Vitamin and mineral Supplements
Do we need to take vitamin and mineral supplements? Well the answer is sometimes yes, we do need to take them at times .Though they can never be substitutes for natural fruits and vegetables and regular diets as they can’t replicate their nutrition and benefits but they can be add-ons for your diet giving you those nutrients that you sometimes fall short of.
Who needs Dietary Supplements?
- Don’t Eat Enough: Most people don’t acquire all the vitamins and minerals that their body needs from their regular diet simply because they don’t eat enough or don’t eat a variety of foods or they could be on a restricted diet. This is when dietary supplements come to the rescue. Pregnant women and older men and women have varied nutrient needs require essential vitamin and mineral supplements. Also sports professionals sometimes bank on dietary supplements.
- Vegetarian Diets: You may not be getting the required amounts of nutrients like calcium, zinc, iron, B-12 and D Vitamins as you only eat a vegetarian diet. Though vegetarian foods like soy products, legumes, whole grains and nuts are a rich source of these nutrients, u may have been skipping them from your diet for some reason and this is when you’d need to add in dietary supplements.
- Medical Conditions: You may be allergic and intolerant to certain foods like milk and milk products or if there has been a surgical treatment, you might have trouble absorbing certain foods, you could compensate by taking recommended vitamin and mineral supplements. Post menopause, women lose their estrogen levels which causes bone loss. To maintain healthy bones and lessen bone loss, Calcium is needed. When they don’t eat foods rich in calcium they can take Calcium supplements. For women with heavy menstrual bleeding, an iron supplement is suggested to restore the lost amounts of iron which could otherwise lead to anemia.
- Smoking and Alcohol: Smoking and alcohol reduce the absorption of many essential vitamins and minerals like Vitamin C, Calcium, Magnesium, folate, Iron Vitamin B, Zinc, you need dietary supplements to make for the loss. It’s however advised to lessen or better still completely put an end to unhealthy lifestyles.
If your diet includes a wide range of fruits, vegetables, dietary fiber, legumes and lean meats, you could do without these vitamin and mineral supplements .Nevertheless if you want to make sure that your body gets its due amount of nutrients, you could go in for add on dietary supplements.
Keep these in mind before getting them -
- Check Labels: Read labels carefully, look out nutrients per serving.
- Expiration Dates: Don’t buy supplements which are over the expiration dates and dispose those that you have once they are overtime as they lose their effect.
- 'USP' on the label: Look out for supplements that meet standards for purity, strength and dissolution recognized by the testing organization U.S Pharmacopeia (USP)
- Genuine Products: Watch out for synthetic vitamins, added herbs and enzymes, these could sometimes lead to negative reactions like allergies.