When and how to take your Vitamin and Mineral Supplements

Perhaps your doctor has recommended that you take a calcium supplement to forestall Osteoporosis or extra folate or folic acid either as a hedge against heart disease or to protect against birth defects or possibly you are in the habit of taking a daily multivitamin/mineral supplement to boost and bolster a diet that is sometimes not as nutritious as you would like it to be.

In any case, you may have wondered whether your body is really soaking up whatever nutrients are compressed into that little pill. Should you take it with food or before it or without it? Avoid certain beverages like Coffee? And if you are taking more than one kind of vitamin or mineral, do you swallow one tablet at a time or spread them throughout?

There is a lot of mythology about how to take Vitamin pills. To clear up the confusion, in this article we look at some of the relevant facts and considerations that has to be kept in mind when you are looking at getting the most from the Vitamins and Minerals that you consume. An important point to remember is that dietary supplements, even tablets have zero value when they don’t get into your blood stream and perform their function. For a fit and healthy body, combination of essential nutrients is very crucial. Nutrients are basically chemicals, required by an organism for its growth and sustenance.

So it is essential to know some basic facts such as what is the right dosage and also the right time to take it so that it works best for us. Taking some of the most widely used tablets, pills and supplements one at a time let us look at the pros and cons of each one of them as to how they should be taken and what are the effects they have on our system !

Multi Vitamins Pill

Taking multivitamins on a daily basis has become the done thing with many people since they tend to think that it takes care of any lack that may occur in our daily food intake. Many people have the habit of popping in more than one pill when they have to skip meals for some reason without actually analysing the effect it might have on their system. The general thinking is that since it is a nutrient it has to be good and beneficial for our system and can be taken whenever we feel like doing so.

According to health experts, the best thing to do is to take your daily multivitamin supplement with your meal either at lunch time or dinner. The main reason being, that a full stomach takes longer to empty, allowing more time for the muscles there to agitate and break down the tablet at the same time that they shred food. This lets the pill dissolve more thoroughly and, in turn, be absorbed more easily into the system later on. Having the food in the stomach may also help reduce the gastric irritation that some people experience when they take vitamin pills or capsules.

It is not necessary to spend a lot of money on a daily multivitamin. Any standard preparation is as good and as helpful. However, we have to make sure that the product has been lab tested to disintegrate and dissolve ( so that the ingredients can be properly absorbed ) and also that its potency and purity meet the established standards laid down by the health authorities. Most of the relevant information is printed on the label itself and you just have to go through the details so that you are absolutely certain about what is going into your body.

Other Single Vitamins or Minerals

Iron

Iron is an essential supplement especially for women and is often a concern for women of child bearing age, who may not get enough of it from food to make up for losses of iron rich blood during menstruation. According to physicians women who take iron supplements ( or even multivitamins or mineral pills that contain iron), should take them at meal time like multivitamins or ideally with a glass of fresh juice either fruit or a fruit and vegetable juice. Certain foods, including iron-rich meat, fish and poultry – and Vitamin C- rich juices, fruits and vegetables help the body to extract more iron from the supplements.

If you are a Tea or Coffee drinker, however, it is best to avoid those two beverages while taking an iron supplement or when you have eaten an iron-rich meal. Reason being that certain substances in coffee called polyphenols can inhibit absorption of iron from plant foods by as much as 40 per cent. Tannins, the polyphenols found in tea can inhibit the iron absorption up to 70 per cent. It is better to wait for at least an hour and a half before taking any beverages.

According to laboratory studies another potential iron blocker is the mineral calcium which has been shown to inhibit iron absorption. If you depend on a multivitamin supplement and also are planning to take an iron supplement you need to do so with caution since most multivitamins come with both iron and calcium. But at the same time the amount of calcium may not be enough to cause concern since most multivitamins have about 100 – 200 milligrams of calcium in them.

Combining Calcium and Iron is not an issue for most people. However, for those whose iron is on the low side might choose to play it safe by taking calcium supplements separately from their iron pills or taking calcium tablets at a relatively low-iron meal, like a meatless lunch.

Calcium

If Calcium is your priority, as it is for many people especially middle aged people who are trying to forestall brittle bones, the focus may change from getting enough iron to getting enough calcium. Calcium Carbonate, the most widely available form of calcium is absorbed more consistently with meals. But, the most important thing to remember, especially for those following a high dose calcium regimen is to divide the doses. Suppose for example if you are taking a 1000 to 1200 milligrams of calcium a day, you should ideally divide the doses in half and take one in the morning and one in the evening to get the best absorption. The body may not be able to absorb larger doses all at once.

According to studies a significant portion of the population which is about twenty per cent above the age of 55- 60 and forty per cent above the age of 70, cannot absorb some kinds of calcium supplements unless they take them at meal time. These people have a condition called atrophic gastritis, in which they don’t secrete enough stomach acid in between meals to break down calcium carbonate.

