If you eat a well-balanced diet, is there really a need for a multivitamin and mineral supplement?
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Although a healthy diet is better for you than a handful of vitamin pills, there are a few reasons why a daily multivitamin and mineral supplement is a wise idea.
Despite all the information we have on the benefits of eating healthy, many of us still find it challenging to eat healthy day after day.
Lifestyles today are hectic. And, healthy eating involves getting organized and planning ahead so that when your life does get a little crazy (and it always does), you’ll be less likely to settle for that fast food drive-thru.
Consider the following questions:
• Do you work against deadlines at work?
• Do you travel regularly for business?
• Do you run around chauffeuring kids to an endless string of extracurricular activities?
• Does emotional stress temporarily put a halt to your healthy eating?
• Are you over 50 years old?
• Are you a frequent dieter?
If you answered, ‘yes’ to any of those questions, you might want to consider taking a multivitamin and mineral supplement (because we can all use a little nutritional assurance). And, that is exactly how a supplement should be regarded – a means of supplementing the diet. A multivitamin and mineral supplement should not be viewed as a ticket out of eating healthy foods.
The bottom line here is that even despite your best intentions, it can be extremely challenging to consume the daily recommended intakes of some vitamins and minerals.
As we age, we also absorb certain nutrients, vitamin B12 for example, less efficiently. If you seem to always be on a diet, your food choices and variety of foods may be limited. A multivitamin and mineral pill would supplement both these diets well.
For those of you feel pretty confident about the health of your diet, consider this: certain vitamins taken in amounts greater than the official recommended daily allowances may lower risks of cancer, heart disease and many other age-related illnesses.
Make no mistake, a multivitamin and mineral pill (and any supplement for that matter) is meant to support and reinforce a healthy diet, not replace it.
For more advice on supplementing safely, talk to your doctor or pharmacist.
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