Choosing a multivitamin can be fraught with difficulties as many factors need to be considered, including age, gender and stage of life, affordability of supplements, lifestyle and likelihood to adhere to supplementation being just a few.
In most cases you should always aim to obtain adequate micro nutrient intakes using a ‘food-first’ approach via a broad intake of fruit, vegetables and nutrient-dense animal products (such as eggs and organ meats) and use supplementation as a back up to fill nutritional gaps and reduce the risk of deficiencies.
A multivitamin may help reduce their risk of developing nutritional deficiencies for many reasons, including:
Those with strict vegan diets
Those with food dislikes
Those with allergies or intolerances to some foods
Older adults
But not all multivitamin supplements are created equal and it is important to choose a supplement that contains sufficient doses of nutrients/ingredients. A good quality multivitamin should contain 100% of your RDI for vitamins A, B12, C, D, E and K and the minerals zinc, magnesium, folate and calcium. For all other vitamins/minerals, you should be meeting RDI or AI, where a recommended intake exists.
So you should check the quantities of each nutrient by looking at
the nutrition information panel. In comparing the nutrition information panels of multivitamin products, you can determine which product provides the highest amount of each nutrient and is therefore, the best value for money. It is important to remember that excessive intakes of
certain nutrients can cause toxicity, and more isn’t always better.
The quality of individual ingredients in various multivitamins differ between manufacturers. While some manufacturers formulate and test their products using high-quality ingredients, others opt for cheaper and poorer quality compounds. As such, the quality of ingredients can vary, and it is important for you to be aware of this and only recommend multivitamins that contain the best quality ingredients.
For example, magnesium glycinate and chloride are well absorbed by the gut, where magnesium oxide is not well absorbed, yet magnesium oxide is commonly used in multivitamins. This is because magnesium oxide is cheap to produce and shelf stable, making it better value for manufacturers.
For vitamin A, beta-carotene (the precursor to active vitamin A) is commonly used in multivitamins due to being cheap, however many individuals are poor converters of beta-carotene to the active form retinol, meaning that it is less useful as a supplement.
So to help you make better choices, the below table provides a good cheat sheet to take with you next time you are agonising over all those options in Chemist Warehouse!
Remember: In most cases you should always aim to obtain adequate micronutrient intakes using a ‘food-first’ approach via a broad intake of fruit, vegetables and nutrient-dense animal products (such as eggs and organ meats) and use supplementation as a back up to fill nutritional gaps and reduce the risk of deficiencies.
As a registered Nutrition Advisor, with the National Council of Australia I work with clients, to devise Nutrition plans that are conducive to achieving better balance. If you would like to discuss your individual nutrition choices and how you can potentially make improvements to this please feel free to in touch through the following contact form.
Disclaimer: This article and all its content is intended for general information only. It is not intended as medical advice. If you believe you have a medical condition, including one discussed in any of our content, you should see your doctor or other registered healthcare professional without delay. DO NOT use this content to diagnose yourself.
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