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Why One-A-Day Vitamins are Not The Healthy Way To go
If you’re currently taking or considering taking a multivitamin with a recommended serving size of only one pill a day, you’re pretty much wasting your time.
Why?
It’s very doubtful can pack enough vitamins and minerals to truly make any real difference in complementing your healthy diet.
Producers of multivitamins have come up with some pretty amazing ways to compress ingredients, but not to this extreme… not down to where a single tablet provides you the vitamin and mineral levels you need on a daily basis.
And speaking of minerals, many producers of one-per-day vitamins don’t even bother including essential minerals like potassium or magnesium in adequate enough amounts to really make a difference.
What about other nutrients from sources like vegetables, fruits and herbs? Shouldn’t they be blended into your multi as well? I certainly think so.
But it’s also vitally important to know when to take your multivitamin. To maximize your multivitamin’s benefits, you should take a few tablets first thing in the morning and with lunch, or with an early dinner to help optimize your nutrient absorption.
Before we jump further into all the nutrients I believe should go into a multi, let’s first take a closer look at why all multivitamins are not created equal.
Some may in fact have little impact on your health. So remember, you must be very cautious when choosing a product to ensure that your multivitamin really benefits you.
Why You Should Avoid Synthetic Forms of Certain Vitamins Like the Plague…
In my opinion, if you shop for your supplements at discount stores, you may be seriously shortchanging yourself because many of those products typically use cheap synthetic isolate forms for certain important vitamins.
Instead of seeking a good multivitamin, millions of people take certain forms of vitamins, which may do less to support their optimal health.
You see, certain synthetic forms of vitamins are partial vitamins, combined with other chemicals. They’re completely different than vitamins from whole, real food.
When you remove a part from the whole, you get “synthetic,” “isolated” or “fractionated” pieces of the whole, but it’s simply not the same.
Here are four major problems with these kinds of vitamins…
Nature intended for you to consume food in WHOLE form because all the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and enzymes are together in one package. They work synergistically to give your body the nutrition it requires for optimal health.
Your body only absorbs a percentage of some forms of vitamins and minerals – and it utilizes even less. You get the best bioavailability in combination whole food form.
Certain synthetic vitamins often give you massive quantities of some nutrients (usually the most inexpensive ones) and insufficient quantities of others.
You may experience side effects of certain synthetic vitamins because the form of the vitamin is not the natural form.
You’ve heard me say it before… Fast food and a sedentary lifestyle can be a disaster for your health. Don’t let your multivitamin add to the collateral damage.
In fact, you want to be sure your multivitamin benefits you and offers a real and significant contribution to your health, especially if you’ve already adopted healthy lifestyle practices.
Many people who suffer from allergies can not take some vitamins and minerals, and then they can not take some brands. Especially children!
Who Doesn’t Want to Feel Great All the Time?
One thing you can do to optimize your health and feel great is to maximize your immune system’s capabilities.
Because face it – everybody wants to feel good all the time, don’t they?
Now is the time to start moving toward a healthier diet and lifestyle. Start today, by adding just one raw vegetable per day to your diet… a small, doable step toward your better health.
Why make these changes today?
Because, ideally, it is best to receive all your nutrition from high-quality unprocessed foods. In fact, before focusing on finding a good multivitamin, I highly recommend first evaluating your diet and your lifestyle.
If you are eating a wholesome diet composed of raw fruits and vegetables, grass-fed meats and raw dairy from reliable sources, then you may have less need for a multivitamin.
Unfortunately, if you’re like most people, you may find it impractical or impossible to eat right all the time.
Therefore, even when you take the steps of adding raw veggies to your diet, getting some exercise and obtaining vitamin D from sunshine, you still might want to supplement with a high-quality multivitamin every day – just to be sure you’re getting well-balanced and optimal nutrition.
Plus, even if you do well with your diet choices, there is another important factor that involves the actual food supply itself…
Up to 50% of the Nutrient Value of Your Food May Be Lost From the Start
A number of carefully controlled studies have provided startling evidence that by the time food reaches your table, serious nutrient content could already be lost.
Some estimates report the nutrient value lost at over 50%!
This is largely the result of conventional farming methods that rely heavily on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which deplete the soil of nutrients… nutrients that must be absorbed by plants in order to be passed on to you.
And it does not necessarily end there.
In many cases, it’s likely you unknowingly further deplete the nutrients in your food – just by the way you prepare it. For many foods, cooking will seriously impair the nutritional value.
So, realizing that you cannot always obtain the whole unprocessed foods you need – and knowing how easy it is for valuable nutrients to be destroyed – you now know why I believe adding a good multivitamin to complement your diet is a sound move.
What Can a High-Quality Multivitamin Do for You?
While I cannot endorse taking a supplement in place of living a healthy lifestyle, it is true that a good multivitamin benefits your optimal health.
A high-quality multivitamin helps promote your strong immune system, building up your body’s defenses.*
If you need help if adding the correct vitamins and minerals to your personal healthcare plan, contact us and we will be happy to go over this with you.
Health and Wellness Associates
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Dr Gemma Carney FACP
312-972-WELL
Health and Wellness Associates 