Facts: As the pace of our lives increase, we found that more and more, our diets lack the essential nutrients vital to the well being of our bodies.  Bad eating habits and lack of time make our daily intake of these indispensable nutrients less and less a part of our daily nutritional intake.  At a time when super markets and restaurants abound, consumers in the western world find themselves at the very edge of a society that is malnourished.  For our group of people, poverty often times is not the cause behind our malnourishment.  The truth is bad nutritional habits are and we seemingly make an obvious effort to fall within that category.  Children of the super charged meals, consumers of gigantic hamburgers, fries and shakes, we are the “cola” people.  We eat because we like the taste, and we seemingly don’t care that our eating habits are literally killing us.

Of course, in an ideal world, our basic and essential vitamins, minerals and other supplements should be provided from a healthy and balanced diet.  The fact that we don’t put us at risk for numerous and often times life threatening illnesses, such as heart diseases, obesity and compromised immune systems.

Solution: To provide our bodies with the essential compounds it craves, we must consider taking multivitamins particularly if we fall under the following groups:

• People over the age of 60.  As our bodies age, we find it more difficult to absorb and process a number of nutrients.  Look to compensate this with the intake of Vitamins D, C, B6, B12, folic acid, as well as minerals such as zinc, calcium and magnesium.
• Women of childbearing age.  Often times, their daily needs of folate  (folic acid) (400 IU) is not met even when their diet is healthy.  Folate is a Vitamin B compound which helps prevent neural tube birth defects.  Look to supplement your daily intake of folic acid, particularly  if you plan to become pregnant.
• Breast feeding or pregnant women.  Discuss your needs with your doctor and ask him/her how a multivitamin can help you.
• Vegetarian’s daily diet do not contain sufficient Vitamin B12, zinc, iron and calcium amongst other nutrients.
• People loosing weight because of a weight-loss diet, heavy drinkers or smokers
• Anyone not eating a balanced diet.

Please remember to consult a doctor for any advise on this matter.  The above is provided as a guideline and does not constitute a medical recommendation.

A excellent source of multivitamins can be found here	Folate deficiencies?  Look for your answer here!