Women’s Health Supplements Buying Guide

Women have unique health needs that have to be addressed. Everything from breast cancer to osteoporosis needs to be understood, and women need to be educated in order to find the best supplements to help them with their various health needs. Understanding your body and how key nutrients play into your choice for multivitamin supplements will help you find the best possible solutions for your unique health needs.

Which Nutrients Matter

When it comes to buying women’s health supplements, you need to find the ones with key ingredients that will benefit your health the most. Important nutrients to look for include:

• DHA

  DHA is an omega-3 fatty acid that is found in cold water fish and seaweed. This ingredient is critical in supporting proper brain function, and can also aid in lowering the risk of heart disease. DHA has also been shown to provide assistance in other health conditions and diseases.

• Calcium

  Most people know that Calcium is critical for strong bones. Women are especially prone to losing bone density in their lifetime and are far more likely than men to develop osteoporosis, which is a brittle bone disease. Calcium also aids in weight management, giving women better overall health than those who don’t get enough calcium in their diet.

• Folic Acid

  Folic Acid is one of the B vitamins, and has many different uses and benefits. This vitamin helps prevent anemia and is also recommended during pregnancy to offer health benefits to the fetus as well as the woman. Folic acid can prevent stroke and heart disease and offer support for memory loss, aging, restless leg syndrome, sleeplessness and other sleep disorders, and other common ailments. It has also been shown to aid in the prevention of colon cancer and cervical cancer.

• B Vitamins

  B vitamins can help with everything from stress relief to memory and migraines, for all types of people. There are 11 B vitamins in total, and each offers a different type of support for the mind. These vitamins can reduce stress, relieve anxiety, fight depression, support a healthy memory, reduce the risk of heart disease, and even relieve some common symptoms of PMS in some women. Plus, these vitamins are responsible for boosting energy.

• Selenium

  Selenium has many different health benefits that you can appreciate, including antioxidant powers, the ability to lower blood sugar, and even a 39% reduction in cancer deaths in one study alone. Selenium can decrease clotting risks, improve the HDL/LDL ratio (good/bad cholesterol), and support a healthy immune system and support a healthy heart while staving off heart disease.

• Vitamin A

  Vitamin A offers assistance with eye health, skin health, prevention of cancer, and can aid in faster recovery from serious illness or injury. For women, the eye health benefits of Vitamin A are critical since blindness and vision loss are such a part of women’s health issues.

• Beta carotene

  Beta carotene provides anti aging benefits, anti cancer benefits, and even support for the immune system. This nutrient is designed to support the immune system while fighting free radicals to help women get the most from their health. It can help prevent heart disease, respiratory disease, cancer, diabetes, and other health issues as well.

• Lysine

  Lysine is revered as an amino acid that helps with bone growth and strength. It also assists with collagen formation in general, helping the skin, tendons, ligaments, and cartilage in the body. Lysine is also being studied as a treatment for osteoporosis for women who are past the point of prevention. Immune system support also comes from this amino acid.

• Iron

  Having enough iron can offer many different benefits, including improved brain function, muscle function, body temperature regulation, immune system, sleep and concentration. Iron is critical for many health reasons, and is responsible for carrying oxygen throughout the body, which is why it is such an incremental part of health for women and men alike. Women, however, tend to be more iron-deficient than men.

Why Buy From Maxalife?

Maxalife products are always created with you in mind. Our company was founded by people who are passionate about healthy living and finding natural solutions for health issues. Every supplement that we create is made from the purest and most natural ingredients so that you get everything that you need and nothing that you don’t. Maxalife’s Womens Multi-vitamins has been carefully created to be 100% natural, providing the extra boost of nutrients that your body needs.

When you buy from Maxalife, you will also enjoy our 6-month, 100% money-back guarantee. We understand that these supplements take time to work, and we’re willing to let you wait and see what happens.

You will appreciate the benefits that you receive from products like MX Womens Multi-vitamins over time, and if you don’t you can send them back for a full refund. You aren’t risking a thing when you buy from us because you’ll get high-quality supplements that are proven effective and a guarantee for any situation that causes you to change your mind about the products that you have purchased.

When you purchase Maxalife products, you’re getting the best of everything for an affordable price, and that’s why our company is the best for natural supplements and multivitamins.

Received 11 May 1999; Accepted 11 May 1999. Available online 7 October 1999.

Abstract

Objective: To review the current literature on nutrition to provide a basis for counseling patients.

Design: Literature review.

Result(s): Studies on nutrition and nutritional supplements in women’s health are found primarily in literature not typically read by reproductive endocrinologists and gynecologist/obstetricians. A surprising number of people do not receive the vitamins and minerals that they need. Soy and soy isoflavones should be considered an important part of the diet.

