6, B12, Niacin, Thiamin, and the other recommended nutrients provide the most health benefits when taken daily. If you forget to take your daily pill, don't take two the next day. Instead, simply take your next scheduled single pill. Taking multivitamins on a daily basis can supplement your diet and improve your overall health.
Posted by personalhealthnews at 08:29 PM | Comments (0)
September 04, 2007
The Wisdom Of Taking Supplements
It is a known fact that vitamins, minerals and micronutrients are essential to good health. If this world were perfect we would get all these nutrients from the food we eat on a daily basis. However, because this does not always happen, there are some convincing reasons to consider taking vitamin, mineral or micronutrient supplements.
Vitamins can help us overcome our lifestyle problems. On the whole, we are not very responsible when it comes to healthy habits. Many people play with their lives by smoking, drinking alcohol to excess, not getting adequate exercise or sleep, making poor choices in foods, and many other activities that lead to poor health. By taking vitamins every day, some of these negative effects may be counteracted.
Women in particular have special vitamin needs related both to osteoporosis and pregnancy issues. Although men can also have osteoporosis, it tends to attack women more and cause them greater suffering. By supplementing with calcium on a daily basis, much of the risk for osteoporosis can be offset. For women who are pregnant or considering having children, folic acid is an essential supplement. This B vitamin can prevent birth defects such as Spina Bifida in newborn babies.
Men, too, have issues that can be fought through proper vitamin intake. Cardiovascular problems are thought to be reduced by taking vitamin E supplements. They are believed to play an important role in keeping the blood pressure and cholesterol levels low in most males aged forty and over. Keeping the arteries clean is an important factor in preventing heart attacks and vitamin E has been shown in research studies to accomplish this task.
Dieters have special supplementation needs of their own. Many young girls diet on a regular basis and consume far too few calories to accommodate their vitamin needs. While the wisdom of going on particular weight loss diets is a topic for another discussion, anyone on such a diet should look to vitamin supplements to avoid malnutrition and other maladies. Inadequate nutrition can cause a person to be vulnerable to various ailments and a weakened immune system.
Another great reason to consider vitamin supplementation is the potential cancer prevention some vitamins are believed to provide. Research has suggested that vitamin E and vitamin A prevent skin cancer. Many studies in recent years have found that taking certain vitamins may similarly prevent other types of cancers.
While there is never a fail proof plan when it comes to vitamin supplements, the evidence does suggest that risk may be reduced and conditions may be improved through supplementation. Due to all of the possible benefits, supplementation is definitely worth considering.
Posted by personalhealthnews at 08:57 AM | Comments (0)
May 25, 2006
Vitamins
Why bother taking vitamins at all? Our forefathers survived just fine without multi vitamin packs, why can't we? The answer to that question is easy, go look in your cupboards. Our forefathers ate a lot better than we do. High processed, homogenized, pasteurized, canned and prepackaged fast food means less chance of natural occurring vitamins surviving for any length of time.
While some of us pick our own fruit and grow our own vegetables, most of the country chooses to rely on packaged, store bought fruits and veggies. These aren't as healthy as they look, either. The longer the apples and tomatoes are off the vine, the faster they begin to lose their nutritional value, losing vitamins during processing and shipping.
Your body needs vitamins to boost your immune system, ward off colds and other viruses, and even keep you even tempered, so to speak. Did you know with a vitamin deficiency that you are less likely to clot when you cut yourself? Vitamins play a much bigger part then we think, and the average diet does not include all the vitamins necessary to keep the body in top shape.
A good multi-vitamin is your best choice, but here again you can be misled into believing that 100% of the USDA recommended dosage is good enough. They mean 100% total, not 100% of each vitamin necessary. Think about it, they can't possibly pack the right amount of every kind of vitamin that you need into one pill a day, and most multi vitamins sold in your local grocery store are cut with fillers and preservatives.
Nope, you'll have to visit your local food co op and get some natural, all inclusive vitamin supplements. Along with eating well, these supplements contain everything you need for balanced vitamin intake, with none of the fillers and preservatives that I, for one, resent paying for.
