By Dr. Megan Parker, ND
Health Columnist
When people think of taking a supplement to better their health, their first go-to is almost always a multivitamin and mineral supplement. It’s not uncommon to ask someone what supplements they are taking and the first on their list is a multi. Is it essential to our health that everyone takes a multi-vitamin? Can we not get all the nutrients we need from our diet?
Let’s look at the ingredients of a standard generic multivitamin and mineral supplement. There are numerous different brands on the market and they all have their own patented blend of vitamins and minerals, but most have roughly the same ingredients. We’ll focus on a few key ingredients in those supplements to give you an idea of how much you are actually getting. For the purpose of this article we will focus on Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Calcium, Magnesium and the B vitamins Niacin, Pyridoxine and Folic acid.
Let’s start with Vitamin A. The generic multivitamin contains 3500 IU (international unit, which is the unit used to measure a substance in pharmacology) per serving. If you were to consume one cup of carrots you would be getting over 21,000 IU of Vitamin A. I think that’s enough time devoted to Vitamin A!
Moving on to Vitamin C. The multivitamin contains 60 milligrams of Vitamin C per daily serving. One small green pepper contains 59 milligrams of Vitamin C. If you add in the 7.6 milligrams of Vitamin C found in that carrot, you’ve already consumed more today than you’ll be getting in your multivitamin.
The calcium content of most multivitamins is around 200 milligrams. Our carrot and green pepper already gave us a combined calcium intake of 49 milligrams. Say we decided to have a cup of yogurt for breakfast: we would be getting an additional 294 milligrams of calcium. Our bones are going to thank us for that!
Magnesium is another important mineral for our overall health and a daily multivitamin would give us 50 milligrams. Add up the magnesium we’ve already consumed today and you’re already sitting at 51.4 milligrams for the day so we’ve already got that covered with only three foods.
The group of vitamins known as the B vitamins are another essential component to optimal health. B vitamins are water-soluble, meaning that our bodies will absorb what it needs and the rest will be excreted in our urine. The body is unable to store them, so we need to get them on a daily basis. In the generic brand I chose for comparison purposes, here are the amounts of a few of the B vitamins: Niacin (B3) 20 milligrams, Pyridoxine (B6) two milligrams, and Folic Acid 400 micrograms. We get low amounts of B vitamins in a lot of different food groups including fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and animal products. Say in a day you ate one carrot, one green pepper, one cup of yogurt, three ounces of pork, one avocado and 100 grams of black beans. Add up the B vitamin content in those foods and you’ve surpassed the amount found in the multivitamin of all three: Niacin, Pyridoxine and Folic Acid. I don’t know about you, but that is definitely not enough food for me for an entire day!
For the average healthy adult, taking a multivitamin may not provide us with a lot of additional health benefits, but there are populations where taking a multivitamin is necessary. Babies and children under the age of five are undergoing rapid growth and require high levels of all vitamins and minerals. Giving your children a good quality multivitamin gives them a solid foundation for optimal nutrition; just try to choose one that doesn’t contain high levels of sugar. Multivitamins are also very important for pregnant or breastfeeding women, specifically a prenatal multivitamin. During this period the mother is supplying her baby with high levels of nutrients so it is important that mom has enough for both her and for her baby. A third demographic that can really benefit from taking a multivitamin are senior citizens. As we age, our bodies produce less and less stomach acid, so we are unable to absorb all of the nutrients from our food as we once used to. Because of this decreased absorption, seniors can see huge health improvements from something as simple as taking a multivitamin.
Next time you reach for that multivitamin you have stashed in the cupboard, ask yourself if you can get those nutrients from your food instead. Consuming whole foods gives us more health benefits that just the vitamin and mineral content including fiber, protein, antioxidants, and much more. No one wants to be taking handfuls of pills daily so choosing which supplements we take wisely can really limit that for us. Unless you are part of those three demographics listed above, consider ditching your multivitamin in exchange for whole foods and save your money for a supplement that may give you additional health benefits that your diet can not.
