It’s pretty common knowledge that we get our nutrition from the food we eat. And yes, that food contains a variety of vitamins and minerals key to our health, but what we can’t guarantee is that we’re actually getting enough of these essential nutrients through diet alone.
Many of us don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables; we skip meals, opt for fast instead of healthy, which all adds up to one thing: nutrient deficiencies. And that’s not even considering things like stress, poor sleep, lack of or excess physical activity; all of which can wreak havoc on the body.
So, when you look at the big picture, a quality multivitamin seems pretty essential to maintaining your health, and for us, it’s pretty non-negotiable. It's little wonder that the multivitamin market has exploded recently, with specialist multivitamins for women and multivitamins for men selling by the dozen.
But can you take a multivitamin every day, or are there risks associated with it?
Continue reading, and you’ll find out!
What Is A Multivitamin?
Your body needs vitamins and minerals to function. Period.
While the macronutrients—proteins, carbs, and fat—we take in through food contribute the bulk of energy to the diet, the micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) are what make those processes happen.
But the hard truth is that food doesn’t always cover our needs, making supplementation a crucial part of a healthy lifestyle.
Multivitamins are a broad-spectrum nutritional supplement designed to provide your body with everything it needs to run. It’s like the fuel in your car’s tank. When you give it the proper “nutrition”, it’s going to operate as you’d like it to.
A multivitamin is much the same. It’s loaded with the essential vitamins and minerals your body needs to operate daily.
Basically, they’re a quick and convenient way to top off nutrient stores and prevent yourself from nutrient deficiencies and the corresponding long-term complications.
In general, they’ll contain a mix of 3 things: fat-soluble vitamins, water-soluble vitamins, and minerals (+ trace minerals), the vast majority of which cannot be produced in the body. Sometimes, you may also see omega-3s added to a multi.
Together, they work magic and keep your body going around the clock!
The Benefits Of Taking A Multivitamin
1. It fills in the gaps
There are a few underlying reasons a good vegan multivitamin is super important to have in your stack, and probably the most important of them all is to fill in nutrient gaps.
Our diets aren’t perfect, and sometimes we stray off the healthy path, so having something there as a backup is key.
First, we don’t all eat the same. Some of us follow vegan, vegetarian, paleo, keto, and other diets that all inevitably have their advantages and disadvantages.
For example, people following plant-based diets often lack nutrients like B12, calcium, zinc, and vitamin D that around found in higher quantities in animal-based foods 1.
And people who consume animal products may eat fewer fruits and vegetables, meaning they’re taking in fewer phytonutrients. A multivitamin, however, covers your bases and saves you in areas where you might be a bit low.
The second reason where they’re great for filling in gaps concerns nutrient density. We have to face the harsh reality that our food is not anywhere near as nutritious as our great-grandparent’s food was.
Despite thinking that kale is the holy grail of all vegetables, chances are it’s not as holy as it once was. And that’s largely due to soil depletion from large-scale farming practices and monocrops that have depleted our soil of nutrients, so our food is substantially less nutritious.
There’s also the issue of anti-nutrients—chemical compounds naturally present in plant foods that act as defense mechanisms to protect them.
In humans, they interfere with the absorption of key nutrients (iron, zinc, calcium, copper, magnesium) from the gut 2, which means if you’re eating a diet rich in beans, legumes, nuts, seeds, and grains, you might not actually be getting the nutrients you think you are. They can also cause things like inflammation, altered gut function, and endocrine disruption 3.
2. Mitigates the effects of stress
We all know how disastrous stress can be. That teeth grinding, hair-pulling, I’m going to scream kind of stress gets to all of us sometimes, and while acute stress isn’t such a bad thing (it actually strengthens the immune responses), chronic mismanaged stress is.
Chronic stress leads to chronically elevated cortisol levels, which when not properly managed, can lead to complications like increased inflammatory markers, oxidative stress, mitochondrial disturbances, thyroid and sex hormone dysfunction, and of course, nutrient depletions 4.