So let's talk B vitamins as an example. You need several different kinds of B vitamins alone. B6 and B12 are just two, but the most commonly talked about. Vitamin B6 promotes the development of red blood cells, and 12 helps promote energy and fights Alzheimer's disease. You need these and other vitamins to be in the purest form possible in order to be the most beneficial.
Let's skip back for a moment, the history of vitamins, if you will. Vitamins began being "discovered" by scientists and surgeons around 1914, and the word "vitamin " comes from the word "vital" as in vital energy for life, but as far back as the 1600's sailors knew to eat citrus fruits to prevent scurvy. It wasn't until later that they knew it as vitamin C.
Now we will skip forward to the future. Many vitamins are now available as liquids. Remember cod liver oil? Well now most vitamins can be taken from a spoon rather than choked down (although if you were one of the kids forced to down cod liver oil, you were choking anyway), what's more, they taste good now as well.
Now before you get all excited and run out to stock up on each vitamin that you are deficient in, let me remind you that you can, in fact, 'overdose' on vitamins, kind of. The water soluble vitamins such as B's and C's will simply be expressed through your urine if you've taken in more than your body needs, but fat soluble vitamins such as D and E can accumulate and cause problems such as diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and rash.
I recommend contacting a homeopath to test for vitamin deficiencies before you run out and spend a lot on vitamins. Knowing exactly what you need the most and in what daily dosage will save you some money, because again, you really need to purchase each vitamin separately, rather than in a multi-vitamin pill.
Posted by personalhealthnews at 09:27 AM | Comments (0)
May 22, 2006
Vitamins: To Be or Not to Be?
Nutrition as it applies to our daily lives means that we take in what we need to maintain our body’s healthy state. Nutrition has become an important word thanks to the involvement of the USDA in our daily food requirements, and the FDA’s involvement in determining what is and is not dangerous for us to consume.
But what is our responsibility in the nutrition game? Do we understand what our nutritional requirements are, how to fulfill those requirements, and how to look for real nutritional value in our foods? I’m not sure that nutrition has been successfully addressed in its own right. We hear nutrition in relation to our vitamin intake, our fortified cereals and milk, and in the context that we need “nutritional value” from our food choices. But we don’t often stop to think, what do we really need in nutritional supplements?
Vitamins and minerals are more readily available to us than ever before, and we’re still no better equipped to actually determine what we need to take, than we were forty years ago. Just because we see the latest advertisement about a particular vitamin and decide the symptoms of deficiency apply to us, does not mean we need to rush out and purchase the product. The symptoms of deficiency for lots of vitamins and minerals are the same or overlapping. What we need is a way to detect, on an individual basis, what our body’s lack, and then plan a suggested nutritional solution.
The complete lack of unity between our medical field and the herbal field, (this is the field that vitamins and minerals belong to) is a disgrace in a country so forward thinking as the United States. But it is also where we fall short in providing our citizenry with the tools they need to make better, informed decisions. The medical field has long resented any contact that patients might make with herbalists, vitamins and minerals, or any other proposed health aid, that wasn’t directly related to medicine.
Thanks to this prevalent attitude among most all doctors, we have missed great opportunities to advance a generation’s health. If you were to take a cross section of the population, and check for adequate levels of the most used and fortified vitamins and minerals, you would probably find the as high as 80% or the population is lacking in a least one of the vitamins and minerals. Now, that doesn’t sound too bad, until you stop to think, what if it’s calcium? A calcium deficiency brings on osteoporosis, a deteriorating of the bone. This disease alone costs millions in medical expense to the population.
Can you see how a little more cooperation and open-minded participation on the part of our medical field could result in far fewer health problems? It would also have provided the general population with a viable way to discern their vitamin and mineral needs, accurately. Blood tests, urine tests, and other simple office procedures would provide the vast majority of the information needed for us to arm ourselves, and head off to the health store. Preventive medicine comes in all shapes, forms, and tablets!
Posted by personalhealthnews at 03:20 PM | Comments (0)
