Multivitamins

Children between the age of six months and five years should take vitamin A, C and D supplements, government advice says - do you find this surprising?

If you do, it seems you're not alone.

Researchers in Wales found only 30% of parents and carers said they had ever been given advice by a health professional about giving young children vitamin supplements.

To the average person the market appears to be saturated with multinutrient supplements and we can become easily confused by all of the bus banners and A-boards telling us about the next best thing.

As a rule of thumb, if you can buy them from a supermarket or chemist as a ‘buy-one-get-one-free’ they are not the right supplement for you. It is much better to purchase them from specialist online retailers or local independent health-stores to get the most therapeutic products on the market.

In today’s more stressful lifestyle, with snatched meals, hectic schedule and pre-packed, badly designed, packaged food, we don’t get what we need. That’s why such a high proportion of people now take multivitamins to top up the deficiency in their diets.

At different times of life and at times of more specific needs, we need to examine what nutrients are necessary and a “one size fits all” multivitamin just won’t cut it. So you need two special multivitamins: one for women and one for men. This article shows where they are different and why.

60 per cent of people say they eat a very healthy diet but perception and reality are not always the same. Most people are not eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables per day, reveals recent research. The discrepancy leaves a huge nutritional gap to fill.