It can be hard to maintain a healthy balanced diet with our increasingly busy lifestyles. Add to this an overwhelming amount of contradictory information about health and nutrition now available on the internet,  staying healthy can seem frustrating, and down right confusing to say the least.

I am regularly asked if multi-vitamins are a valuable substitute to have on hand for those days, weeks or even months when diet doesn't get the focus it deserves. To answer this question, it is important to consider all the facts about what we require from vitamins and minerals, and how our body uses them.

Every day, your body produces skin, muscle, and bone. Not only are our bodies focused on maintaining and renewing these incredibly important structural functions, it must also constantly create new red blood cells. Red blood cells are vital as they carry nutrients and oxygen to every cell in your body. Vitamins and minerals also play a pivotal role in sending messages through the nerve system from the brain, to every major organ, maintaining your life sustaining functions.

So, with a better understanding of the role vitamins and minerals play in our bodies, it is easier to assess the importance placed on ensuring we achieve our daily requirements. Whilst there is some evidence that a multi-vitamin pill can be beneficial, the lack of understanding on their interaction inside the body still remains.

To comprehensively claim they are effective, we need evidence of how they dissolve in our system, cross into the blood cells and ultimately preform their required biological function, in the same way a diet based vitamin or mineral would. This is known as bio-availability. Unfortunately there is still insufficient scientific evidence on the products that are available in the market to know if they are bio-available, and in what quantities.

Vitamins, supplements and quick health fixes will always be dubious with regard to the claims they make. Often their claims made are a result of research funded by the large corporations that supply these products. That is not to say that all supplements are not worthwhile, however take claims as marketing and do your own research on whether or not they have value from a scientific viewpoint. It has been well proven that many do not hold health related value, as claimed by the manufacturers and are not worth your hard earned money.

As I tell everyone I speak to about nutrition, we are ALL different. Every single one of us. Our bodies all function in their own unique way and this is most evident when it comes to nutrient absorption and conversion in the body. As our friends at Skittles say, 'Eat the Rainbow' and you have little fear that you are getting all of the nutrients you need.