A good diet and exercise does wonders for your health, but there is always more you can do to improve your health and better your overall well being. Daily supplementation of beneficial vitamins and minerals has been scientifically proven to improve health and reduce the risk and development of chronic disease.
While there’s nothing better than the real thing, sometimes getting the recommended doses of vitamins in your diet can be a struggle. Inadequate vitamin intake can be associated with fatigue, poor immune resistance, difficulty coping with stress and frequent sickness.
Research over the past few decades has shown that modern Western diets are generally low in essential vitamins and minerals – a concerning statistic. What’s more, the busy, fast-paced lives we tend to lead increase the requirements for many of these important vitamins and minerals, making it really important to ensure that we are getting the nutrients we need.
The benefits of taking a multivitamin are multiple. Taking one supplement a day has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease, protect against free radicals in the earth’s atmosphere (like pollution and toxins), reduce the risk of cancer, support healthy growth and development in all stages of life, boost health in those with allergies/those who don’t eat certain food groups and better women’s maternal health.
However, choosing the right supplement for you and your specific health concerns isn’t always straight forward, especially when you are faced with shelves upon shelves of supplements that offer you the best quality, most successful and proven formula.
So how do know what the best option is?
Firstly, look for a product that has a balance of both minerals AND vitamins and in ratios that correspond to the body’s needs. A good formula isn’t necessarily made up of constituent parts in equal amounts, rather, levels should be created to work together to support optimal well-being.
Secondly, each vitamin and mineral should be in a form that your body will be able to absorb and use. Warning bells should sound when you see inorganic minerals such as oxides, chlorides and sulphates. These are manufactured ingredients and are poorly absorbed the human body and can often lead to nasty side-effects. Instead, look for organic salts such as citrates and gluconates as well as amino acid chelates.
Finally, the old adage “you get what you pay for” really does ring true in this instance. Cheaper products tend to contain lower doses of beneficial parts, often ones that aren’t in the correct ratios or in the most absorbable forms.
At Walkerville Chiropractic we recommend and stock a premium quality multi vitamin specialised to males or females that meets all of the requirements one would expect from a good multi vitamin supplement.
