Multivitamins can be excellent ways to prevent vitamin deficiencies in your day-to-day diet and improve your overall nutritional health. In addition, many people take advantage of multivitamins to help them better balance their hormones, make up for dietary and lifestyle-related dietary losses, and even simply improve their health.
However, when it comes to buying a multivitamin, there are many options available. Choosing a multivitamin and choosing the right multivitamin can primarily affect how your nutritional health is influenced and whether it does the most for you. Here are five things you may want to consider before buying a multivitamin.
Is it Safe and Good?
While there are several aspects to look for in a multivitamin, the first thing you should look for in a multivitamin is safe to take, certified, and has quality ingredients. Check that the multivitamin you are looking for has a USP verification, and ensure that it does not have dosages too high for safety.
Beyond simply the safety of a multivitamin, several factors can affect the health of the vitamin. First, you want to look for synthetic acids, sugars, and gelatins in multivitamins. These are not quality ingredients and have the potential to do nutritional harm.
Another thing to avoid is multivitamins with minerals such as calcium and iron. These can react within multivitamins and should be acquired through other means—whether through separate supplements or dietary structure.
Next, you want to look for multivitamins that have activated nutrients. These are more effective, more quickly absorbed, and better for you.
If you focus on these aspects and avoid additives, you will be in good shape for selecting your multivitamin.
Is it Tailored to You?
One of the best aspects of multivitamins is that they can be tailored to your specific needs based on your age, sex, current stage of life, lifestyle, or type of work. Finding a multivitamin with the right amounts of nutrients can help you select which one is right for you.
A great example of this is age. Those under 18, over 18, and over 50 have different daily nutritional needs. So if you are selecting a multivitamin with daily amounts for someone over 50, but you are in your 30s, you may risk taking too much of one thing, and too little of another.
A woman may need a postnatal multivitamin after birth, while a woman in menopause will need an entirely different set of nutrients. Even the type of work that you do has the potential to influence your needs in a multivitamin.
Finding a multivitamin tailored to your needs can help you best improve your nutritional health.
Daily Values
Checking the daily values of your multivitamin is an integral part of the selection. A multivitamin containing overly high amounts of daily values can be dangerous, especially when taken daily. Therefore, ensure to examine each vitamin’s daily value and research what level can cause blood toxicity.
An example of this would be a multivitamin that contains more than 2g of Vitamin C. The daily value needed for Vitamin C per day is between 75mg and 90mg. Taking 2g daily can cause nausea, diarrhea, and blood toxicity. Examine each of the contained vitamins and ensure that they are the right amounts for your age, sex, and individual needs.
Price
While price should not be the number one factor for multivitamin selection, it is one thing you should look out for. Some companies may try to upsell you due to brand names or claims. Check the ingredients and compare prices. Some services may offer monthly prescriptions at lower rates.
You may also want to examine how many capsules are included in your purchase and compare your price per unit.
Utilizing all of these factors can help you find the best deal for your price point.
Reviews
Lastly, check the reviews. Good customer experiences and doctor certifications are among the best ways to verify the quality of a multivitamin. Spend time examining others’ experiences with the multivitamins you are looking at, and take into account any specific individual experiences that have the potential to relate to your individual needs or characteristics.
If you take all of these things into account, do your research, and keep proper nutritional habits, a multivitamin may do wonders for your health, mental clarity, and hormone balance. But, of course, a multivitamin is not a cure-all but is a great way to ensure your body gets what it needs as you head into each day.
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