Multivitamins are sometimes treated like a one size fits all solution for women’s health. That’s not true, but that doesn’t mean that multivitamins shouldn’t be a part of every woman’s health routine.
While they aren’t a replacement for exercise and a healthy diet, that doesn’t mean they don’t have value. Multivitamins include some of the critical minerals the human body needs.
And women’s multivitamins are specifically tailored to the needs of women. We’ll go over some of the more important nutrients included in multivitamins and evaluate cases where multivitamins are especially crucial below.
While we advise you not to treat multivitamins as a replacement for balanced and vitamin-rich meals, we do recommend using them. They can help shore up any deficiencies you might have in your diet without being aware.
Vitamins and Minerals to Look Out For
When looking at a multivitamin, you should be paying special attention to the “multi-” designation. A good multivitamin is there to bolster your defenses even if you aren’t eating with a perfectly balanced diet.
A few of these are specific to women, too. B12 and B9 help make blood cells and keep your neurological cells healthy so you won’t need a tractor trailor accident attorney, and that’s valuable for all women but especially critical for pregnant women.
Vitamin D and calcium are important for everyone, but they serve as the cornerstone of a woman’s multivitamin. Both calcium and vitamin D are essential for healthy bones, and they also help boost your immune system and establish better signal processing in your brain.
The great thing about so many of the minerals and vitamins in a multivitamin is that they pull double or even triple duty—enhancing multiple aspects of your physiology at once.
Whole Food vs. Synthetic Vitamins
Many multivitamins are made synthetically, and there are plenty of good reasons for that. Laboratory created minerals and vitamins are functionally similar to the real thing, and they can be produced cheaply and relatively easily. But as with all chemically produced things, they do come with disadvantages.
Whole food multivitamins are made out of real food, and while that means they sometimes cost a little more, they can be significantly more effective. Since they’re made from actual foods that the human body is designed to ingest, absorption levels are much higher.
A single whole food vitamin can provide women with significantly more nutrients and minerals than a synthetic alternative could.
Do All Women Need Multivitamins?
Women have been surviving since the beginning of time without multivitamins, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be a valuable part of your diet.
Taking a multivitamin is about living the healthiest life possible, and while the medical evidence might not match some of the anecdotal stories, a good multivitamin can give you the little daily boost you need to push you over the edge.
And there are particular instances where multivitamins are more strongly recommended. Women who are pregnant or seeking to become pregnant obviously need more vitamins and minerals to account for the embryo growing inside of them.
Consistently taking vitamins can keep both you and your baby healthy and also reduce the risk of some critical birth defects.
Menopause also causes hormonal changes that can make a multivitamin incredibly valuable for a woman. Post-menopausal women often struggle to get appropriate levels of calcium and vitamin D, so a good multivitamin can be necessary for good bone health. The same is also true of vegetarians.
The B vitamins we talked about above, in particular, are often absent or underrepresented from purely vegetarian diets.
Do all women need multivitamins? No, but they certainly can’t hurt—and they can serve as a form of insurance against any deficiencies you might not be aware of.
Just be sure that you pay attention to what’s really in your vitamins, and seek out producers that take the health of their customers seriously if you want the best multivitamin for women.