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Don't Forget to Take Your Vitamin

by Dr. Donna Schwontkowski (ret.)

Copyright 2007 Schwontkowski. Call for reprint rights.

If you love to learn more about how to stay healthy, this article is for you.---Editor

When growing up, did you hear "don't forget to take your vitamin?" from your mother? Do you still hear it now from your concerned roommate, friend or spouse?

It's a legitimate concern. In almost every nutritional study that is done by researchers at universities and hospitals, the people studied are found to be deficient in certain vitamins or minerals or both. Whether the people are children, moms, dads, healthy or unhealthy with a certain disease, military, students, teachers, nurses, or even doctors, they're all found to be deficient in not just one nutrient but several.

We all need vitamins and minerals, and the best part is that we have so many different options for taking them. That friendly reminder, "don't forget to take your vitamin" almost doesn't have to be spoken if you know the different ways to take your vitamins. Here they are:

1. Take them with food.

   In doing this, you can take them at the beginning of your meal, during the meal or after the meal. If you take them at the beginning of your meal, you risk feeling a little sick in the stomach, because some vitamins cause that feeling on an empty stomach. The cure, of course, is to take them after you have already eaten a little food.

   During the meal is the best time to take them, I believe, after seeing thousands of patients for nutritional consultations in my career. It's easy to take them during a meal because you simply slip them in your mouth after you have already chewed your food and are getting ready to swallow. They go down easily this way and you don't need to drink any type of fluid, which tends to dilute the stomach digestive juices.

   You can also take your vitamins and minerals at the end of the meal, but waiting until the end of your meal may give you the idea that maybe you won't have any room left for them, just like people believe they don't have room for dessert. So rather than risk not taking them or getting distracted at the meal or with cleanup of the dishes and forgetting to take your vitamins, simply take them during the meal.

2. If you are taking prescription medication, take your vitamins and minerals one hour apart from the medication.

   I can't tell you how many people don't follow this rule and then assume that their vitamin mineral supplements are making them sick! It's not the vitamins mineral supplements; it's the combination of them with the drug. Vitamins and minerals build you up; they don't destroy you like medications could and often do. So follow this rule!

3. Make sure you use a good vitamin mineral supplement.

   The cheaper ones generally are missing nutrients and that's not good for your health. The more missing nutrients, the more you end up creating new deficiencies. You can find more articles on the topic of how to determine if you have a good vitamin mineral supplement on my other sites (Dr Donna Website or www.DrDonna.net) in the future, or email me at admin@DrDonnaHealthNewsToGo.com for info on what I have found to be the best vitamin mineral supplement and the research behind it. It's the only one I recommend anymore to most of my nutritional clients.

   Don't forget to take your vitamin!

Resources on Vitamin Mineral Supplements

1. Pregnancy multi-vitamin mineral supplements can be found here.Vitamin Mineral Supplement.
2. Here is an article that compares different nutrition supplement bars.Supplement Bars
3. Another article on nutrition supplement bars can be found here.Supplement Bars