As promised, here is Vol. 2 of “What vitamins do we need?” and “Are daily vitamin supplements necessary?”, Adult edition! If you have not read the children’s edition, Ta-da! Vol. 1: What are the Necessary Vitamins Kids Need?
There are 13 important vitamins/minerals that adults are recommended to take! Vitamin A, C, D, E, K, and B Vitamins, that’s a whole lot of healthy! But, to avoid overwhelming you with big scientific words, we will try our best to simplify all these vitamins in pairs! Now, what are these vitamins?
First up to the plate, are vitamin A and vitamin E! They both support immune function, but vitamin A also supports vision health, reproduction, and growth and development! While vitamin E prevents clots from forming in the heart! Talk about a heart-stopper! *wink wink* (not good? Ok…). Some places to find vitamin A is in dairy products, eggs, fish, and meats! As for vitamin E, you can find it in nuts, spinach, sunflower oil, asparagus, avocado, etc. The recommended vitamin A RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance) for women is 700 micrograms/day and for men 900 micrograms/day. For vitamin E, 15 mg daily!
Next, vitamin C and D! Both are equally important for bone development and health! Vitamin C is essential to containing infections and wound healing! It is even necessary to produce collagen! We love us some collagen! Not only is vitamin D important for bone health but it also promotes calcium absorption in the gut and helps prevent those out-of-nowhere leg cramps/spasms! Some places to find vitamin C are in, yup, you guessed, oranges! Bell peppers, strawberries, tomatoes, broccoli, and white potatoes! The RDA for this vitamin is 75 mg for women and 90mg for men who are 19 years and older! For vitamin D foods, dairy products, fish, meats, and mushrooms are where to go! The RDA for this vitamin is 15 mg for both men and women who are the ages 19+.
Onto the last 2 vitamins, vitamin K and B vitamins! Just like vitamin D, vitamin K also supports the building of bones! It helps the process of creating various proteins that are needed for forming blood clots! Yup, you read that correctly! There are good and bad types of blood clots! This kind of blood clot is in response to when you get a boo-boo and the clot acts like a cork to stop the wound from completely bleeding out (depending on how deep the wound is). Pretty cool huh!
As for B vitamins, which include thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, biotin, B6, B12, and folate, *heavy exhale* these vitamins help the process in our bodies to produce energy or absorb energy from what we eat! B vitamins are in leafy green vegetables, fish, poultry, meats, dairy products, beans, etc! While vegetables and soybean and canola oil is where vitamin K resides! The RDA for vitamin K is 120 mcg for men and 90mcg for women over the age of 19. The RDA for B vitamins varies, so here is a nutritional source to guide you! B Vitamins: The Nutrition Source.
Will all this in mind, do adults need to be taking daily supplements? Our bodies are constantly growing, and some adults may begin to develop deficiencies in certain nutrients. So, at some point, we could use the extra boost of nutrients! One thing we do want to emphasize is consulting these decisions with your doctor first, because there is such thing as having too much vitamins, as stated in Harvard’s School of Public Health, “Too many vitamins may be risky for health”. But as stated in the previous post, it is up to them if they want to take a daily vitamin supplement! If you want an extra kick of vitamin C or K in your life, go for it! If you want to do a vampire facial, sounds terrifying but be our guest! The world is your oyster!
