The best multivitamin for women of 2021 contains the right nutrients and vitamins for their unique needs. Read this article to find out which multivitamin is best for you.
Multivitamin supplements are an essential part of a healthy lifestyle. They provide nutrients that are lacking in the daily diet. However, there are many different types of multivitamins on the market today.
What is a multivitamin?
A multivitamin contains vitamins A, C, D, E, B6, B12, folic acid, biotin, pantothenic acid, and niacin in one product. These nutrients are essential to help your body fight off infections and maintain healthy skin, hair, and nails. They can be found as single-ingredient supplements such as vitamin C, or they may come from several sources, including fruits, vegetables, grains, and beans.
Why do I need a multi?
Vitamins play an important role in maintaining good overall health by helping our bodies efficiently use energy, build strong bones and teeth, keep organs functioning properly, repair cells that wear out over time and produce hormones needed for growth and development.
While some people don’t get enough vitamins through their diet alone, others have trouble absorbing them because of certain medical conditions or medications. The best way to ensure you’re getting all the vitamins you need each day is to take a daily supplement containing multiple vitamins.
Rankings
1. Garden of Life Vitamin Code for Women
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Garden of Life is known for its unique approach to vitamin and mineral supplements, and it shines in the multivitamin category.
Its vitamin and mineral contents are bolstered by including fruit and vegetable powders with many nutrients that support the main “alphabet vitamins” and minerals. Independent lab testing ranks its purity and quality very high, which makes it a winning choice.
2. Optimum Nutrition Opti-Women
Optimum Nutrition shows that they’ve done their homework with their women’s multivitamin. Instead of just amping up the vitamin B content and throwing in some extra calcium like second-rate women’s multivitamins, they put in some extra nutrients that are truly useful for women, like soy isoflavones.
Scientific research shows that these are particularly useful at building and preserving bone mass in women, which is a critical component of health as you get older. Fans of herbal extracts will find a few choice ingredients as well, with dong quai extract and the potentially fat-burning Garcinia Cambogia.
3. Now Foods Eve Women’s Multivitamin
Now Foods provides standard doses of pretty much everything except B vitamins, which come in hefty-sized mega-doses. The presence of mineral ingredients as chelates, instead of inorganic salts, is an attractive feature; these are absorbed much better by your body.
Now Foods Eve scores well on purity and labels accuracy testing by independent labs, and it doesn’t have much in the way of shady ingredients, so it’s a brilliant choice.
4. Naturelo One Daily Multivitamin for Women
Naturelo might be the company that does “natural” best. The vitamins and minerals in their women’s multivitamins are extracted from various naturally occurring sources, ranging from acerola cherries (vitamin C) to kelp (iodine).
These actually stand a chance of being absorbed much better than standard multivitamin ingredients. The fact that many of the metals are bonded in amino acid chelates only helps the case. It could use a higher calcium and vitamin D content to help women build bone mass, but aside from that, it’s a strong choice.
5. MegaFood Women’s One Daily
MegaFood Women’s has an unusual approach to providing its multivitamin nutrients. Instead of the inorganic chemical forms that most supplements deliver their vitamins and minerals, MegaFood’s nutrients are isolated from specially-bred strains of brewer’s yeast. Because the nutrients are directly salvaged from a natural process, the hope is that they will be easier for your body to absorb.
The downside is that the product takes a purity hit: the label-stated contents of the multivitamin aren’t always in line with what’s actually in it; some key ingredients are off by as much as 30%!
6. New Chapter Every Woman’s One Daily
New Chapter takes a naturally-produced vitamin and mineral approach like a few competitors, but it doesn’t quite hit the mark. Purity and label accuracy are still big sticking points for vitamins and minerals derived from bacteria, algae, and yeast.
They may be more easily absorbed, but it looks like the quality control isn’t quite there in the manufacturing process.
7. Smarty Pants Women’s Complete
SmartyPants gummies claim to be “more than a multivitamin,” and upon further inspection, the ingredients look pretty impressive. They contain at least 100% of 3 important nutrients: iodine, folate, and vitamin D.
The downsides? One serving six gummies from the bottle, but even in these six gummies, there are only 72 mg of EPA and 54 mg of DHA, the two most important and influential omega-three fatty acids in fish oil. You’d be far better off getting a separate fish oil supplement than try to scrape by with these low amounts.
8. GNC Women’s Ultra Mega
GNC is a pretty standard boilerplate women’s multivitamin. It scores well on purity rankings, though one thing you’ve got to watch out for is the herbal extracts in the “energy blend.”
It’s got caffeine as well as green tea extract, so you’ll be getting a kick of caffeine every day. If you aren’t caffeine sensitive and take it in the morning, it shouldn’t be a problem, but this will be a big drawback for many people (especially when the label doesn’t disclose the exact amount of caffeine).
Which ones should you choose?
There are many different types of vitamins and minerals that are beneficial for women. Some are better suited for certain stages of life while others are designed to address specific health concerns.
In this article, I will rank the best multivitamins for women of 2021 based on their effectiveness, safety, and value. The rankings were determined by analyzing each product’s ingredients list, customer reviews, cost per serving, and overall quality rating.
I have also included some tips about how to use these products effectively so they can be most effective at providing your body with all it needs.
Guidelines to follow
The best multivitamin for women may be different from one person to another based on their age, health status, lifestyle choices, or other factors. However, there are some general guidelines you can follow in order to find the right product:
- Look for products formulated specifically for women. This will ensure that you get enough of each vitamin/mineral without having too much of any single nutrient.
- Check out the label carefully before buying. So as not to buy something that contains ingredients that aren’t good for you. For example, don’t take an over-the-counter pain reliever if you’re pregnant because it could cause birth defects.
