Supplements for the Winter Season

Winter is here again. Unfortunately for some, the cold weather is synonymous with having to face a range of health concerns. Taking supplements can benefit those with specific health conditions that are likely to occur during these colder temperatures. Below is a list of common winter illnesses along with the appropriate supplements to take for them.

Colds and flu

Colds and flu are quite prevalent during the winter season. At this time of year, it can be beneficial to take supplements that support the immune system such as Vitamin C and zinc. These supplements may reduce the severity and duration of colds and flu, as well as provide relief for their symptoms.

Joint pain

Inflammatory conditions such as arthritis can worsen in cold weather. Glucosamine and chondroitin may help arthritis sufferers manage their pain as these ingredients can reduce inflammation and improve joint function and mobility.

Dry skin

Skin can become dry and itchy during winter. This is often due to the reduced humidity of the environment and decreased blood circulation in the body. Taking vitamin E and omega-3 supplements can help improve circulation and the health of the skin.

Provide your customers with these products to ensure continuing sales for your supplement business during the winter season.

Vitamins for Building Muscles

Certain types of supplement can help build muscles. These supplements can aid in both muscle development and muscle recovery. For a supplement to be effective in body building, it needs to contain the following:

Vitamin D

Vitamin D plays a lot of critical roles in the body. Primarily, it promotes the proper absorption of calcium, which leads to stronger bones and muscles. It also helps reduce inflammation and regulates the immune system.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant essential for the production of collagen—the connective tissue that helps repair worn tendons, and skin tissues. It is also responsible for the health of blood vessels, and helps in the removal of lactic acid from the muscles.

Vitamin E

Vitamin E enhances blood circulation and helps the cell membranes recover quickly from oxidative stress. It also assists in the flushing out of creatine phosphokinase (a protein that often finds its way into the bloodstream during vigorous exercise) more efficiently. It can also protect cells from harmful free radicals.

Vitamin B Complex

B complex is composed of eight vitamins that help the body perform various important functions. Among their many benefits, B complex vitamins are known to ease the breakdown of carbs and proteins, enhance cell development, and boost muscle repair.

Essential Vitamins and Minerals for Men

It is no secret that one of the keys to a healthy life is to maintain a balanced diet. However, having one is always easier said than done. The price increase of many fruits and vegetables has also made it more difficult to eat healthily.

Fortunately, people can still get the daily recommended value of essential vitamins by using vitamin supplements. Men, in particular, should choose a supplement that contains the following vitamins and minerals:

Vitamin K

Although many people think of vitamin K as the supplement given to newborns, even adults still need sufficient amounts of the vitamin. Multiple studies have shown that adequate amounts of vitamin K can help reduce one’s chances of getting liver cancer and prostate cancer.

Vitamin D

Many American men suffer from vitamin D deficiency. This vitamin deficiency is a cause for concern because it has been related to cardiovascular disease. Although the body produces vitamin D when exposed to sunlight, many men use too much sunscreen, inhibiting the amount of vitamin D the body produces, or do not spend enough time under the sun.

Zinc

Zinc provides the immune system a quick boost, allowing men to stave off illnesses that would otherwise interfere with their work. Zinc is also known for helping cells repair themselves and boosting metabolism.

Tips on Choosing Nutritional Supplements

With a vast number of products from private label nutritional supplement manufacturers available, it can be difficult for people to choose which nutritional supplement to take every day. As such, many pick one at random, thinking that all supplements are the same.

While all nutritional supplements do perform the same task, there are different nutritional supplements for different needs. Taking a random one might not give you the vitamins and minerals your body needs, defeating the purpose of taking a supplement in the first place. With that in mind, here are a few tips on choosing the right supplement:

Review Your Diet

Keep in mind that nutritional supplements are supposed to supplement your diet, not replace it. As such, review your typical diet to assess the vitamins and minerals you might not be getting enough of. There are many nutritional diet calculators on the Internet to help you do this.

Supplement Content

Thoroughly read the label of a supplement before purchasing it. Generally, a nutritional supplement should contain vital nutrients like vitamin A, the B vitamins, iron, potassium, and zinc. Prioritize a supplement that contains the vitamins and minerals that your typical diet lacks.

Supplement Levels

After you have found a supplement that contains the vitamins and minerals you need, check the levels for each vitamin and mineral. You will want a supplement that contains at least half of the daily recommended daily amount for the vitamins and minerals you need.

Qualities of a Good Contract Vitamin Manufacturer

Hiring a good contract vitamin manufacturer offers many advantages. Contract vitamin manufacturers allow the employees of the hiring company to concentrate on other tasks, raising productivity and lowering production costs. The arrangement also enables the American population to purchase brand-name vitamins at more affordable prices.

As hiring a contract vitamin manufacturer presents a win-win situation, you might be inclined to hire one for your company. However, you cannot simply select a contract manufacturer at whim. To create high-quality products for your market, you should hire a high-quality contract vitamin manufacturer—or one that possesses the following qualities:

Multiple Successful Clients

A good contract vitamin manufacturer has a good number of clients. Continuously serving multiple successful businesses means that a contract vitamin manufacturer delivers a high standard of work.

Strict Quality Control

Developing vitamin supplements is an intricate procedure; one false move can yield hazardous results. Taking this into consideration, the top contract vitamin manufacturers invest heavily in a strict and efficient quality control program. They also use cGMP-certified methods when creating their client’s products.

Hands-on Partnership

In the end, contract manufacturers know that their clients are in charge. As such, the top contract vitamin manufacturers make an effort to make the production of their client’s products a collaborative effort.

