A daily multivitamin supplement with minerals may keep the doctor away. Multivitamins are an easy, convenient way to help ensure that your body gets all of the nutritional support it needs every day. But how to choose? With so many choices out there, the Wellness Advisor asked our Wellness Expert, Lynn Laboranti, MS RD, to help us sort through he differences and make the right choice about which multivitamin you should be taking.

Wellness Advisor: What is a multivitamin? What does it contain?

Lynn Laboranti: A multivitamin should contain 100% of the FDA recommended daily values for eleven vitamins and seven minerals. The key function of nutrients like vitamins and minerals in the human body is to serve as essential components in important chemical reactions. There are 13 different known vitamins, each having a key role to play in our bodies. There are at least 18 minerals that our bodies need for the proper make up of bone and blood and for maintenance of normal cell function.

WA: How do I choose a multivitamin?

A Quality Statement: Quality statements represent a manufacturer’s promise to offer high-quality, standardized products, and can come in the form of quality statements on the bottle or quality seals. Consumers should look for a name they recognize on these emblems or a seal from a health group that endorses the brand. Nature Made, for example, carries a company-wide guarantee for purity and potency standards on all of its products, and more recently, additional a United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) statement on many of these supplements. Nature Made` s vitamin E was the first dietary supplement to participate in USP`s Dietary Supplement Verification Program (DSVP), and now has all of its single-letter vitamin and mineral products carry the DSVP mark. The new DSVP mark appears on the front label of approved supplements and verifies the product`s quality, purity and composition. USP is a not-for-profit organization that has set drug and supplement quality standards since 1820.

Check the Date: Expiration dates are put on vitamin bottles to let consumers know how long the contents will be effective. After the expiration date, the vitamins will have aged to a point that they no longer contain the Daily Values indicated on the bottle.

Identifiable Information: The lot number is a series of letters and numbers important for tracking the supplement’s history in case there are any specific questions concerning the product purchased.

Contact Information: There should be a hotline and a web site for help. Dietary supplements that promote a toll-free number and a web site are indicators that a manufacturer is interested in sharing information with the public and is available to answer consumer questions. Nature Made’s Consumer Affairs department can be reached by calling 1-800-276-2878 between the hours of 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Pacific Time. Consumers can also visit www.naturemade.com to locate answers to many questions about vitamins and minerals or ask a specific question to the nutritionists via e-mail.

Warning: Warnings help to alert consumers about protective safety seals on the product, which should remain intact at time of purchase, and help caution them of the potential adverse effects of taking a supplement. People on prescription medication, pregnant or lactating mothers, or people with allergies should look for warnings on package labels. Quality manufacturers will alert consumers about taking a supplement under such conditions and suggest they contact a health care provider before taking a the product.

WA: How do I choose which multivitamin formula is right for me?

Laboranti: Nature Made offers various multivitamin formulas that are based on the nutritional needs of each gender and stage of life. Nutritional requirements change with age, especially for women, as they experience various changes in their lifecycle--such as menstruation, pregnancy/lactation, and menopause. Nature Made multivitamin formulas can `supplement` a healthy diet to meet individual nutritional needs.