A multivitamin with minerals supplement is a dietary supplemental medication to fulfill the needs of the human diet by adding to it minerals, a variety of vitamins and a few other nutritional substances. You can get such supplements over-the-counter in the form of capsules, liquids, tablets, powders, pastilles and inject-able medications. All the others except inject-able types are available without a prescription from your local medical store. Inject-able formulations are available and administered by a qualified doctor. Multivitamins have been given recognition by the Codex Alimentarius Commission. The C.A.C. is the United Nations organization’s authority for standards of food. Multivitamins have been categorized as a category of food by them. In the United States of America, a multivitamin is a supplement containing three or more minerals and vitamins in them. This excludes herbal products, drugs or any hormones. The concentration of each vitamin and mineral is kept below the upper toleration level. This level is determined and standardized by the food and drug Board. This is done to ensure that such supplements do not effect adversely on the heath of the consumer.
The earliest supplements in the market were only for vitamin A and vitamin D. Multivitamin multi-mineral products which offered more than these two became available to the general public only in the 1930s. It was Nutrilite Company which introduced the first multivitamin multimineral tablets in the market in 1934. The substances used to make these supplements were not of synthetic nature. They were mostly made from natural fruit and vegetable concentrates which had been dried and consecutively compressed. It was not until the early 1940s that other brands started to enter the market.
Such supplements today have become an irreplaceable part of the life of those with an imbalanced diet or special people needing specialized nutrition. People on a restrictive diet such as patients are dependent on these supplements. People who cannot have a nutritious diet for whatever reason are also in need of such supplements. People in different stages of their life such as pregnant women or the elderly have different nutritional requirements than the rest of their families and that is why they may be advised to take supplements by their physicians.
Because the food and drug administration has categorize these multivitamin multi mineral products as dietary supplements in the US, you can get most of these over-the-counter at your local medical stores. These multivitamins are not tested rigorously as is the case with pharmaceutical drugs. There are some multivitamins meant for cure of disease which require a medical license or prescription in the US. Since the supplements do not contain any unknown substance, they need not undergo testing required by the new drug application. It is because of the drug efficacy study implementation program that such supplements were able to enter the market without any problems.
Although multivitamin multimineral products can help you correct your dietary imbalances, they can be quite harmful to people with a medical history. Consumers of these supplements need to exercise basic caution during their consumption. Pregnant women should consult their physicians before including any of the supplements in their diet plans. The wrong supplements can cause difficulties during their pregnancy. For example, excess of vitamin A. can lead to birth defects. Smokers can find their life shortened by the intake of vitamin A. and vitamin E. supplements without the supervision of a physician.
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