A number of Americans worry about their health, especially as they grow older. And if you’re one of them, you’ve likely heard about vitamins and supplements. But if you haven’t, you may not know about the benefits of these over-the-counter supplements and vitamins. Read more to find out five ways that vitamins and supplements can improve your health.
1. Keep Your Joints Working Effortlessly
As you age, your body begins to lose its ability to perform as well as it used to. One of the first capabilities people often lose is the movement of their joints. But joint health supplements can help with this.
They can not only help you in your day-to-day life but help you stay on top of your athletic activities as well. Calcium is the most likely supplement you’re thinking of for this, as it’s a great way to maintain your bone health and is even thought to help protect against cancer and high blood pressure. But vitamin D is known to be useful for this as well for some of the same reasons, along with its usage with promoting the proper growth and development of teeth and bones, and it helps to support your immune health.
2. Maintain Your Eyesight
Plenty of people struggle with vision issues, both from birth and over time due to sunlight and computer(screen) exposure. Another way supplements may help is by helping people maintain their eyesight. A few big ones here are vitamin C, zinc, and vitamin E. Vitamin C especially protects against damage from UV light and can help prevent cataracts as it wards against oxidative damage.
Zinc supplements can be used to preserve retina health and the protein structure of your eye. One of the most well-known benefits of zinc in the body is that it works with vitamin A to create melanin, which absorbs light including UV rays. Vitamin E also has a role in proper eye health. Studies have shown that it reduces the risk of cataracts as well as age-related macular degeneration.
3. Get Better Sleep
One of the biggest issues plaguing people today is a lack of sleep. But just like the rest of these points, there’s a way to mitigate your sleep problems with supplements. The most notable example of such a supplement is melatonin.
In itself, melatonin is a hormone produced during the dark. Furthermore, it aids the timing of your circadian rhythm, aka your internal clock. Melatonin supplements then help your body understand that it’s time to go to sleep as the supplement matches the hormone your body should be producing.
This is especially helpful for those who travel often and experience jet lag, have anxiety or issues with paranoia, or otherwise deal with insomnia or other sleep disorders. For those with jet lag, it makes the body think that it’s time to rest, which can be helpful, especially for trips to farther places in different time zones. Although the benefits for each person will be dependent based on their individual health and brain makeup, melatonin can be used as a treatment or part of a treatment to help with sleep issues.
But melatonin can have additional benefits outside of helping with sleep. It’s been shown to improve some anxiety symptoms as well by heightening gamma-aminobutyric acid levels.
4. Support Your Plant-Based Diet
If you’re vegetarian or vegan, or just like to eat a more plant-focused diet, you may not be getting the protein or other nutrients that you need. In that case, an easy remedy is taking supplements to help round out your eating habits. An incredibly important vitamin for your health is vitamin B12, which aids protein metabolism and your nervous system’s health.
But those aren’t the only reasons you should be thinking about taking a B12 supplement. As with too little of this vitamin, you may be at risk of anemia and, in severe cases, bone and heart disease.
Another vitamin you should be tracking is your omega-3, which is an acid often found in fish and fish-derived products. These aid brain development and decrease the risk for a number of diseases and mood disorders.
5. Boost Your Immune System Health
Especially following the pandemic, many are concerned no more than in previous years about their immune system health. If you’re interested in giving your immune system a helping hand, one of the easiest ways to do so is by taking an iron supplement. Iron has been noted for years to display incredible benefits for the human body, as it makes hemoglobin and myoglobin, which both aid in delivering and providing oxygen throughout your body.
Take Charge of Your Well-Being
Taking just one supplement a day can improve your health, and with this list, you’ll have a few more reasons to do so. It’s not always possible to get the number of nutrients that you need out of your diet, so taking a vitamin or supplement can make up for that.