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Vitamins for Age

As you age, your body's needs change. Your ability to take in certain natural vitamins gets more difficult as your activities and skin condition change. Fortifying your diet with the right foods or dietary supplements ensures you are receiving the right things that will help you remain active and healthy for many more years to come.

  1. Calcium

    • After age 55, your risk of developing osteoporosis increases significantly. Your risk, as a woman, is even higher. Calcium helps decrease this risk and slows the bone degeneration in patients who have osteoporosis. Staving off this condition requires a daily dose of 1200 mg of calcium. Your body can digest only up to 600mg of calcium at one time, which is approximately two cups of milk. Adding two cups of milk to your breakfast and dinner is optimal. If you are lactose intolerant, supplements or a calcium alternative will work but remember to include 600mg of calcium twice each day.

    Vitamin D

    • Vitamin D is required to help your body absorb your calcium intake. After age 50, your body can no longer synthesize vitamin D from the sun as well as it could when you were younger. To handle the amount of calcium that you are taking in, you need 400 IU (international units) of vitamin D. This number increases to 600 IU after age 70. The quantity of vitamin D found in natural sources is too low to sustain a normal diet. Supplements are more appropriate method to reach the vitamin D intake that your body requires each day.

    B-12

    • Vitamin B-12 helps maintain cognitive mental functions, memory and supports a healthy nervous system. Supplements are the easiest way to reach the 2.4 micrograms that your body needs each day; however, a diet that is high in meat can be effective. Liver and mollusks are two extremely high sources of vitamin B-12.

    Vitamins E and C

    • Both vitamin E and vitamin C are excellent sources of antioxidants. Antioxidants help prevent some of the worst diseases of aging such as cancer, Alzheimer's, cataracts as well as the physical degeneration that comes with aging. You need 15mg of vitamin E everyday, which is found in seeds, nuts, leafy vegetables and tomatoes. You need 60mg of vitamin C everyday, and the most common source of this is orange juice or natural oranges. Steamed broccoli is another high source of vitamin C, providing your daily necessity for the vitamin in a single cup. Supplements allow you to control this dose.

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