Most of us don’t know whether we have atrophic gastritis since it tends to go undiagnosed and undetected but for those above the age of 55, it is safer to assume that they do. Fortunately, there is a way out of it and the most obvious one is to take the calcium at meal times and the other option is to concentrate on preparations made with calcium citrate instead of calcium carbonates which gets absorbed faster, with or between meals.

Vitamin B

The B Vitamins namely thiamine, niacin, riboflavin, folate, and vitamins B6 and B12 are generally very easily absorbed. The exception, as with calcium is for people with atrophic gastritis as mentioned before, who cannot absorb enough vitamin B12 because they don’t have enough acid in their stomach to cleave the vitamin from the protein in food. Vitamin B-12 or Cobalamin, as it is termed by the nutritional experts is the largest and most complex vitamin currently known to man. Any slight deficiency of vitamin B-12 can lead to many negative health conditions such as anemia, fatigue and depression. And a prolonged or a long term deficiency can cause permanent damage to the brain cells and our central nervous system.

For that reason it is advisable for people over 50 to take a supplement of B12 or eat B12 fortified cereal, regardless of how much they get this nutrient from foods such as Fish ,Poultry, Eggs ,Cheese, milk or Yogurt which are all rich in B 12. The B 12 from supplements sources is easily absorbed whether or not the stomach acid is present.

Vitamins C and E

Although experts continue to debate about the different vitamins and whether doses beyond the RDA ( Recommended dietary allowance ) are truly beneficial, vitamins C and E are currently the two most popular vitamins known to almost every health conscious individual and also the most sold over the counter supplements. Vitamin E is an important antioxidant compound that neutralizes the harmful after effects of oxidation of food. Some of the natural foods that are rich in vitamin E are Almonds, Spinach, Broccoli, Avocados, Papayas, Olives and Raw seeds like pumpkin, sesame seeds etc.

The natural form of Vitamin E ( which is nothing but a different configuration of the same chemical compound) is more rapidly absorbed and more avidly maintained in tissue. So , for that reason you need to take more potent supplements to have the same effect as the natural form. Researchers are of the opinion that 1.36 IU (International unit) of the synthetic or the prepared supplement Vitamin E were equal to one unit of the natural form. But according to more recent studies about the subject, natural form of Vitamin E was found to be nearly twice as strong as the synthetic ones. There is little difference between the natural and synthetic forms of most vitamins. But with vitamin E, natural is better than the synthetic form.

The dose associated with Vitamin E’s potential benefits, which is protecting the heart disease and boosting the immune system, ranges from 100 – 400 units. Depending on how much different preparations cost, it may require you to do a bit of calculation and figure out whether you are better off getting the more expensive natural Vitamin E or just taking more of the less costly synthetic form.

Coming to Vitamin C, unlike vitamin E the natural and synthetic forms of the supplement are equally potent. So it really does not matter whether you get the vitamins from pills or natural foods. Good source of vitamin C are fresh fruits and vegetables especially citrus fruits. Vitamin C is known to help the heart and blood vessels. It is helpful in hardening of the arteries, preventing clots in veins and arteries, heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Vitamin C is applied on the skin to help with the damage caused by Radio therapy. Vitamin C is also known to improve physical endurance and slowing aging. It is also known to be one of the safest and most effective nutrients which has immense health benefits.

Phytochemicals meaning Plant Chemicals

Like vitamins and minerals , which also come from plants (as well as animal derived food) , phytochemicals are essential to good health. Bu so far it is still not clear as to how many and how much of them is needed. Apparently an amazing 4000 odd phytochemicals have been identified so far and many more are yet to be discovered. One of the large category of this nutrient is called polyphenols which include the much discussed flavonoids (They are most commonly known for their antioxidant activity ) . They keep our cell chemistry stable in various ways, that is they act as antioxidants by disposing off the cell damaging free radicals and also help in preventing cancer. While vitamins and mieral supplements make sense in some cases, phytochemical supplements do not.The best way of getting it is through natural food , mainly plant food.

Finally to conclude, you should take nutrients and supplements only when there is need to boost your immune system and also promote the process of healing. Most vegetables, fruits and grains support the immune system and one can get enough nutrients by eating a balanced diet. So, it is advisable to take any added or extra nutrients only when your doctor recommends it. Make sure to ask about the recommended the dosage and other essential details keeping in mind that large doses of supplements with zinc for example can depress the immune system when taken for a long period of time.

Most people in this world would give anything to know if there is a longevity diet and the secret to live a very long and healthy life. To search for clues a new study was conducted by some researchers on 22 centenarians to see what set them apart from younger people. The amazing finding and conclusion drawn was because the centenarians ate more than twice as many vegetables, Fruits and Yogurt . No doubt, that good genes also helped them stay healthy. But this study suggests just how powerful and helpful vegetables, fruits and yogurt (all of them natural foods ) really are in maintaining your body in top form.