Benefits of Vitamin A

Vitamin A, or retinol, is a vitamin that occurs naturally in both plant and animal tissues. It is indispensable for good health and is especially abundant in foods such as carrots, apricots, broccoli, mangoes, spinach, kale, and liver. In addition to treating vitamin deficiency problems, vitamin A has many preventive and therapeutic benefits.

Immunity

Vitamin A plays an important function in the body’s immune system. It keeps skin and mucous membranes nourished, and when membranes are nourished, they remain resistant to cell damage. The vitamin is also essential to the health of white blood cells that fight off infection in the body.

Vision

Vitamin A is the key to good vision. It allows a person to see in the dark better. Furthermore, vitamin A is believed to be effective against cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, dry eye disorder, and other ocular diseases.

Cancer prevention

Vitamin A prevents cancer by inhibiting DNA production in cancerous cells. It also has the potential to slow down tumor growth in established cancers and keep leukemia cells from dividing.

Most people already receive the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A from their diets. However, physicians still recommend vitamin A supplements for those who have vitamin A deficiencies. Vitamin A deficiency may be caused by digestive disorders or very poor diet.

Three Benefits of Liquid Supplements

Liquid nutritional supplements have been the hottest nutraceutical products in the market for some time now. You may be wondering, “Why is this so?” To enlighten you on the matter, here is an explanation of how liquid supplements work compared with pills and tablets:

• The body must first break down a capsule or a tablet so it can absorb the medicine. The body does not need to break down liquid supplements.

• Capsules or tablets take 20 to 30 minutes to break down before the body can absorb them. It only takes 1 to 4 minutes for the body to absorb liquid supplements.

• The body only uses 39 to 53 percent of capsules or tablets. The body can utilize up to 98 percent of a liquid supplement.

Comparing how they work, one can easily deduce that liquid supplements are ideal for people who have difficulty absorbing nutrients, either because of a medical condition or old age. Having said that, it’s important for you to know that capsules and tablets are not without their own set of advantages. The decision to choose one over the other is simply a matter of preference. However, there’s no denying that liquid supplements are the more popular nutraceutical product nowadays.

Seafaring and Scurvy: Take Your Vitamins, Matey

In previous centuries, traveling by sea was especially brutal. Long voyages, rocked by unpredictable weather, were also complicated by dwindling resources. Diseases were also rampant on ships that were traveling for long periods of time without any supply stops. Of all the diseases faced by seafarers then, one of the most common was scurvy.

Scurvy is a disease brought about by a severe lack of Vitamin C. When afflicted with scurvy, people initially feel fatigued, irritable, or miserable, as well as a nagging pain centralized in the limbs. As the disease progresses, those suffering from scurvy begin to experience severe joint pain and swollen gums, which can result in tooth loss.

Luckily, scurvy can be easily treated by consuming food that is rich in Vitamin C. Unfortunately for sailors then, food rich in Vitamin C, such as oranges and dark leafy greens, were perishable, making it a poor choice of rations for ships on long voyages. As such, most ships opted to bring dried or salted meats and grain.

Today, scurvy is not as feared as it was before because people now have a better understanding of what causes it. As mentioned above, the key to avoiding scurvy is to get the recommended amount of Vitamin C. Sailors before had to do this by consuming certain fruits and vegetables. Nowadays, seafarers—and everyone else—can also do it by taking a Vitamin C supplement.

Vitamin Supplements for Better Nutrition

According to a study conducted by Health Canada, US and Canadian crops have up to 75% less nutrients compared to the same types of crops from the 1950s. This is largely attributed to the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, a practice that has been recently countered by a move towards organic farming.

Given this decrease in the nutritional value of some food, it is highly recommended for people to use vitamin supplements to get the necessary vitamins and minerals they need. The role of multivitamins is also highlighted by the fact that, despite the importance of a proper diet, not everyone has access to the prescribed amount of food groups because of problems with availability, convenience, preexisting medical conditions, etc.

Sadly, some people think that the use of multivitamins is an excuse to eat poorly, thinking that the pills are enough to keep them healthy. But these pills are only meant to enhance a diet by providing certain vitamins and minerals that food does not have enough of (Vitamin D, among others). Enhancing a poor diet can hardly be considered just as good as enhancing a good diet. As such, multivitamin supplements work hand-in-hand with a balanced diet to provide a person with proper nutrition.

With this in mind, understanding the nutritional value of your overall diet can help pinpoint the type of vitamin supplement you need.

The Value of Calcium and Vitamin D in the Body

Calcium and vitamin D are like a married couple that the body can never do without. Calcium is a nutrient found in many foods like cheese, milk, yogurt, sardines, and dark leafy greens like turnip, kale, and spinach; and is necessary for strong healthy bones. Vitamin D, on the other hand, aids the body in proper calcium absorption. Inadequate vitamin D in the body can lead to thin, brittle bones and dental problems.

Ideally, calcium should be taken in several doses of 500 mg or less received throughout the day. Dairy and soy products are the best natural sources of calcium. Meanwhile, a 5- to 30-minute sun exposure between 10 am and 3 pm at least twice a week can give the body enough vitamin D. It is however prudent to limit sun exposure due to the risk of skin cancer. Regarding food sources, foods that are rich in vitamin D include fish such as mackerel, salmon, and tuna.

Osteoporosis is a disease that’s often associated with insufficient calcium and vitamin D intake. Osteoporosis is a “silent disease”, which means it produces no obvious signs or symptoms; and can strike when you least expect it. With this in mind, it is, thus, important to ensure that your diet includes enough calcium and vitamin D.

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/features/10-calcium-rich-foods