How To Take Vitamin Supplements For Health, Hair, Skin, and Vitality

I was about to post my three week update on my ‘Better Healthy Hair/Skin Supplement Challenge’ but I wondered away from my computer to make lunch and when returned instead of continuing the article I ended on BGLH website and read an article on someones experience with a popular hair supplement and thought I would write this post first.

Where do I start? Okay most of us have all read or heard that the key to healthy strong hair and glowing skin is a healthy diet consisting of all the essential nutrients found to sustain human. Essential nutrients meaning that the body needs it to survive or else all sorts of things go wrong.

There has been a lot of research done on factors affecting hair growth/loss and none of them have ever pointed to one single nutrient as being the nutrient of all nutrients to improve and speed up hair growth. So ladies taking one nutrient in the hope that you will see greater hair growth is the biggest mistake you can make. But improving your overall health and focusing on getting enough of the building blocks of hair first (protein) and then making sure that you’re also getting all your vitamins and minerals at the same time will ensure that your hair will at least grow to it’s fastest potential.

If you’re considering taking supplements to improve your hair growth then here are some key things to consider:

Start off with an evaluation of your own health. Rather than taking a single nutrient to improve or hurry hair growth take  a blood test and work out what your body needs. A doctor can order a blood test to work out what you are deficient in and where you are at with your overall health before you even begin taking a supplement to improve hair growth.

If you’re found to be deficient in anything take care of that first as one deficiency can through your whole system out of whack. I should know I’ve had a few in the past. Remember Ladies your overall health is the key to healthy hair and skin not taking high doses of one vitamin.

Below, February 2014 Photo of my bald spot.

May 2013

Improve Your Whole Diet

Vitamin supplements are supposed to support a good diet, they’re not a substitute for one. If your diet is not good, you will need to work on that at the same time otherwise the benefits of taking the supplement will be lost.

Vitamins And Minerals Work Together, Not Alone. 

Vitamins never work alone! They work as a group to keep you healthy and full of vitality. Again taking an excess of vitamins or minerals could result in a poor result if the other vitamin/mineral that is required to work with the one that you are taking is deficient. The B-vitamins are a classic example. They tend to work together in energy metabolism and the breakdown of carbohydrates and are required at different stages of cellular metabolism.

Multi-vitamins Vs Single Vitamins 

If you’ve noticed on my list of vitamins I’m taking, and yes it appears like a lot to most people but that’s because there is more than one nutrient involved in maintaining healthy skin and hair and overall health. Not one. This brings me to my next point about multi-vitamins, specific hair supplements, and single vitamins. Most multi-vitamins contain trace amounts of what your daily vitamin needs maybe. They will possible only cover you for deficiencies if that. To ensure you are taking the right amount to meet your daily requirements, you will have to look at taking single vitamins or special formulations that are designed to assist with health problems which generally consist of more than one vitamin/mineral in the ratios that the body requires. 

For a example, a calcium supplement will include the vitamin d and magnesium as these three need each other in order to be absorbed in the body. Most iron tablets will have either vitamin c, vitamin be 12, or the whole b complex group to help you better absorb the iron. A multi-vitamin is not formulated with this in mind.

Knowing What You Are Doing.

Before you begin any such diet start taking supplements do your research. And don’t just listen to those whose opinions support what you want to do. I not only did my research but I also have a Bachelor Of Science in Food Science and Technology, with a major in Biochemistry and a minor in physiology. If you can afford it get professional help or educate yourself by reading some well credited books on the subject.

Amounts and Concentrations

It’s also important to research what the minimum, optimum, and maximum limits of the vitamin/mineral/supplement that you taking to get the best out of them. You cannot take too little or too much of the vitamin as too little is ineffcient, too much is toxic and could have adverse effects. You want to find out what the optimum amount of consumption is before you even start!

Vitamin/Mineral Interactions

If you’re going to take vitamins/minerals/supplements you are going to have to know which vitamins work well together and should be taken together and which ones get in the way of the other being absorbed. Iron and Zinc don’t mix, take one in the morning and the other in the evening. Calcium also stops iron absorption, never drink milk or eat dairy products when you are trying to increase your iron absorption because of it’s high calcium content.

Take Most Of Your Vitamins With Food

Most manufactures will advise you to take vitamins with food unless otherwise specified by your doctor. That’s so that they can be better absorbed in the body. Take your fat soluble vitamins with foods that have a high fat content, your minerals with high mineral content foods, and water soluble vitamins with vegetables or fruit.

Most vegetables contain compounds that can prevent you absorbing minerals such as calcium, zinc, and iron. The most common one is phytic acid. It’s found in green leafy vegetables, beans and legumes.

Price/Brands

I recently discovered that a vitamin brand I was encouraged to take by a natural path is not as effective as the price tag suggests. Unfortunately price is not the greatest determinant of the quality of vitamins/supplements. When I went to buy my vitamins from iherb, I realised that I didn’t know anything about the brands. They were all unfamiliar to me because iherb is an American company and I live in Australia and don’t get any of the brands in stores here. So it was off again to do my research on the internet and googled reviews, independent research and settled on two brands for most of my vitamins. They are Life Extension and Now Foods. I am not saying that they are the brands that you should be getting, but I can tell the difference between using them and similar products that I have been wasting my money on for the last six years in Australia! They are also cheaper.

Vitamin Sources

Please read the label of every supplement you take so that you can know exactly where it comes from. This is especially important for those who have allergies to diary or wheat or soy. It’s also important for those who are vegetarians and vegans and trying to avoid animal products. Unfortunately in some cases certain supplements can only come from animal sources.

Be Realistic

The reality is whatever changes you make to your health or diet or supplements you take, wont affect your existing hair at all! It’s the hair that hasn’t grown out yet. Some positive hair changes can take upto six months to appear depending on your nutritional health, emotional, and physical well being. It wont happen over night, but it should happen. Although I noticed that MSM that I took in April last year was positively affecting my bald spots by filling them out, it’s February this year, ten months later, my hair seems to be thickening everywhere else, very slowly mind you, but the spot I need it to thicken the most, is taking the longest although I can see it happening, it just feels like it’s dragging on.

Final Note

Vitamins/minerals are required for everyday life. While our foods should contain the vitamins that we need, the unfortunate reality is that they don’t. don’t take my word for it, read the nutritional panel on whatever food product you may have just purchased and compare that to your daily requirements.

Vitamins are meant to facilitate better health and in my case vanity as well. There are a lot of food supplements that can be used to prevent disease and promote well being but they need to be approached with caution and realism. There’s no such thing as a miracle pill or a super food.