5 Signs that you might need a Multi Vitamin Supplement

Most health professionals these days recognise optimal vitamins and minerals are essential for optimal health. We need them for numerous biochemical functions in the body and to make energy, just to get us through the day. We even need nutrients to help us sleep.

Without vitamins, we can develop diseases such as Scurvy, which was a common Vitamin C deficiency that occurred on sailing ships many years ago. These days, these frank deficiency diseases are rare fortunately, but we are much more likely to suffer insufficiency of certain vitamins and minerals, rather than frank deficiencies. Here are 5 common signs you may be suffering a vitamin or mineral insufficiency:

1. Lacking energy. Sure, you could be feeling tired simply because you were up late watching the tennis or had to get up early for work, but if your fatigue is not explained easily, you could have a nutrient deficiency. For example, a common deficiency that could cause fatigue is an iron deficiency. Iron deficiency leads to anaemia, which means you are lacking enough red blood cells to carry the oxygen around your body, leading to fatigue. This is particularly common for menstruating women.


2. Cramping up. Electrolytes refer to minerals that are needed by the body for a whole host of biochemical functions. One sign that you may have an electrolyte imbalance is cramping. Cramps are common and are often caused by imbalances particularly in magnesium. Most Western diets are deficient in Magnesium so if you are cramping up, consider magnesium.


3. Blood tests. There are a number of blood and urine tests that can measure your nutrient status. Common ones are folate, iron and vitamin B12 however; there are also urine tests for minerals such as iodine. If any of these tests show a deficiency, then you need to speak to your health care professional about the best way to go about restore this and possibly other nutrients.


4. Eating badly. Ok, we should all be eating perfectly to ensure we have optimal health. Now, back to the real world we simply don’t always eat perfectly, meaning we do eat a lot of empty nutrient foods. If we do eat these foods, we probably need to be supplementing with a good multivitamin and mineral to ensure we get optimal levels.


5. Being stressed. If you are stressed, you actually burn through nutrients at a higher rate than if you lived on a tropical island free from stress. And while it would be ideal to live on the before mentioned tropical island, we simply don’t. We all have stressors and if you are one of the many individuals whom cop a bit of stress, you may need extra nutrients from a multivitamin/mineral supplement.

The take home message

It is pretty much a given that we all fall into at least one of the above 5 categories and there will be some of us who fit into more than one. We need to supplement with a high-quality multivitamin/mineral to ensure we receive the right amount of nutrients to live a happy, healthy life.