What vitamins that you need all depend on your current health and what you get from the foods that you eat. By eating a variety of foods, you can get all the nutrition you need, but if your diet is lacking in some areas, sometimes dietary supplements are still needed.
Nutrient needs vary by age, gender and life stage. After the age of 50, it’s generally recommended to take the following: a daily multivitamin, Vitamin B12, Calcium, Vitamin D, and the AREDS formulation for eye health(below).
Taking a daily multivitamin helps fill in the nutrient gaps left from what you are missing in your daily diet, even though you might not be aware of it. Vitamin B12 helps with your metabolism, red blood cell formation, and neurological function, such as memory. This is one vitamin that becomes harder for us to absorb as we age, so it's important to use a dietary supplement to make up for that deficiency. A severe deficiency can cause fatigue, weakness, and anemia.
Calcium and Vitamin D are other vitamins that are important, especially in women as our chances for osteoporosis increases with age. Due to menopause, estrogen, a hormone that protects our bones, decreases sharply, causing our risk for fractures to increase. Vitamin D helps with this by helping our bodies absorb Calcium, whether we get it in the foods that we eat or as dietary supplement. Taking both Vitamin D and Calcium will help promote bone health and keep our bones stronger. Vitamin D also helps reduce the risk for heart attacks, strokes, asthma, and depression.
The Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) formulation for eye health is a combination of Vitamin C, Vitamin E, Lutein, Zeaxanthin, and Zinc. The AREDS, sponsored by the federal government’s National Eye Institute, found that taking this combination slowed the progression of advanced age-related macular degeneration, which is when part of your retina is damaged, and may play a role in cataract prevention.
So as you can see, it’s important to get all your vitamins as our needs increase with age. As always, be sure to contact your family physician prior to starting any dietary supplement, as some vitamins interact and interfere with certain prescription drugs that you may be taking. For instance, Vitamin K interferes with blood thinners like Coumadin and Vitamin E actually thins your blood. Things that would be important for your physician to know.
