The Best Supplements For Your Specific Needs

Last night I came home from work and my wife greeted me lovingly at the door. She then proceeded to scare the crap out of me by showing me what she got after having her annual checkup with the doctor. She excitedly reaches into a small brown paper pharmacy bag and pulls out a big bottle and hands it to me and give me a second to peer at the label and decipher what exactly it was I was looking at.

Prenatal Vitamins! What? – I say.

She then laughs and says that her doctor had the talk with her about our plans for children and whether we want them or are planning on having them. My wife apprehensive at first decides honesty is the best policy and says yes, we have talked about it and yes we have decided that we will likely have kids in the next few years sometime but no, we are not actively trying to have kids yet. She is after all on birth control.

The doctor however tells her that prenatal vitamins are increasingly more beneficial the older a women gets and are most beneficial if the woman has been on them for 6-12 months before conception. Now my wife isn’t exactly old by any means; she’s still closer to 25 then 30 but amazingly these days medical advice considers the upper 20’s are the cusp of advanced birthing age. According to her doctor if we were to accidently get pregnant over the next year she could conceivably give birth at an advanced age and thus prenatal vitamins would be a good precaution to be taking even though she is on birth control. Crazy, I thought but I guess it makes sense. The vitamins are merely insurance that the pill fails and we get pregnant ahead of our plans…and it is insurance that she is well nourished to support a healthy pregnancy in the event that her body has trouble birthing at an “advanced age”. Anyway, the vitamins are essentially a conventional multivitamin with just a bit more folate and iron. She already takes a daily multivitamin so it’s not really going to change anything. Seems like a good idea to me.

This got me thinking though about other forms of supplementation for specific personal circumstances. They make multivitamins specifically designed for almost all genres of people: children, elderly, women, men, etc., etc., etc. But what about less obvious circumstances and more specific supplements as opposed to a jack of all traits multivitamin?

Best Life Magazine, June '07, published the following table (emphasis and comments added) on just this and I thought it was interesting and thought it could possibly be helpful for a number of people so I thought I would share it. If any of the following describes you then maybe you should consider the following supplementation or simply try to include more of these vitamins, etc. into your every day diet in the foods you eat.

• If You Are Obese: Vitamin D gets caught up in fat tissue and doesn’t circulate, which means you might need more to compensate. - Or you can simply eat more foods rich in Vitamin D or try pairing your food correctly to increase the body’s bioavailability of Vitamin D.
• If You Are A Distance Runner: Because you burn so much fuel, there is rapid elimination of Vitamin C, an important nutrient for runners because it helps repair muscle and prevent muscle breakdown. [But] don’t take more than 500mg a day. - Again, vitamin C is an easy supplement to take and it’s also to increase through the food you eat through fruits and greens.
• History of Alzheimer’s: Plant sterols and stanols reduce cholesterol, which has been found to accelerate the formation of the plaques that are associated with dementia. - I’ve written about this form of supplementation before. Fortified OJ in the morning (a nice source of plant sterols) is a nice way to combat Alzheimer's before it starts if you want to stay away from the health and vitamin store.
• If You Have High Blood Pressure: Coenzyme Q10 improves blood flow and should be considered even by healthy men who have a family history of high blood pressure.
• If You Do Strength Training: L-carnitine helps shuttle fatty acids within mitochondria, the part of the cell that produces energy and build muscle.
• If You Are A Recovering Alcoholic: B complex vitamins (B1, B2, B6, B12, and folic acid) are the first to become deficient in alcoholics. - This set of vitamins is also helpful for muscle recovery and athletic performance.
• If You Are At Risk For A Heart Attack: Niacin increases good cholesterol and reduces heart-disease risk better than most drugs. - If you are deficient in this you might want to consider supplementing in addition to taking your medications while working at getting into shape through regular exercise.
• If You Are Recovering From A Heart Attack: One gram of omega-3 daily reduces the risk of sudden cardiac death. This has recently become an American Heart Association standard treatment. - In addition to supplementing make sure your eat more omega-3’s in your diet through fish, oils, and greens.
• Family History of Early Vision Loss: Lutein protects the eyes from damage.
• If You Are A Smoker: Vitamin E is rapidly depleted by smoking and continues to be deficient for up to five years after quitting.
• If You Suffer From ED: Red yeast rice extract is a natural form of statin that can increase blood flow. - It might also help with lowering LDL cholesterol levels as well.

As always, don’t over supplement as this is bad for you too. Make sure you consult your doctor to determine if supplementation is right for you and your specific situation.