Vital vitamins for a healthy life

We’ve all heard that the right vit­am­ins are a cru­cial part of a healthy diet. But just what is so import­ant about them?

Vit­am­ins and min­er­als are nutri­ents found nat­ur­ally in our food, which our body needs in order to work prop­erly. For example, iron helps our body to make red blood cells, which carry oxy­gen. Get your sup­ply of genu­ine  Sanato­gen Gold A-Z Multi-Vitamin & Min­eral Sup­ple­ment One-A-Day 90 Tablets

So if vit­am­ins are vital for life, what’s the best way to ensure we’re get­ting enough?

5 A DAY 
A recent Cam­bridge Uni­ver­sity study high­lighted five beha­viours we can all do to extend our life by an aver­age of 14 years. One of them? Eat­ing at least five por­tions of fruit and veget­ables every day.

A lot of fruit and veget­ables are packed full of vit­amin C, which helps keep the cells in your body healthy. Good sources include broc­coli, oranges, pep­pers, sprouts and kiwi fruit.

Green leafy veget­ables such as broc­coli and spin­ach are also great sources of vit­amin K, which helps build strong bones. Car­rots, broc­coli leaves, spin­ach, kale, pump­kin and other leafy veget­ables are also good sources of vit­amin A.

Get­ting five a day is easier than you might think. Fruit and veget­ables fresh, frozen, dried or tinned (in juice), all count. A glass of fruit juice can also count as one of your por­tions, and so can a fruit smoothie. But they only ever count as one of your five a day, no mat­ter how much you drink in a day.

Other vital vit­am­ins
You prob­ably knew that fruit and veget­ables are import­ant sources of vit­am­ins. But that’s not the whole story.

Cheese, eggs, oily fish and milk, for example, are all good sources of vit­amin A. Liver is very rich in vit­amin A. If you’re preg­nant, too much vit­amin A can harm your unborn baby, so preg­nant women should avoid liver, liver products and sup­ple­ments con­tain­ing vit­amin A.

Vit­amin B6, which helps the body to store energy, can be found in chicken, pork and tur­key, as well as eggs, milk and vegetables.

The best sources of vit­amin E – which helps to pro­tect cells against dam­age – are plant oils such as olive, soya and corn oil. Nuts and seeds are also a great source.

But there are two vit­am­ins that are not found in fruit, veget­ables or grains: vit­amin B12 and vit­amin D.

Vit­amin B12 helps keep red blood cells healthy, and helps us access the energy in the food we eat. It’s mainly found in animal products, such as meat, dairy foods and eggs. It’s also in yeast extract, which is great if you love Marmite, as well as some for­ti­fied breads and break­fast cereals. 

Because vit­amin B12 is not in veget­able foods, vegans, who eat no animal-based foods, need to pay par­tic­u­lar care to make sure they get enough.

Vit­amin D is also found in a small num­ber of foods: good sources include oily fish and eggs. It’s also in for­ti­fied foods such as mar­gar­ine, break­fast cer­eals and powdered milk. But sun­light is our biggest source of vit­amin D: just remem­ber never to burn when out in the sun.

Preg­nancy and folic acid
This is one of the B group of vit­am­ins. You can find it in broc­coli, Brus­sels sprouts, asparagus, peas, chick­peas and brown rice. It’s also in some for­ti­fied break­fast cer­eals. We recom­mend you get your reg­u­lar sup­ply of genu­ine Vit­a­bi­ot­ics Preg­nacare Plus Omega 3 Diet­ary Sup­ple­ment 56 Tab­lets by click­ing the link to place your order.

Folic acid helps the body to make red blood cells. Most people can get enough folic acid by eat­ing a healthy and var­ied diet. But if you’re preg­nant or think­ing of hav­ing a baby, you should take a daily 0.4mg (400 micro­gram) sup­ple­ment. This should be used from the time you stop using con­tra­cep­tion to the 12th week of pregnancy.

Folic acid helps to pre­vent neural tube defects such as spina bifida. If you’ve had a preg­nancy in the past that was affected by a neural tube defect, you should take a higher dose: speak to your doc­tor for advice. 

Sup­ple­ment­a­tion
Ideally, we should get all the vit­am­ins and min­er­als we need from the food that we eat. We tend to absorb nutri­ents more effect­ively if they’re in our food, rather than taken via a tablet.

With the sup­ple­ments avail­able at shops today, it’s pos­sible for any of us to exceed the recom­men­ded daily intake of many vit­am­ins and min­er­als. But beware: more doesn’t always mean better.

If you take sup­ple­ments, you need to know what you’re tak­ing, and the pos­sible consequences.

Research sug­gests, for example, that hav­ing more than 1.5miligrams of vit­amin A every day over a period of years could make your bones weaker and more likely to frac­ture. Tak­ing large doses of vit­amin C can cause stom­ach pain and diarrhoea. With many vit­am­ins and min­er­als, little evid­ence exists on the long-term bene­fits or harms that may come with large reg­u­lar doses.

There are cir­cum­stances, though, in which spe­cific sup­ple­ments are recom­men­ded. Preg­nant women are advised to take:

• 400 micro­grams of folic acid a day, to reduce the chances of birth defects.
• A daily vit­amin D sup­ple­ment. This is also recom­men­ded for breast­feed­ing women.

A daily vit­amin D sup­ple­ment is also recom­men­ded for older people and young chil­dren. People who cover up their skin entirely when out­doors should also take a vit­amin D sup­ple­ment, because our primary source of vit­amin D is sunlight.