Taking supplements can be a great way to ensure that you are getting all the nutrients you need to live a healthy lifestyle. They can come in liquid, powder, pill, and capsule forms, and offer nutrients that have been extracted from food sources or synthesized.
Multivitamins
Among the many benefits of a multivitamin is that it can help prevent disease. In fact, some studies have shown that a multivitamin can help reduce the risk of premature death. However, the effectiveness of multivitamins is uncertain.
While a multivitamin may be helpful, a balanced diet with plenty of fruits and vegetables is always the best prescription for nutrients. In fact, researchers have determined that a multivitamin is not always needed. In fact, a balanced diet with plenty of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains may be all that is needed to keep your body healthy.
Some supplements also contain other nutritional elements, such as calcium and zinc. These can help your body absorb vitamins and minerals more effectively. However, they may also cause side effects. Some of these side effects include increased urination, a decreased appetite, and tooth staining.
However, a multivitamin’s main purpose is to provide vitamins and minerals that your body can’t get from food. For example, a multivitamin may contain iron, zinc, or iodine. These vitamins and minerals are important for a healthy immune system and for building bones. However, they can also be toxic in large doses.
While a multivitamin may provide the health benefits of multiple vitamins and minerals, they may also contain a few ingredients that aren’t helpful or even safe. For example, multivitamins may contain iron, which can cause fatal overdoses in children. It can also be difficult to absorb calcium, which may interfere with the absorption of vitamins and minerals.
Another notable multi-vitamin feature is that it may interact with over-the-counter drugs and prescription medicines. However, your doctor should be aware of any possible interactions. Some of the drugs that may interact with a multivitamin include meloxicam, NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), and prescription drugs such as ibuprofen.
A multi-vitamin may also be useful for pregnant women, who have different nutritional needs than other adults. Prenatal vitamins come in different forms and can be customized to meet a woman’s specific nutritional requirements.
Minerals
Among the many factors that affect how well a mineral is absorbed into the body is the chemical form of the mineral. The chemical form can be either mineral salts or other substances. Generally, mineral salts are chemicals that are chemically bound to other substances. Mineral salts that are not chemically bound do not absorb into the body the same way that minerals found in foods do.
Chemical alteration of minerals is a process that occurs when a mineral is processed with acids. The result of this alteration is a mineral salt that is not the same as the mineral that would have been found in nature.
For example, zinc sulfate is a rock that has been chemically altered with sulfuric acid. Zinc sulfate is used in wood preservation and calico-printing.
Another example is chelates, which are mineral salts that have been chemically attached to peptides. Mineral chelates have been found to be significantly more bioavailable than mineral salts. This is due to the fact that the chelated minerals are more complete than mineral salts. However, the chelates do not contain the protein chaperones that are found in foods.
Another example is minerals bound to substances like carbonates and oxides. These minerals are not found in foods and are not natural for humans to ingest. Rather, they are found in supplements. These substances include phosphates, gluconates, and picolinates.
Although mineral salts can be considered a natural food for humans, they can also be harmful. They can cause a disorder called ‘geophagia’. Other minerals, such as manganese, are less likely to cause diarrhoea.
Some minerals can also be unabsorbable. For example, iron and zinc can combine with other dietary factors to create an unabsorbable compound.
The benchmark dose approach is a risk assessment method that constructs a probability basis for evaluating the safety of a substance. It identifies the intake that produces adverse effects in ten percent of the population. This approach is often used in pesticide safety studies.
