Is it essential to take a multivitamin and what is the best multivitamin for men and women?
We look at whether it is essential to take a multivitamin and show an example of one of the best multivitamins for men called Alpha Men from Myprotein plus some good multivitamins for women too
Is it essential to take a multivitamin?
I am assuming you have landed on this page because you are asking yourself, 'Is it essential to take a multivitamin'? 'Why should I take a multivitamin'? 'What is the best multivitamin for men'? Or 'What is the best multivitamin for women'? Hopefully I will have answered these questions for you based on our experience and recommendations in this article.
Although most people would benefit, both short term and long term, by taking a good multivitamin, there are some people who need it more than others. Everyone is different and everyone has different nutritional requirements depending on personal circumstances and lifestage. Young children and pregnant women who are breastfeeding, for example, have higher nutritional needs at that stage of their lives. If you are immobile, housebound or elderly, it is more important to ensure you have a nutritional balance in your diet. For vegans and some vegetarians, it is not straightforward to receive the vitamins and minerals needed to maintain a healthy immune system through food.
If you're a smoker, you also need to ensure you consume plenty of vitamins and minerals because they act as antioxidants. Studies have shown that every cigarette smoked destroys some vitamin C and as a result smokers require double the amount of vitamin C as non smokers. It is therefore essential that you get plenty of vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium and zinc into your diet which may not always be possible to achieve through foodstuffs.
If you're chronically ill or have an immune deficiency, it is also important that you have the nutrients to heal quickly. If you're trying to lose weight, more often than not you will be on a restrictive diet which can again lead to a risk of nutrition deficiency, especially if you're looking to take drastic steps to get slimmer.
Do you need to take a multivitamin to be healthy?
If you do physical exercise (which I'm sure most of you reading this will do), you will need to ensure you are consuming plenty of vitamins because physical exercise can compromise your immune system and leave you more susceptible to illness or injury. You may have noticed if you've been to the gym 3-4 days in a row that by the 4th day you're feeling weak and suffering from the continued intensity of your workouts. Multivitamins will help you maintain a peak level to avoid becoming rundown and fatigued.
If you are looking to lose weight, adding a good multivitamin supplement to your diet won't help you achieve this alone but it can help you maintain a good nutritional balance. If could even help you shift a few lbs as you'll benefit from an improved metabolism.
Powerful antioxidants in multivitamins such as Grape Seed Extract, Alpha Lipoic Acid, Citrus Bioflavonoids and Beta Carotene work to remove toxins and free radicals produced from exercise and a busy lifestyle whilst other properties found in multivitamins promote a healthy circulatory system, cell growth and can also enhance energy levels. All of these are found in Myprotein's Alpha Men multivitamin.
Side effects of taking multivitamins
In the last section describing the benefits of multivitamins, I've touched upon a few of the positive side effects such as the potential to increase energy levels. Generally, there are no known negative side effects. The high quality multivitamins, such as Troo Healthcare 'Troo Vit Supreme', contain foods selected for their vitamin content to create an organic multivitamin in food form. This is as safe as it gets in terms of side effect risk. Being food form means it is absorbed better than manufactured synthetic vitamins because our bodies have evolved to absorb nutrients from plants, vegetables and animals/meats. Our body recognises these and so retains more of the nutrients than it would from chemically manufactured supplements.
If you're not getting enough nutrition in your diet, I would expect you to have more energy after using multivitamins but this is not always easy to quantify as it will differ from person to person. However, for whatever reason, most of us don't get the nutrition we need in our daily diets and as a result we should be taking multivitamins both as a more cost effective measure to stocking up on individual tubs of vitamins but also to ensure we receive the nutrients needed to maintain a healthy immune system which has benefits for both our physical and mental wellbeing.
Taking multivitamins will ensure you're ill less often and, when you are ill, they will help you to recover faster. Nutrition is especially important in the winter months when you're more susceptible of getting ill whilst studies have also shown that a highly nutritious diet will help prevent chronic illness such as hearing problems and cancer.