It’s a known fact that vitamins are essential to good health. In a perfect world we would obtain all the necessary vitamins directly from the food we eat on a daily basis. However, since this isn’t reality for many of us, there are some convincing reasons to consider taking vitamin supplements.

On the whole, we are not very responsible when it comes to healthy habits. Today’s fast paced lifestyles and the corresponding fast foods don’t supply all the necessary vitamins and minerals your body needs for good health and nutrition. Instead, the typical unhealthy diet is more likely to provide you with large amounts of only a few essential vitamins, and little or none of others. Taking a daily multivitamin by a reputable manufacturer helps even out the nutritional deficits in your diet.

“But that’s not me,” you might protest. “I eat lots of fruits, vegetables and whole grains.” You may consider that your diet is healthy, but the food you eat is only as good as the soil in which it is grown. Many farmers will agree that their soil is worn out. Why else do they have to add chemical fertilizers at ever increasing rates? If the soil were farmed organically, instead of with an eye to profit, it would be in much better health and so would we.

Another point to consider is the freshness (or otherwise) of the products we buy. Most vegetables are at least a week old by the time they get to our homes. Although many are kept in cold storage, the length of time they spend there causes their nutritional value to greatly decrease. Fruit is often picked before ripe and put into cold storage for weeks or months, then when it is needed, hit with a gas to make it ripen quickly. This gas is supposed to be safe in small amounts, but it is known to be carcinogenic.

Certain Circumstances Cry Out for Vitamin Supplements

There are some who claim that dietary supplements do nothing but give us expensive urine. That may be true if you have a super healthy diet and are therefore less likely to be lacking in vitamins, but health care professionals are increasingly advising extra supplements for those under stressful situations such as illness, pregnancy, or periods of sudden growth spurts.

Dieters have special supplementation needs of their own. Many of us go on a diet on a regular basis and consume far too few calories to accommodate our vitamin needs. While the wisdom of going on certain weight loss diets is a topic for another discussion, anyone on such a diet should look to vitamin supplements to avoid malnutrition and other maladies. Inadequate nutrition and vitamin supplementation can cause you to be vulnerable to various ailments and a weakened immune system.

Another great reason to consider vitamin supplementation is the potential cancer prevention some vitamins are believed to provide. Research has suggested that vitamin E and vitamin A prevent skin cancer. Many studies in recent years have found that other types of cancers can be similarly prevented by taking certain vitamins.

So How Will a Multivitamin Help?

A multivitamin is a nutritional supplement containing many different types of vitamins, as the name suggests. However, many brands of multivitamins also contain minerals, trace elements, and other nutrients. Multivitamins are convenient because it isn’t necessary to take dozens of individual vitamin pills each day. Instead, these all-in-one vitamin pills contain many vitamins in controlled dosages.

The controlled dosage of each individual vitamin in the pill provides for your protection. Dosages are usually measured and presented in a percentage of the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA), in micrograms (mcg), or sometimes in International Units (IU). Most vitamins in the tablet are represented at the 100% RDA dosage, meaning that the capsule contains all of that particular nutrient you would need for a day. For nutrients listed in the ingredients as less than 100% of the RDA, the vitamin manufacturer expects you to get the remainder of those vitamins from your daily diet.

Don’t be alarmed if the combination of your daily diet and your daily vitamin provides you with more than 100% of the recommended daily allowance of one or more nutrients. First of all, different people have different nutritional requirements, and may need more of that particular supplement. Secondly, the extra amounts of the nutrients you consume are not likely to be large, and the unused part will normally be flushed out of your system with other bodily wastes. Be aware, however, that deliberately taking mega-doses of certain vitamins can be unhealthy. Almost any material can be toxic to the body if taken in excessive doses!

Remember to take your multivitamin tablet on a daily basis. Taking a pill once a week, or once every two to three days, will be helpful. However, most nutritional supplements containing Vitamins C, D, E, B6, B12, Niacin, Thiamin, and the other recommended nutrients provide the most health benefits when taken daily. If you forget to take your daily pill, don’t take two the next day. Instead, simply take your next scheduled single pill.

Multivitamin pills are not a replacement for a healthy diet. But taking multivitamins on a daily basis can supplement your diet and improve your overall health.