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Multivitamin Importance

Vitamins are nutrients required for essential metabolic functions in the body. Scientist Kazimierz Funk was the one in the early 1900's to define vitamins as "nutritional factors whose dietary deficiency causes pathological conditions". Multivitamins facilitate chemical reactions in mammals without being altered itself. In essence, multivitamin catalysts function like knitting needles, turning wool into a sweater, while not undergoing any change themselves.

Although multivitamins contain no calories, they are essential for normal growth and development. Using the genetic blueprint inherited from its parents, a child's body begins to build itself from the "nutrients" it absorbs beginning at the moment of conception. Once out of the womb, the child continues on with this incredibly complex set of growth tasks using the building blocks it gets by eating and drinking. There is no other source for the raw nutrients and energy needed to build an adult human. We are literally made out of what we have ingested throughout our lives.

Once growth and development are completed, adults remain dependent upon multi-vitamins to maintain good health. They are necessary to maintain proper functioning of the nervous system, they enable the body to use the calories provided by the food that we eat and to help process proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Vitamins are also involved in building cells, tissues, and organs - vitamin C, for example, helps produce healthy skin.

Do I need multivitamins?

Until the 1900s vitamins were obtained through food intake alone. Many foods contain different ratios of vitamins. Therefore, if the only source of a person's vitamins is food, a seasonal, yearly or even daily change in diet also alters the ratio of bodily available vitamins. Many vitamins can be stored by the body over a range of dosages and short term deficiencies (e.g. during a particular food growing season), does not always result in illness.

However recently, issues with the purity of food sources and the quality of food sources have raised concern over the need to take a daily multi-vitamin to maintain optimal health levels and to produce anti-aging affects. As our populations continues to receive better medical care and nutrition, it continues to live longer, creating a need to ingest a more consistent level of nutrition.

As mentioned above, for the most part we rely on food or multivitamin supplementation to meet our vitamin needs. However, there are a few vitamins that we obtain by other means: for example, microorganisms in the intestine - commonly known as "gut flora" - produce vitamin K and biotin, while one form of vitamin D is synthesized in the skin with the help of natural ultraviolet sunlight. Concerns over the growing problem with Vitamin D deficiency can be addressed by natural means.

Which multivitamin is right for me?

Supplementing your food intake daily with a good multivitamin is the foundation of health and nutrition.

If you are looking for a high quality multi-vitamin, we suggest that you take a look at our best multivitamin brands for natural ingredients, purity, quality and overall value:

Natrol   Schiff Bio Foods  Twinlabs  All One Brand