If you’re just a man pursuing the vitamin aisle at a store, picking out one bottle that seems better than the rest can seem impossible without a health expert by your side. Should you go with a multivitamin or just get some individual kinds of vitamins, like vitamins C or D? What do the letters mean? What do they all do? Are they even worth it? The seemingly infinite amount of options leaves shoppers with more questions than answers.
But if you’re poking around in the vitamin aisle to begin with, you’re probably interested in what those vitamins can do and whether it’s worth your money. Vitamins aren’t a magic medicine or a cure to any specific condition, but they’re highly recommended by many experts, and for good reason. If you’re not an expert, you’ve come to the right place to learn. When beginning your vitamin journey, a multivitamin is a great place to start if you haven’t received instructions to go for something more specific. Here, we’ll break down what’s in a men’s multivitamin and what they can do for you, and we’ll let you decide whether or not it’s worth the space in your cupboard.
Why Take Vitamins?
If you’re reading this, you likely haven’t started taking vitamins yet, or maybe you’re looking to make the switch from Vitamin A supplements to a men’s multivitamin, something more general. Either way, it raises the question: why take them at all? What’s all the hype about?
A vitamin supplement, like a multivitamin, essentially contains a vast mix of vitamins, minerals, and more, most of which people could technically get naturally from their diet. But as you may be able to guess, it’s not that easy to get the perfect amount of all these vitamins in your daily intake of food. Eating a diet composed of enough nutrient-rich and whole foods to make taking vitamins completely unnecessary can be expensive and require planning and knowledge about food that the average person simply might not have time for. So vitamins exist to ensure that if you’re not getting them from your diet, you’re still getting them in your body every day.
What’s In a Multivitamin?
Multivitamins contain a base blend of vitamins that’s typically fairly uniform across most kinds of multivitamins. But after that, there could be any number of added minerals and nutrients in the multivitamin – or there could be none. The base blend usually contains vitamins A, C, D, E, K, and the B vitamins (B6, B12, etc.). On top of that, there are a few minerals that are common in multivitamins, like calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, and iodine. And in addition to those, individual brands may add things like fatty acids, amino acids, or herbs to their men’s multivitamin supplements.
What Do Multivitamins Do?
The answer to this question is a little more complicated and may help you more in deciding whether or not to purchase men’s multivitamins. Multivitamins aren’t a medicine, per say. They aren’t going to cure an illness or condition you’re experiencing, and you likely won’t even really notice the effects, even if you take them consistently. Instead, they’re recommended to keep your body running the way it should and to prevent deterioration of your health in the future. Below are some of the typical vitamins found in a multivitamin and how they help you keep your health on track.
- Vitamin A: helps support eye health, immune system health, and reproductive health.
- Vitamin C: good for skin, blood vessels, ligaments, cartilage, muscle, and bones. Also helps support immune system health.
- Vitamin D: supports bones, teeth, muscles, and the immune system.
- Vitamin E: acts as an antioxidant in the body, meaning it protects cells from some damage. Also good for reproduction, vision, blood, and skin health.
- Vitamin B12: helps support nerve and blood cells, and is needed to make DNA.
- Vitamin B6: supports the central nervous system. Helps produce serotonin and norepinephrine.
- Vitamin B3: helps turn food into energy and supports the nervous system, digestive system, and skin health.
As we mentioned above, a multivitamin will likely contain those listed vitamins, but it doesn’t stop there. Additional vitamins add additional benefits, and some men’s multivitamins even add nutritional supplements that are extremely beneficial on their own. For example, multivitamins that add omega-3 fatty acids take things to the next level in terms of potential benefits. Omega-3 fatty acids are a crucial nutrient that the body doesn’t produce on its own, so you either need to get it from eating specific foods or from taking it as a supplement. With added supplements like omega-3, the range of benefits from men’s multivitamins expands to include vision support and enhancement, cardiovascular health, mental health, brain development, and more.
Overall, you won’t necessarily take a men’s multivitamin and feel the effects. Rather, the benefits come in over time or are immeasurable and intangible. They’re often serving a preventative purpose rather than acting as a magic cure.
Different Types of Multivitamins: Does It Matter?
So, you’re back in the vitamin aisle and you’ve decided to go with multivitamins. The next question is which multivitamins? Does it matter if you get the ones specific to your age or sex? Does it really make a difference, and can there be negative side effects if you get women’s multivitamins or kids multivitamins instead?
The short answer is likely no, there won’t be negative side effects, but yes, it does matter which kind you get and you should aim for the ones that cover your own demographic. So if you’re an adult male, get adult men’s multivitamins. While there likely won’t be negative side effects to taking the wrong ones, men’s multivitamins are tailored towards the bodies and hormones and needs of men, while women’s are the same way for women. Additionally, kids multivitamins are for people with rapidly growing and changing bodies, which sets them apart from adult multivitamins.
Are Multivitamins Worth It?
You now have many of the facts about men’s multivitamins, and the final decision is really up to the individual and depends largely on one’s lifestyle and diet. Since multivitamins rarely have negative effects, there’s not a huge potential cost to you if you decide to give them a shot. But if you regularly eat vitamin and nutrient rich foods, you may not find that a multivitamin would be that beneficial.
But that’s not to say all multivitamins are created equal. As we mentioned above, some contain other nutrients like omega-3s that bring up a multivitamin’s value in terms of how you can benefit from them. So when you’re back in that vitamin aisle and you’re making your decision, don’t just grab the first one in front of you. Check out what each kind contains, and choose what you think you can benefit from the most.