Throughout much of our lives, we are told about the importance of vitamins and minerals. However rarely do we understand how important they truly are, not even as we pass the age of fifty, when their benefits multiply enormously.
A simpler way of understanding vitamins and minerals is to think of them not as extras, but as essentials, like water. Much the same way we can survive without water for a day, or on reduced water for a very long time, we can survive on limited vitamins and minerals for a long time also.
But just like when we dehydrate ourselves, when we fail to consume enough vitamins and minerals our bodies begin to suffer and we may find that our health is significantly worse than it would have been otherwise.
Many of us have spent much of our lives in a delicate balance with our vitamins and minerals, perhaps even in a state of deficiency. And this situation only gets worse with age. Around the age of fifty we experience a sudden drop in our metabolism, which may lead us to reduce the amounts we eat. But if we do not also change the type of food we eat to focus on foods rich in nutrients, we may make ourselves deficient.
Likewise, around the age of fifty our ability to digest certain foods declines sharply. Our stomach acid is not as strong, our pancreas is not producing the same number of enzymes, and our gut bacteria are not as balanced, so even when we eat high-nutrient foods, we may not get as much out of them. This is naturally worse for people who have lost some of their pancreas or intestine, had their gallbladder removed, or undergone a gastric bypass or sleeve procedure.
Finally, at this age we need more vitamins and minerals anyway. As our cells will have degraded over the years, every time they split they are more prone to mutation. And these mutations can lead to the signs of aging, to cancer, or to other conditions such as autoimmune disease. By consuming the vitamins and minerals we need, we can prevent, treat, and even reverse the effects of aging. So what sort of benefits can we expect if we begin making sure we are getting all the vitamins and minerals we need?
Benefit 1 – Halting Cognitive Decline
As we grow older, cognitive decline becomes a serious matter of concern. The right balance of vitamins and minerals can help to prevent cognitive decline. Vitamin D and magnesium both enable proper mental functioning, whereas the B vitamin complex offers support for the whole nerve network, including the brain.
Antioxidant vitamins and minerals are also essential for scrubbing our cells clean, making sure the cells in our brain work efficiently for as long as possible. But it isn’t all about getting as many nutrients as possible. Excesses of some nutrients, such as calcium or iron, can cause cognitive troubles as well, so make sure to check your levels closely.
Benefit 2 – Stronger Bones and Healthy Joints
Another thing that is a cause for concern as we get older is bone and joint decay. Women especially are at risk for osteoporosis, where minerals and proteins are lost from the bones, making them light and brittle. But men and women alike are at risk for arthritis, where the cushioning cartilage between joints gets worn down, causing pain.
The right minerals will obviously fill out your bones and make them stronger, but vitamins play an important part, too. Vitamins like vitamin D help you to absorb and use your minerals, whereas others like vitamin C encourage your body to create more collagen, to cement your bones together better.
Benefit 3 – More Energy and a Better Mood
Loss of energy and mood is commonly associated with growing older. A great part of this naturally comes from a reduced ability to do what we once could. On the one hand, natural sources of serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin, the hormones which make us happy, are more restricted. Sunlight, good times with friends, and exercise are all harder to attain as your health deteriorates.
On the other hand, just not being able to do these things is enough to depress you, as you can start to feel as if you have few pleasures left in life. A proper vitamin and mineral intake can fight this on both fronts. By giving you an energy boost and making your hormones release more easily, it will make you feel much better about life and enjoy things much more.
Lethargy, fatigue, and depression can be alleviated, or even completely lifted away. And, by easing your pains and giving you energy, it means you can now go out more and do more things, making life much more enjoyable.
Benefit 4 – Healthier Heart
Heart disease is the leading cause of illness and death as you grow older. Our arteries lose their flexibility and become vulnerable to a buildup of plaque, our hearts become tired after so many years of use, or weak after we suddenly stop working and exercising, and high blood pressure takes its toll on our heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, etc.
The right vitamin and mineral balance replenishes our blood cells, helps to strengthen our muscles (including the heart), and cleans out our arteries which helps to lower our blood pressure and reduce our risk of a heart attack or stroke.
