As it says on the About Vitamins page at Healthy Vitamin Choice: "When you start to learn about vitamins you quickly discover a number of closely related nutrients, with similar biological functions." These include nutritional minerals, bioflavonoids, antioxidants and homocysteine.
These are all covered in the above site, so there is no need to elaborate here. In fact, they each have their own page within the section linked to above.
Health is, of course, vitally important and something no one can afford to take for granted for too long. Fortunately more people are recognizing the fundamental importance of quality nutrition in establishing and maintaining health. It is worth remembering that:
- optimum nutrition cannot be obtained through the typical diet, and
- adding a couple of vitamin pills doesn’t optimize an inadequate diet.
Obtaining health supporting, optimum nutrition takes a little bit of effort. I won’t even begin to address other lifestyle factors, such as quitting smoking for those who smoke, reducing alcohol consumption, and even adjusting exercise levels. For now, I simply want to suggest that the supplements consumed must be appropriate for the individual, well chosen in terms of quality and effectiveness, and taken as part of a nutrition plan.
Taking supplements in a planned and informed way helps to ensure their health and cost effectiveness. A planned approach is much more likely to include balanced nutrition, which will include those nutrients beyond vitamins. It is important to remember that all supplements are just that, added to an existing diet, that should itself be quite good. If it isn’t ideal, then the supplementation must be all the more carefully considered.
