Why Are Vitamins Important for Overall Health?
Living a healthy lifestyle means staying in tune with your body and listening to what it tells you. When it comes to nutrition, you do your best to get all the right nutrients to stay energized and nourished. Vitamins and supplements are there to complement the nutrients you get from food and bring you one step closer to your health and wellness goals.[1]
The Top 3 Reasons to Take Vitamins
Keep Our Bodies in Good Working Order
Vitamins work hard to keep our bodies functioning properly and they help drive essential processes needed in our everyday lives. Each nutrient is on a mission to deliver health benefits that help you reach your wellness goals.
Healthy Aging
Our cells experience wear and tear as time passes, but proper nutrition can slow down this process. Vitamins, like antioxidants, function to protect cells from environmental stressors, helping to support healthy aging.
Cover Your Nutritional Bases
We do our best to eat healthy, but some nutrients are hard to get from food alone. A multivitamin can ensure you meet your regular daily requirements for all the essential vitamins and minerals.
What Can Vitamins Do for You?
Support Immunity
Good nutrition makes for a durable immune system. Your immune system relies on what you put into your body, and certain nutrients are known for their immune-supporting benefits.
Vitamin C is considered one of the biggest immune supporters. It's an antioxidant that protects your cells from damage caused by oxidative stress from free radicals, which are unstable molecules. Zinc is also critical for immune cell development and communication and studies indicate that it may promote immune health.[2]
Support a Healthy Metabolism
B-complex vitamins, like thiamin, riboflavin, folate, biotin, and vitamins B6 and B12 collaborate with other enzymes in your body to metabolize energy from protein, fats, and carbohydrates. Staying physically active and eating a healthy diet also help to maintain a healthy metabolism—factors that are important for healthy aging and your overall health.[3]
Maintain Strong Bones
You probably already know that calcium is critical for healthy bones. But did you know that calcium needs vitamin D to successfully fulfill its job of helping to build healthy bones?
The skin produces vitamin D following direct exposure to sunlight, but the necessary use of sunscreen, weak winter sunlight, and poor skin absorption all work against production of this vital nutrient. And though vitamin D is added to milk, many people don't drink enough dairy products to benefit.[4]
Meeting Your Nutritional Needs
Committing to a new eating habit or lifestyle can feel rewarding, but you may unintentionally eliminate essential vitamins and minerals.Multivitamin supplements can cover these common nutritional needs. Read on to see which nutrients get weeded out of some of the most popular diets.
Paleo
While the Paleolithic (Paleo) diet eliminates a lot of refined and processed foods—leading culprits of poor health in Western diets—the exclusion of whole grains and dairy may result in shortfalls of calcium, vitamin D, and B vitamins. Multivitamins with high levels of these nutrients can help you maintain healthy bones and assist in metabolizing all of that protein.[5]
Keto
The keto (ketogenic) diet is popular thanks to its high protein, high fat, and minimal carbohydrate strategy that helps with weight loss. But due to the carbohydrate restrictions, keto eliminates a lot of fruit from your diet, so it's common to have inadequate intakes of vitamin C and potassium. Also, its reduction of grains means you miss out on fortified products that contain thiamin, folate, and magnesium.[6]
Vegetarian
While there are lots of great vegetarian options, you can still miss some of the nutrients commonly found in meat and poultry, like vitamin B12 and iron. And if you're eliminating fish, your diet could be short on omega-3 fatty acids.[7]
Vegan
More people are choosing to eliminate animal products from their diets altogether. While plant-based diets are rich in fruits and vegetables, they remove some of the best sources of iron and vitamin B12. Plus, without dairy, there are fewer available sources of calcium and vitamin D. Similarly, cutting out fish and eggs can restrict your intake of omega-3 fatty acids.[8]
Nutrients Hard to Obtain From Food Alone
No matter your dietary choices, some nutrients can be a challenge to get daily from food alone. Supplements are a great option to ensure you’re always responding to your body’s needs regardless of your daily food choices.
What might it look like if we followed our recommended daily allowances (RDA) for some of these nutrients?
10 mg of Zinc
=
2 Oysters
15 mcg of Vitamin D
=
¼ Can of Pink Salmon
400 mg of Magnesium
=
1 Cup of Almonds
120 mcg of Vitamin K
=
3 Leaves of Spinach
55 mcg of Selenium
=
½ Fillet of Halibut
1.3 mg of Vitamin B6
=
1 Cup of Chickpeas
2.4 mcg of Vitamin B12[9]
=
1.5 Cups of Non-fat Greek Yogurt
*This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
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*This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
^Adequate Intake (AI)
~Dietary folate equivalents