The most common deficiencies you’ll run into during periods of stress are with the B vitamins (the energy-producing ones), but prolonged stress also affects levels of magnesium, zinc, iron, and calcium 4, none of which can be synthesized in the body and therefore must come from diet or supplementation.
Keep in mind that all forms of stress impact us—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
3. Caters towards specific needs
Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus—ever heard that saying before? It pretty much sums up the difference between men and women, and naturally, that also means our needs are different.
Because women have cyclical hormones and cycles that change throughout the month, we need more of certain nutrients to support that. And the same goes for men.
We’re biochemically different, which means the multivitamin we’re taking—and nutrients we’re consuming in general—need to be tailored to our body’s specific needs. That’s where a supplement like Performance Lab NutriGenesis Multi is great.
It’s an ultramodern multivitamin designed to support overall health and peak biological performance. Packed with 17+ daily essential vitamins and minerals for optimal body system function, Multi Men and Multi Women are calibrated for your unique nutritional needs.
Men and women aren’t the same, so why should they be taking a multi that is?
Can You Take A Multivitamin Every Day?
When your body is constantly subject to all these different factors that impede nutrient absorption and intake, it begs the question of whether it’s essential (and safe) to take a multivitamin daily.
The answer? Absolutely.
Multivitamins are designed for daily consumption to help replenish depleted vitamin and minerals stores and keep your body functioning at its best.
Think of it this way. You get insurance for your car to safeguard you against accidents and damage, right? A daily multivitamin functions much the same way. It gives you that little bit of an advantage to ensure you’re protecting your body from the detrimental effects of nutritional deficiencies.
When taken daily, they help support better immune function, better heart health, healthy aging, fertility and reproductive function, hormonal balance, brain health, and so much more.
What To Look For In The Best Multivitamin
When you’re choosing a multivitamin, you want to make sure you’re getting a run for your money. Here are the two fundamental things you should be looking for:
- Proper nutrient forms—Taking a multivitamin becomes pointless if you’re not getting nutrient forms that your body can absorb and utilize, which is why bioavailability is key. Performance Lab® proprietary NutriGenesis® vitamins and minerals are complexed with natural cofactors like probiotics, fiber, enzymes, and antioxidants to enhance bioavailability and optimize health-supportive activities.
- Clean and pure—You also want to make sure that the multivitamin you’re taking is clean. Third-party testing guarantees that the product is pure, potent, and contains exactly what’s on the label. NutriGenesis Multi (along with the entire Performance Lab line) is always non-GMO, 100% free of gluten, allergens, synthetic additives, artificial colors, & preservatives, and also contains no nasty fillers. What’s more, all of this is delivered in NutriCaps—100% plant-based capsules made from fermented tapioca infused with prebiotics for easy, comfortable, and complete absorption.
Final Thoughts
The bottom line is that having a good vegan multivitamin in your supplement stack is not the golden ticket to achieving optimal health.
You still have to eat clean, exercise regularly, manage your stress, sleep enough, stay hydrated, and all the other important health practices we hear about.
But what a multivitamin can help to do is safeguard you against possible deficiencies and system interruption when things might not go according to plan, or you’re feeling a little extra pressure from work. And for people that follow largely plant-based diets, they become even more essential to make sure you’re hitting your goals in every nutrient department.
References
- H Sakkas, P Bozidis, C Touzios, et al. Nutritional Status and the Influence of the Vegan Diet on the Gut Microbiota and Human Health.Medicina (Kaunas). 2020;56(2):88.
- KE Akande, UD Doma, HO Agu, HM Adamu. Major Anti-nutrients Found in Plant Protein Sources: Their Effect on Nutrition. Pak J Nutr. 2010; 9(8): 827-832.
- W Petroski, DM Minich. Is There Such a Thing as “Anti-Nutrients”? A Narrative Review of Perceived Problematic Plant Compounds.Nutrients. 2020;12(10):2929.
- AL The Effects of Psychological and Environmental Stress on Micronutrient Concentrations in the Body: A Review of the Evidence. Adv Nutr. 2020;11(1):103-112.
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