When it comes to vitamins and minerals, multiple pills aren’t necessary
Published by: AARP
Taking a dietary supplement or two (or five) every day isn’t exactly uncommon. About 70 percent of adults age 60 and older reported taking at least one supplement in the past month — be it a multivitamin or a chocolate-flavored calcium chew, a 2017 study published in The Journal of Nutrition found. About 30 percent took at least four.
Calcium
As we age, our bodies typically don’t absorb vitamins and minerals as well as they used to. The poster child for this is calcium, and a deficiency can lead to bone fractures and, eventually, falls. If you don’t get enough calcium from dairy, leafy greens, and other calcium-rich foods (and women over 50 and men over 70 often don’t, according to the National Institutes of Health), your body sources it from your bones, making them weaker. A lack of consistent, weight-bearing exercise can make this worse.
Postmenopausal women are especially at risk for weak bones. According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, 1 in 2 women over 50 will break a bone due to the bone-weakening disease osteoporosis; for men, it’s up to 1 in 4. A woman’s chance of fracturing a hip is about the same as her risk of developing breast, uterine, and ovarian cancer combined. But a hip fracture is more likely to be fatal for men. So it’s not just women who should mind their calcium intake.
Because of this, you should try to get as much calcium as you can from healthful foods — dairy, broccoli, kale, salmon, sardines, and various calcium-fortified grains — and take a calcium supplement only if your doctor says you’re not getting enough from your diet.
Vitamin D
Calcium works best when it’s taken alongside vitamin D, which assists in its absorption from the gut. Vitamin D, like calcium, is crucial for bone health. It also supports the immune and nervous systems and may even benefit the heart.
A vitamin D deficiency is often the result of two things that are becoming more common among Americans: obesity and not enough exposure to sunlight. Safe sun exposure is key, of course, because too much can cause skin cancer.
Even if you’re getting enough sunshine, it might not do the trick, because the aging process interferes with the skin’s ability to make vitamin D. Having darker skin does too. People with Crohn’s disease and celiac disease are also more likely to have a vitamin D deficiency.
Vitamin B12
Remember how aging makes it harder for the body to use calcium? And to make vitamin D?
When it comes to vitamin B12, older adults are also at a disadvantage. That’s because aging impacts the body’s ability to absorb this essential nutrient, which plays an important role in regulating blood, nerve, and genetic health, according to the NIH.
Older adults who are vegetarian or vegan, who take the antidiabetic medication metformin, or who take gastric acid inhibitors to treat certain digestion problems are even more likely to be B12-deficient. And just like with vitamin D, people with Crohn’s or celiac disease are also more likely to have a B12 deficiency.
If you do have a vitamin B12 deficiency — and it’s estimated that between 3 and 43 percent of older adults do — you will be more likely to develop anemia. A B12 deficiency can also lead to neuropathy or nerve damage (which may feel like tingling or numbness in your hands or feet), balance issues, depression, confusion, poor memory, and even dementia-like symptoms.