- Make sure you read reviews online about specific brands and supplements. You want to make sure they work well for people just like yourself!
- If possible, try them first at home. Many companies offer free trials where you can test their products for 30 days. That way, you’ll know whether or not they live up to what’s written on the bottle.
- Don’t forget to check expiration dates. Some manufacturers sell expired products, which means they’ve been sitting around unused for months or even years. So always look for the most recent date printed on the packaging.
- Be careful how many servings you consume per day.
Most multis only contain between 10 and 20 percent daily value of certain nutrients.
Women’s nutritional needs are slightly different than men’s, so many women opt for a specifically tailored women’s multivitamin.
Why should you buy Multivitamins for Women?
Women need more iron than men do because women produce less hemoglobin in red blood cells during pregnancy. They also lose about 10% of their muscle mass after childbirth. Iron is essential for energy production, cell growth, hormone function, immune system health, skin tone, and healthy hair and nails. It can help prevent anemia by strengthening bone marrow so that new red blood cells are produced. A deficiency may cause fatigue, irritability, headaches, poor concentration, or depression.
Fight Iron-deficiency
Iron-deficiency anemia occurs when there’s not enough iron available to make up for what people eat. This happens most often among pregnant women who don’t get adequate nutrition throughout their pregnancies. Other causes include heavy menstrual periods, bleeding disorders, certain medications, and gastrointestinal problems such as Crohn’s disease.
Symptoms include tiredness, weakness, pale skin, shortness of breath, and dizziness. If left untreated, this condition can lead to heart failure, kidney damage, low birth weight babies, miscarriage, stillbirth, premature delivery, preterm labor, and death. The best way to avoid getting too little iron is to eat foods rich in vitamin C and bioavailable sources of iron like lean meat, poultry, fish, beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, dried fruits, dark green vegetables, orange juice, and fortified cereals. You should take a daily supplement if you’re at risk for becoming deficient.
Benefits of Multivitamins for Women
The health benefits of taking a multivitamin in women are robust and numerous.
Women who take them have lower rates of heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis, depression, anxiety, Alzheimer’s, dementia, macular degeneration, cataracts, hip fractures, Parkinson’s, and more than any other group of people.
Multivitamins can also help prevent birth defects like spina bifida and cleft lip or palate. They protect against some types of cancers including breast, colon, endometrial, ovarian, prostate, cervical, uterine, and vaginal.
A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that women with higher levels of folic acid had fewer miscarriages.
Multivitamins provide protection from cardiovascular diseases, especially high cholesterol and hypertension.
Studies show that those who regularly use vitamins tend to be healthier overall.
In fact, one large review showed that women who took supplements were 50% less likely to die over a 15 year period compared to nonusers.
There are several reasons why it makes sense to take a multi every day:
- Ensures your body gets all the necessary micronutrients each day.
- Reduces risks associated with chronic conditions like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, arthritis, asthma, allergies, ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder, brain injury, celiac disease, cystic fibrosis, eczema, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, migraine headache, mental illness, mood disorders, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, neurodegenerative diseases, Parkinson’s disease, postpartum depression, rheumatoid arthritis, sleep apnea, stress, substance abuse, thyroid dysfunction, Tourette Syndrome, ulcerative colitis, and urinary tract infections.
- Optimal performance while exercising.
- As part of a healthy lifestyle.
- Reduce the risk of developing age related issues like cognitive decline, memory loss, hearing impairment, vision loss, bone density loss, muscle mass loss, sarcopenia, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis.
- Improve quality of life by reducing symptoms of menopausal transition and perimenopause.
- Increase energy and vitality.
- Promote good digestion and bowel function.
- Support immune system functioning.
- Maintain normal blood pressure.
- Boost metabolism.
- Balance hormones.
- Keep bones strong.
- Strengthen teeth and gums.
- Treat hair loss.
- Ease PMS symptoms.
- Fight off colds and flu.
- Ward off infection.
- Combat free radical damage.
- Achieve pregnancy success.
- Enhance fertility.
- Build stronger nails.
- Manage pain during menstruation.
- Relieve acne.
- Soothe dry eyes.
- Improve complexion.
- Soften wrinkles.
- Slow aging process.
- Prevent sunburn.
- Repair damaged cells.
- Maintain youthful appearance.
Side effects
When it comes to side effects, multivitamin supplements rarely come with side effects. The vast majority of products don’t contain any ingredients that are harmful even at fairly high doses.
The only real downside is if you have a sensitivity or allergy to certain vitamins and minerals. If this happens, then your doctor can recommend an alternative supplement instead.
In addition to being safe, these products also provide many health benefits. They help prevent vitamin deficiencies by providing nutrients in their natural form. This means they won’t cause stomach upset like synthetic versions do.
Recommended Dosage
The recommended amount of most vitamins varies depending on age, gender and lifestyle factors. For example:
- Adults ages 19 to 50 years old who exercise regularly should aim to consume 400 micrograms per day of Vitamin D; those who don’t engage in regular physical activity shouldn’t exceed 600 mcg/day. • Pregnant women aged 18 to 35 years old should try to reach 100% of the RDA.
- Children ages 6 months to 3 years old require 1 milligram per kilogram of bodyweight.
- Older children ages 4 to 8 years old need 2 mg per kg of bodyweight.
Women who are breastfeeding should consider taking additional amounts of calcium, iron, zinc and magnesium during pregnancy and lactation.
Alex is a fitness aficionado, empowers others towards healthier, active lives through small, sustainable changes for lasting results. Visit Gearuptofit.com for insightful tips and resources to enrich a balanced lifestyle.