4 minYou may think that taking a multivitamin will give you all the right vitamins in the right amounts. But that is not always the case. This is not surprising, because not everyone has the same vitamin requirements.
A standard multivitamin
Have you ever read the label of a multivitamin supplement carefully? In general, you will find the following vitamins in it:
- Vitamin A
- B vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, B11 and B12
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin D
- Vitamin E
- Vitamin K
These are all the vitamins we need from our diet, supplemented with dietary supplements where necessary. In addition to vitamins, a multivitamin often also contains minerals and trace elements. These are nutrients that are present in smaller quantities in our diet.
There are quite a few of these nutrients; a multivitamin complex often only contains the essential ones, including calcium, copper, iron, manganese, magnesium and zinc. Essential minerals and trace elements are those that are indispensable.
Vitamin D in a standard multivitamin is not always sufficient
There is one vitamin that we are massively deficient in in the United Kingdom: vitamin D. A deficiency can lead to reduced immunity and, in severe cases, depression. We mainly absorb vitamin D from sunlight. Unfortunately, with our climate, we don't always get enough of that.
A smaller amount of vitamin D is also obtained from food: from oily fish such as salmon, herring, mackerel and sardines. Approximately 80% of vitamin D is absorbed from food.
It is recommended to take 10 micrograms of vitamin D daily from a supplement to prevent a deficiency. Most multivitamins contain this 10 mcg per dose. But sometimes a little more is needed. For example, during the winter, if you want to become pregnant, or at a certain age. People aged 70 and older, for example, need as much as 20 mcg per day.
You should also be careful not to take too much vitamin D: prolonged high intake can cause symptoms and damage the kidneys. The Health Council of the Netherlands has set a safe upper limit for vitamin D intake. As long as you do not exceed this limit on a daily basis, there will be no immediate problems.
This upper limit varies per age group: for babies aged 0-6 months it is 25 mcg, babies aged 7 months to 1 year can take up to 35 mcg and from 1 year onwards it is even 50 mcg. As an adult, you can even take up to 100 mcg.
So, in addition to your standard multivitamin, you can take separate vitamin D3 drops for adults if you need more than 10 mcg. Drops make it very easy to measure out the correct amount.
How do you know if you have a vitamin D deficiency?
RDA, RI and AI
Let's go back to the label on your multivitamin. Behind the various nutrients, you will see a quantity and how this compares to the recommended daily allowance, the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance). Instead of an RDA, you may sometimes see an RI (Reference Intake), which means the same thing.
A third abbreviation you may encounter is AI, which stands for Adequate Intake. The Health Council, which advises on the safe use of dietary supplements, issues an AI if no RDA can be determined. The AI is then a safe lower limit that can be used by everyone to whom the advice applies.
As you can see, an RDA/RI or AI is used as an average for entire population groups. It does not take individual needs into account, nor can it. However, there are, for example, multivitamins specifically for children and pregnant women. This is because they have different vitamin requirements than other groups. For example, babies up to 3 months old need more than twice as much vitamin K as an adult man or woman. And pregnant women need slightly more vitamin A, B11, C and K than non-pregnant women of their age.
Choose vitamins that suit your needs
As we mentioned earlier in this article, do not simply increase the dosage of your multivitamin yourself, even if you are pregnant, because it does not contain enough vitamin K, for example. You can also consume too many vitamins, which can cause side effects or even damage the body.
Certain multivitamins are preferable for pregnant women.
The same applies to children: always use a specially developed children's vitamin. At VitaminFit, we have developed a special multivitamin for kids with extra vitamin D3. It comes in drop form, so the vitamins are easy for small children to take.
With comprehensive information about the use, effects and required dosage of dietary supplements, we help you make the right choice. We have set up an online chat for this purpose, so that we can answer all your questions directly and personally.