Benefit 5 – More Youthful Appearance
Finally, an effect of aging that none of us are happy about, but which is impossible to avoid, is simply growing old. Looser, wrinkled skin, thinner hair, dull eyes, etc., are not necessarily harmful, but aren’t much fun either. All these effects are caused by oxidation of the cells involved, so if we eat plenty of nutrients which are antioxidants we can slow down the visual side of ageing.
So where will we get these nutrients?
Natural Sources versus Supplements
It can be difficult to decide whether you want to aim to get your vitamins and minerals from natural sources or from supplements. Younger people are strongly encouraged to get as many vitamins and minerals as possible from natural sources, but as we get older there are many very good reasons to choose supplements too.
You want to focus on natural sources so long as you are in good health. When our bodies are working to the best of their ability, natural sources are ideal. Nutrients found in natural sources are more likely to be complete, more likely to be in their usable form, and more likely to be slow-release. These are very important qualities.
Complete nutrients come with other nutrients, in the same food, which help you process them together, such as vitamin D2 and calcium found in canned fish. Usable nutrients mean your body can access and use them immediately, such as the calcium in greens and dairy, versus the inert calcium in some supplements. And slow-release nutrients enter our bloodstream slowly, without overwhelming our systems, which means that more of the nutrients will be used, and not much will be lost in our urine.
Since most of the food that is mass-produced today have little or no nutrients, you may want to choose a good whole-food based supplement. Taking supplements are essential if you do not have a gall bladder, for example, because you cannot naturally absorb fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamin E in enough amount to be useful to you. Or if your pancreas is damaged or missing parts, then you could have trouble with fats, proteins, or carbohydrate, which would result in being unable to extract the right nutrients from your foods.
Some people also need much larger doses of nutrients than others, known as mega doses, due to a severe deficiency or a high need. Furthermore, if you simply cannot eat the volume of food you would need to eat in order to get your nutrients, or if you despise the taste of most nutrient-dense foods, you may need to supplement to meet your needs.
There are also supplemental foods. These are whole foods – also known as superfoods – that are rich in vitamins and minerals. These foods are great additions to our daily diets because a tiny amount of a completely natural ingredient can provide amazing medical benefits.
For example, just eating the bones in canned fish can be considered a calcium supplement, or squeezing a lemon on your salad could provide a vitamin C boost. On the rarer end of the spectrum, three to five brazil nuts a day provides much of the magnesium you need. If you need a mild supplement, consider a supplemental food first.
For most people, a combination approach works best. To do this, you will need to make sure your diet is complete and varied, rich in a large number of natural sources of vitamins and minerals, and low in low-nutrient, high-calorie foods that we know as empty calories. On top of this, you need to consider your own personal vitamin and mineral needs and contemplate which supplements will be best for you to take on a daily basis.
The Best Natural Sources of Vitamins and Minerals
If you choose to get your vitamins and minerals from natural sources entirely, then you need to focus your diet on the most nutrient-rich foods available. You can’t live on white bread, chicken breast, and soda and expect to get all of the vitamin and minerals your body needs to thrive. You actually need to base your diet entirely around nutrient-dense foods if you want to get enough nutrients without overeating.
Leafy greens are an amazing source of vitamins and minerals. Leafy greens are rich in magnesium, manganese, vitamin C, vitamin K, etc., all for very few calories. And the darker the green, the more nutrition it has for you. You would do well to replace the starchy, fatty bases of your meals with lightly steamed, flash fried, or raw leafy greens, the darker the better.
For rehydration, you can’t beat fruits. Fruits are loaded with water, yes, but they also have the sugar, salt, and potassium we need to balance our bodies, making them nature’s own electrolytes. Make sure to choose low calorie lesser sweet fruits, as fruits which are watery have the best minerals and fruits that are sour have the most vitamin C.
Organ meats are amazing sources of most vitamins and minerals. Every organ meat has a different balance of nutrients, with liver being one of the very best for you.
If you eat a little heart, liver, kidneys, chitterlings, sweetbreads, and bone marrow every week, the only nutrient you would still need to boost would be vitamin C. That is how amazing organ meats are.
Just beware eating too much liver, as there can be chemicals and other toxins present in the meat.
Sea food is the best way to ensure you get your daily dose of rare vitamins and minerals. Sea food is low in fat, low in carbs, high in proteins, and high in vitamins and minerals. It is one of our best natural food sources of vitamin D, rich in calcium, magnesium, and zinc, and full of rehydrating minerals too. The only major downside is that many people do not have a taste for seafood, and a few have allergies.
