Multivitamins are without a doubt essential to all women's
general wellbeing and the type or composition a women should consume
will vary with her age, basically the life cycle. At different stages of
a woman's physiological development, her multivitamins requirement
undergoes a shift by either reduction of a certain nutrient composition
or an increase in the other, or total avoidance of one especially in
cases of certain pathology.
Vitamin Requirements for Young Women (Below 40s)
Here we consider womens who are sexually active and are at a child
bearing age. At this stage, the predominant hormonal activity is that of
estrogen and with commencement of menstruation, the need for
multivitamin intake becomes even more necessary. The packed cell volume
(PCV) of a woman at this age should be maintained at about 35% to 45%.
However, monthly menstrual flow sometimes reduces the packed cell volume
(PCV) of most women far below the lower range exposing them to anemia.
Iron Alert!
Where there is menorrahlgia (very heavy or prolonged menstrual flow)
the woman may become very pale and, weak which is a sign of anemia. In
order to avoid the health problems associated with this, women of this
age group should make it a habit of taking multivitamin supplements to
help rapidly replaced lost blood in anticipation of the next menstrual
cycle. Iron is needed to ensure new blood cells formation but you should
supplement iron separately from multivitamins as iron should not be
consumed on a daily intake basis, it should only be taken in supplement
form if it is needed, i.e. if you have a deficiency or other medical
need, and then only for the duration that it is needed to rebalance
levels.
Folic Acid
Another type of vitamin beneficial for young women is those
multivitamin with high folic acid content. The practice is that, women
who plan to bear children should include folic acid vitamins in their
consumption. While others suggest every woman of child bearing age
should be administered vitamins rich in folic acid as many women get
pregnant even without planning to. The use of folic acid will not only
help her avoid anemia in pregnancy (which is very dangerous and a major
cause of maternal mortality especially in developing countries of the
world), but will also protect the unborn child from congenital
malformations notably Spinal Bifida.
Multivitamins for Pregnant Women?
The supplement needs of prenatal women and nursing mothers are very
different. While both can benefit from omega 3, iron and folic acid,
pregnant women should only consume a multivitamin as recommended by
their doctors. In fact, in modern medical practice, pregnant women are
encouraged to take daily folic acid through out the duration of the
pregnancy and even several weeks after birth. This is a very delicate
period in a woman's life and so no chances should be taken. To stress
the importance of folic acid in pregnancy, women are now being
administered folic acid not as part of multivitamins composition but by
itself up to 400 mcg daily intake.
Multivitamins for Mature Women (Above 40s)
Older women are at a stage in life where estrogen exposure no longer
exists as they approach menopausal. At this stage, they no longer
menstruate, so the monthly blood loss is no longer a problem. Therefore,
they can derive most of the iron and folic acid they need for body
maintenance from diet alone except in cases of illnesses.
However,
the peculiar multivitamins need of this age group is high calcium
containing formulas. There has been a lot of misconception about use of
multivitamins to reduce the risk of various cancers in elderly women.
But a new large-scale study on multivitamin use for cancer and heart
disease prevention suggests that this believes needs to be re-assessed.
One of the largest to examine diet and health practices among
postmenopausal women, the study shows that taking a multivitamin does
not lower the risks of various cancers, including breast, colorectal,
endometrial, renal, bladder, stomach, lung and ovarian cancer.
The
researchers led by nutrition epidemiologist Marian Neuhouser, analyzed
data from more than 161,000 women ages 50 to 79 who participated in the
Women's Health Initiative observational study for an average of eight
years during the 1990s. More than 41 percent of them used multivitamins.
"Population
studies have shown that if you eat fruits and vegetables, your chances
of cancers are relatively low compared to people with deficient diets,"
confirmed internist Aditya Bardia, an oncology fellow at Johns Hopkins
University. "But when they tried to convert those nutrients into
tablets, that's where the failure has been."
This shows that,
older women should concentrate more on good diet of fruits and
vegetables as they are better protected than multivitamins. Their
interest in multivitamins should be focused on only those with adequate
calcium content because of the increase bone resorbtion that occurs at
this age exposing them to osteoporosis. This is a good time for women to
begin to build up good calcium storage for old age.
As a woman
advances in age, usually after menopause, she is prone to bone fractures
usually due to low or reduced calcium in take in her youth. So women
should also be looking out for multivitamins capsules, or solutions with
a high calcium concentration not just to prevent bone fractures as she
advances in age but to provide adequate calcium as it will be needed for
adequate bone formation.
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In
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