At some time in your life, a medical professional has probably asked you about your family history of illness and disease. When you start making a list, it can actually get quite scary. Chances are you can identify relatives who’ve had things like diabetes, heart disease or cancer, which potentially increases your risk for the same conditions. So it’s natural that you may wonder whether taking vitamins will help prevent you from developing any of the illnesses that your family seems prone to get.
The first thing to realize is that vitamin supplements are not the complete solution. You should focus on making sure you eat a balanced, healthy diet, and exercise regularly. Both of those things will do a lot to keep you fit and healthy, and reduce your risk of illness. Still, vitamin supplements can be useful to fill in any gaps in your nutritional intake.
A staggeringly high number of Americans, some estimates being as high as 50%, take a multivitamin/mineral supplement every day. Opinions vary, however, as to whether or not this is a worthwhile strategy for combating chronic disease. Possibly the one-size-fits-all solution offered by a multivitamin isn’t going to be appropriate for everyone, but considering our poor eating habits and tendency to spend too much time on the couch watching television, chances are a multivitamin has to do some good. However it might be better for you to pinpoint a specific area of concern, and take the correct vitamin. For example, if you’re at risk of developing osteoporosis, take a calcium supplement.
So if you eat well, exercise consistently and generally lead a healthy lifestyle, do you really need to take vitamins? Well, the answer is uncertain. There are other factors that affect our health, that are much harder to combat. Stress is certainly a big issue for many people today, and it can cause an enormous amount of harm to our bodies. Stress isn’t just emotional, either. Our environment can stress our bodies, because of the toxins and pollutants we’re constantly exposed to.
Some people argue, too, that foods today contain fewer nutrients than they did a decade or two ago. So even if you believe you’re eating a healthy diet, it’s possible that the foods you’re eating still don’t contain enough of the necessary vitamins and minerals for good health. Not only that, but the foods themselves are likely to contain traces of toxic chemicals, such as pesticides. Dealing with these toxins may well deplete the natural vitamins to the point where there’s not enough left for general good health.