Always choose whole grains, sprouted or milled, to add some more minerals to your diet. White, processed grains are missing their healthy fiber as well as many of their nutrients. Choose a less processed grain to ensure you get more vitamins and minerals, and choose breads baked with yeasts rather than baking powder, as yeast helps to pre-digest the grain and release the nutrients in it.
Finally, when it comes to vitamin D, the best version is the one we make ourselves. Try and get out in the sunlight, with your skin in the light, for five to twenty-five minutes every day. This works as long as there is enough light to see by. If the weather is too cold to expose your skin, or you have high melanin skin in a northern climate, consider supplements or a solar lamp.
How to Choose a Good Supplement
If you do choose to supplement your diet with vitamin and mineral formulas, make sure it’s a good one. Many supplements available on the market are useless. They aren’t absorbed, or they’re the wrong version of the vitamin or mineral, or they’re just not in a high enough dose to do any good. So how can we tell which supplements are worth the money and which aren’t?
- Check what the recommended dietary allowance is, and make sure your supplement is 100% or more of it. Since the RDAs of essential nutrients are grossly understated, and the good possibility that most of your supplement will not be absorbed at all, it is vitally important to get more than a small percentage. Of that 100%, maybe half will be used, so it really isn’t much of your recommended dietary allowance.
- Make sure it is in an active form. You won’t get a lot of iron from swallowing an iron nail, or much calcium from a lump embedded in a rock. Choose supplements that are the sort of vitamin or mineral your body actually uses. When in doubt, consult with your local health food store and they will guide you to good quality supplements. Stay away from big box, supermarket, and drugstore vitamin aisles.
- Choose a pill that stinks. Seriously. Vitamins naturally smell, especially B vitamins and fat-soluble vitamins. If your pill has vitamins, but smells mild and pleasant, then the vitamins are too compressed in the pill. This means it will take you so long to digest it that you will barely absorb any nutrition from it.
- When it comes to water-soluble vitamins, choose low doses and take them with meals. Water-soluble vitamins are lost through our urine, and when we have too much our body will get rid of them that way. So, if we take a high dose on an empty stomach most of it will leave our body in our urine. However, if we take a smaller dose and have it with a meal, we slow down the release and encourage our body to absorb more of it.
- Understand nutrient combinations. Some nutrients need to work in certain combinations to be available. For example, fat-soluble vitamins like A, E, or D, when taken as a dry pill, with water, on an empty stomach, are completely wasted. Or vitamin D is useless without calcium. Or how vitamin C and iron help you absorb them both. Or how B vitamins all work together so you need to take them at once. Look into the right nutrient combinations for your supplements.
- Do not exceed your recommended dietary allowance, especially not in fat-soluble vitamins. Again, your 100% of recommended dietary allowance pill will probably only give you 50% of it at the very most. But that doesn’t mean you need to double up your pills! You will get the remainder from your diet anyway. If you take too many pills, or combine different brands and doses, you could overdose and make yourself seriously ill. This is especially bad for fat soluble vitamins and certain minerals, as your body cannot get rid of them so easily.
Seeing Your Doctor
If you suspect you have a serious deficiency, you may need to see your doctor about a heavier or more direct supplement.
Often your doctor will prescribe you a much higher dose supplement than you can get over the counter. All supplements are serious medicines, but these are even more serious. Do not abuse your dosage, or allow someone else to share your supplement.
On the flip side, if you lack the physical ability to digest the foods which the nutrient is found in, or if you are suffering a very serious deficiency, then your doctor may offer you a single injection, or a series of injections, containing this nutrient. This may be the case with vitamin B12, or vitamin D3.
Supplements and Medications
Finally, a word of caution.
Supplements that work will have an effect on your body, as well as on any medicines you are having. Always consult with your doctor if you take medication and plan on adding anything new to your diet, however natural it seems. As an example, turmeric is often used medicinally, but is a blood thinner, so it could make you vulnerable to bleeding if you already take blood thinners, or stop blood thickeners from being effective.
You can never know for sure if a supplement will be too effective, or have a strange side effect. Therefore, when taking a new supplement, it is best to start out slow with lower dosages and gradually increase until you get to the desired level you need of that particular supplement.
