Many people believe if you eat a well-balanced and healthy diet it will provides all of the necessary and needed vitamins and minerals that are necessary and needed for good vital and strong health. In perfect and ideal circumstances, this is certainly the case. Still, in absolute reality, there are quite a few excellent reasons why you may need good quality vitamin supplements to help you with living in a twenty-first-century environment. Taking vitamins when they are required is a very safe and natural way of improving your dietary sources of healthy nutrients, and will provide you with good health if you follow the instructions that are on product bottle labels.

1. Poor Digestion
   Even when you eat good, deficient digestion can severely limit your body’s absorption of vitamins and minerals. Some of the main causes of digestion problems are not chewing your food well enough and eating way too fast. Both of these result practices result in larger than what is normal food size, which makes it too large to allow for the complete action of the body’s digestive enzymes in the stomach. Many people who have dentures are not able to chew as well as those with a full set of normal teeth.
2. Hot Coffee, Spices, and Tea
   Making a habit of drinking fluids that are way too hot or drinking a large number of things that irritate such as coffee, tea, or pickles, and some spices can react with the body and cause inflammation of the digestive tract. This results in a drop in the secretion of the stomach’s digestive liquids and poorer removal of vitamins and minerals from food. sources.
3. Alcohol
   Most people know that drinking a large amount of alcohol will damage the liver and pancreas They are essential to digestion and to the bodies metabolism. It can also damage and inflame the sensitive lining of the intestinal tract and affect poorly on the absorption of vitamins and nutrients. This leads to malnutrition. Continuous and heavy use of alcohol will increase the body’s need for all the B-group vitamins, especially thiamine, niacin, pyridoxine, folic acid, and vitamins B12, A, and C as well as the minerals zinc, magnesium, and calcium. Alcohol affects bioavailability, absorption and the bodies metabolism of all key nutrients.
4. Smoking
   Everyone knows that smoking any amount of tobacco causes irritation and inflammation to the digestive track. It also increases the bodies requirements of Vitamin C, by at least 30mg per each cigarette. This is over and above the average requirements of that of a person that doesn/t smoke. Vitamin C is normally found in foods such as pawpaws, oranges, and capsicums oxidize in the air fast once these fruits are cut up, made into juice, cooked, or if stored in a place of direct sunlight or near a heat source. Vitamin C is vital to the bodies immune functioning.
5. Laxatives
   If you overuse laxatives, it can result in very poor absorption by the body of vitamins and minerals from different food sources Laxatives do this by quickening the time in the intestine. Laxatives like paraffin and other mineral oils will increase the losses of fat-soluble vitamins A, E, and K. Other types of laxatives that are used too much can cause a large loss of minerals such as potassium, sodium, and magnesium.
6. Fad Diets
   There are bizarre diets that cut out on entire whole food groups that can be lacking in vitamins to a large extent. Even the popular low-fat diets that are really common, if they are taken to an extreme, can be very deficient in vitamins A, D and E. Most Vegetarian diets, which can cut out meat and all other animal sources, must be very carefully planned to avoid a vitamin B12 deficiency, which may lead to serious anemia.
7. Overcooking
   Cooking too long or reheating meat and vegetables can cause oxidation and can destroy vitamins that are heat susceptible.Those are the B-group, vitamin C, and vitamin E. If you Boil vegetables, it will leach out the water-soluble vitamins B-group and C as well as many minerals. If you light steam vegetables, then that is preferable. Some vitamins, such as the vitamin B6 can be destroyed by irradiation from all microwave ovens.
8. Food Processing
   If you freeze foods that contain vitamin E then it can seriously reduce its levels once it is defrosted. Foods that contain vitamin E that are exposed to heat and air can turn rotten and rancid. Many of the common sources of vitamin E, such as bread and oils are highly processed and contain high amounts of preservatives so that the vitamin E content of the bread and oils are are significantly reduced, or they are missing completley. This will increase the storage life but can lower significantly lower nutrient and vitamin levels. Vitamin E is an antioxidant that inhibits oxidation damage to all of the body’s tissues. Other vitamin will loose nutrients from food processing and heat are vitamin B1 and C.
9. Convenience Foods
   A diet that is highly dependent on overly refined carbohydrates, such as white sugar, white flour, and white rice, place a much greater demand on additional sources of B-group vitamins to process and utilize these refined carbohydrates. A highly unbalanced diet will contribute to many such conditions as chronic irritability, tiredness and lethargy, and many sleep disorders.
