Would you like to incorporate the best vitamins and minerals into your body? Do you think you will only get it through food supplements? Actually, through a healthy and varied diet you already provide a multitude of nutrients to the body without the need to include these products.
It should be noted that supplements are indicated in certain situations, vital stages or diseases, so they are not suitable for the entire population. Sometimes, the ease with which they are purchased without a prescription, together with nutritional misinformation, generates a wrong image of these products as if they were substitutes for a healthy diet or even natural medicines to prevent or treat diseases. But what are these nutritional supplements and what is their function? Are they really necessary? What precautions must be taken into account?
Nutritional supplements and what they are used for
These food supplements contain vitamins and minerals as well as other substances, such as amino acids, essential fatty acids, fibre, plant or herbal extracts. In addition, they are found in various formats and are available over the counter, so you do not need a prescription to buy them.
In more detail, the nutritionist Rocío Práxedes Gómez, from Hospital Quirónsalud Valenciaexplains that “They are food products that concentrate a large amount of nutrients and serve to complement food intake in special situations.“.
Therefore, they do not replace a balanced and healthy diet, but rather help in specific situations. Our expert insists on this: “Food supplements should only be used when necessary. to complete the usual diet in case of a specific deficit”.
Equally, supplements or multivitamins are not substitutes for drugs, so, in case you are receiving medical treatment, it should not be interrupted. In this sense, the specialist also warns that “we must be clear that these products do not have the property of preventing, treating or curing a disease, they are not medicines”.
Although they can be purchased without a prescription, it is essential make correct and responsible use of these products. On the other hand, it is advisable to consult the taking of vitamin supplements with specialists, who study each case and assess whether there really is a justified reason. Práxedes recalls that “health workers are the professionals who have the knowledge and appropriate tools to evaluate and guide the patient.”
Vitamin supplements, do you really need them?
It is very common to see the daily use of vitamin supplements on social networks, from vitamin C supplementation to taking melatonin to sleep well. However, they are not necessary in most cases, as Práxedes points out: “Under normal circumstances, an adequate and balanced diet provides all the necessary nutrients for the normal development and maintenance of a healthy organism”.
To achieve a healthy diet, the nutritionist recommends that we turn to “instruments such as the healthy eating pyramid or the healthy eating plate, which translate scientific knowledge into food and clearly teach us how to eat to meet our demand for nutrients and Keep health”.
Cases in which they are recommended
Taking nutritional supplements may be recommended in specific situations. In this regard, the expert clarifies that “a multivitamin is useful when, for various reasons, the diet cannot be varied and balanced; let us think of a state that prevents a complete dietary intake, or also in a stage of life with especially high nutritional needs, and that despite eating well, we cannot fully satisfy”.
Among the cases in which they may be indicated are:
- Pregnancy
- Little access to sun exposure and low consumption of full-fat dairy products
- vegetarian diets
- metabolic alterations
- certain drugs that cause vitamin deficiency
Multivitamins for tiredness or during exam time, yes or no?
Exams, listlessness, or exhaustion are not good enough reasons to give teens multivitamin supplements. The specialist advises us of this: “We cannot attribute symptoms such as fatigue or apathy, subjective manifestations that may be due to various causes, to a lack of vitamins; nor deduce, without an evaluation that justifies it, that the periods of exams or a lot of physical work, need multivitamins”.
As in the rest of the population, food supplements can provide support when the diet is insufficient. In addition, the best vitamin for your adolescent children is found in food.
In any case, if you detect apathy or fatigue, it is advisable to go to the consultation to carry out a personalized evaluation. “A medical examination, an evaluation of dietary intake, or a nutritional biochemistry, are tools that help us health professionals to make a diagnosis and a personalized recommendation,” adds the expert. In this way, it is possible to know if there is a nutritional deficit, indicate the most appropriate treatment and carry out follow-up.
Precautions with the consumption of multivitamins
If you need to take them, keep in mind that you must use them responsibly, following certain recommendations:
- Avoid exceeding the recommended daily dose, since this can lead to negative effects. The expert qualifies that “an excessive and continuous intake of vitamins and minerals can be detrimental to health on some occasions.”
- Use the supplements in periods of limited duration.
- Check the active substances of nutritional supplements in case you are taking two at the same time, and make sure they are not the same.
- Do not interrupt a prescribed medical treatment by the doctor. Vitamin supplements are not drugs and therefore are not used to prevent or treat disease.
- You must report that you are taking supplements food when you go to the doctor’s office.
- You can check the company that sells it in the health registry. “Food supplements are regulated by law and, therefore, their composition is determined,” says the expert.
- Remember that they can complement the diet, but not replace it. “The labeling, presentation and of food supplements cannot include any statement that declares or suggests that a balanced and varied diet does not provide adequate amounts of nutrients in general”, the specialist qualifies.