10. Antibiotics
    Antibiotics are valuable in fighting infections, also kill off the good and friendly bacteria that are in the gut. They would normally produce B-group vitamins to get absorbed through the bodies intestinal walls. Such deficiencies in vitamins and nutrients can result in a whole variety of conditions of the nerves, so it may be more advisable to supplement with B-group vitamins when taking broad-spectrum antibiotics. You should also take probiotics. They should normally be taken and should be doubled or tripled when on antibiotics.
11. Food Allergies
    When you have to omit whole food groups from your diet, which is the case of people allergic to lactose or gluten. This can mean the extreme loss of important dietary sources of significant nutrients and vitamins such as thiamine, riboflavin or calcium.
    12.Loss of Nutrients in Crops
    Most agricultural soils are severely deficient in all trace elements. There have been decades of very intensive agriculture that have overworked and depleted the soils. . This means that food crops can be severely depleted of important nutrients due to poor management of the soil. In one U.S Government survey, There were levels of many essential minerals in crops were that were found to have severely declined by up to 68 percent over four years in the 1970s. and that was over 40+ years ago. Todays situation is more dire.
12. Accidents and Illness
    If you are burned then it can lead to a major loss of protein and essential trace nutrients such as vitamins and minerals in the body. Having surgery will increase the bodies need for zinc, vitamin E and other essential nutrients that are involved in the process of cellular repair. When there is broken bones there will be a low supply of calcium and vitamin C in the body. Infection places a very high demand on the essential nutritional sources of zinc, magnesium and vitamins and B5, B6.
13. Stress
    The chemical, physical, and emotional stresses can greatly increase and enhance the body’s needed requirements for vitamins B2, B5, B6, and C. Even something like air pollution can increase the body’s requirement for vitamin E.
14. P.M.T
    There is research that has demonstrated that up to 60 percent of all women who suffer from the symptoms of premenstrual tension, such as headaches, irritability, bloated ness, breast tenderness, lethargy, and depression, can greatly benefit from supplementing with the vitamin B6.
15. Teenagers
    Teens have rapid growth spurts, especially girls. This places very high demands on their body’s nutritional resources to cover that fast physical, biochemical, and emotional development in this age group.
16. Pregnant Women
    When someone is pregnant, it creates a much higher demand for vitamins and nutrients to ensure that the baby grows healthy. Some nutrients typically require an increased boost during a women’s pregnancy are the B-group, especially B1, B2, B3, B6, folic acid and B12, A, D, E, and the minerals calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc and phosphorous.
17. Oral Contraceptives
    Taking oral contraceptives can cause a big decrease in the absorption of folic acid and increases the need highly for vitamin B6, vitamin C, zinc, and riboflavin.
18. Light Eaters
    Some people eat very lightly, even without wanting to lose weight. The United States has dietary surveys that have shown that the average woman maintains her weight on 1500 calories per day, at which level her diet is likely to be very low in thiamine, calcium, and iron.
19. The Elderly
    The elderly have been shown to take meager amounts of vitamins and minerals, especially iron, calcium, and zinc. Folic acid deficiency is common, along with vitamin C deficiency. Fiber intake is often deficient, which causes constipation and digestive issues. Deficiencies of Riboflavin (B2) and pyridoxine (B6) have also been shown. The possible causes of this can include an impaired sense of taste and smell, a reduced secretion of needed digestive enzymes, chronic diseases, and physical impairment.
20. Lack of Sunlight
    Bedridden people, people who are shift workers, and people whose exposure to sunlight may be minimal can suffer significantly from low amounts of vitamin D, which we know is required for calcium to be metabolized, and without that rickets and osteoporosis (bone thinning) can happen. Ultraviolet light is the cause of vitamin D formation in the skin. If it is blocked by cloud, fog, smog, smoke, ordinary window glass, curtains, and clothing, then people may not get the right amount. The maximum recommended daily supplement to take of vitamin D is 400 i.u. But some recommend much more than that.

There are many reasons, as you can see, to take vitamins and mineral supplements. And to take supplements of other nutrients. Almost everyone has a deficiency and could benefit from supplementation. The trick is finding high-quality products and knowing just what to choose for yourself.

I am a health coach, and if you would like a FREE evaluation to determine the supplements you should be taking, shoot me an e-mail, and we can get that done!
Jennifer Corgan
naturesmanymiracles.com