Conclusion(s): A better understanding of nutrition and nutritional supplements may reduce or prevent illness, saving the health care system millions of dollars each year.

Multivitamin use and breast cancer outcomes in women with early-stage breast cancer: the Life After Cancer Epidemiology study.

Kwan ML, Greenlee H, Lee VS, Castillo A, Gunderson EP, Habel LA, Kushi LH, Sweeney C, Tam EK, Caan BJ.

Division of Research, Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA 94612, USA. Marilyn.L.Kwan@kp.org

Abstract

Little is known about the relation of multivitamin use to breast cancer outcomes. 2,236 women diagnosed from 1997 to 2000 with early-stage breast cancer (Stage I = 1 cm, II, or IIIA) were enrolled about 2 years post-diagnosis, primarily from the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Cancer Registry (83%). Multivitamin use pre-diagnosis and post-diagnosis was assessed via mailed questionnaire. Outcomes were ascertained yearly by self-report and verified by medical record review. Delayed-entry Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI), adjusting for sociodemographic, tumor, and lifestyle factors. Overall, 54 and 72% of the cohort reported using multivitamins pre- and post-diagnosis, respectively. A total of 380 recurrences, 212 breast cancer deaths, and 396 total deaths were confirmed. Compared to never use, multivitamin use after diagnosis was not associated with any outcome (recurrence HR = 0.92; 95% CI: 0.71, 1.20; total mortality HR = 0.92; 95% CI: 0.71, 1.19). Compared to never use, persistent use of multivitamins from pre- to post-diagnosis was associated with a non-significant decreased risk of recurrence (HR = 0.76; 95% CI: 0.54, 1.06) and total mortality (HR = 0.79; 95% CI: 0.56, 1.12). The protective associations were limited to women who had been treated by radiation only (P for trend = 0.048 and 0.083 for recurrence and total mortality, respectively) and both radiation and chemotherapy (P for trend = 0.015 and 0.095 for recurrence and total mortality, respectively). In stratified analyses, women who consistently used multivitamins before and after diagnosis and ate more fruits/vegetables (P for trend = 0.008) and were more physically active (P for trend = 0.034) had better overall survival. Multivitamin use along with practice of other health-promoting behaviors may be beneficial in improving breast cancer outcomes in select groups of survivors.

PMID: 21559824 [PubMed - in process]

A Randomized Controlled Trial

David D. Waters, MD; Edwin L. Alderman, MD; Judith Hsia, MD; Barbara V. Howard, PhD; Frederick R. Cobb, MD; William J. Rogers, MD; Pamela Ouyang, MD; Paul Thompson, MD; Jean Claude Tardif, MD; Lyall Higginson, MD; Vera Bittner, MD; Michael Steffes, MD, PhD; David J. Gordon, MD, PhD; Michael Proschan, PhD; Naji Younes, PhD; Joel I. Verter, PhD

JAMA.2002;288(19):2432-2440. doi:10.1001/jama.288.19.2432

ABSTRACT

Context: Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and antioxidant vitamins are widely used for secondary prevention in postmenopausal women with coronary disease, but no clinical trials have demonstrated benefit to support their use.

Objective: To determine whether HRT or antioxidant vitamin supplements, alone or in combination, influence the progression of coronary artery disease in postmenopausal women, as measured by serial quantitative coronary angiography.

Design, Setting, and Patients: The Women's Angiographic Vitamin and Estrogen (WAVE) Trial, a randomized, double-blind trial of 423 postmenopausal women with at least one 15% to 75% coronary stenosis at baseline coronary angiography. The trial was conducted from July 1997 to January 2002 in 7 clinical centers in the United States and Canada.

Interventions: Patients were randomly assigned in a 2 × 2 factorial design to receive either 0.625 mg/d of conjugated equine estrogen (plus 2.5 mg/d of medroxyprogesterone acetate for women who had not had a hysterectomy), or matching placebo, and 400 IU of vitamin E twice daily plus 500 mg of vitamin C twice daily, or placebo.

Main Outcome Measure: Annualized mean (SD) change in minimum lumen diameter (MLD) from baseline to concluding angiogram of all qualifying coronary lesions averaged for each patient. Patients with intercurrent death or myocardial infarction (MI) were imputed the worst rank of angiographic outcome.

Results: The mean (SD) interval between angiograms was 2.8 (0.9) years. Coronary progression, measured in mean (SD) change, worsened with HRT by 0.047 (0.15) mm/y and by 0.024 (0.15) mm/y with HRT placebo (P= .17); and for antioxidant vitamins by 0.044 (0.15) mm/y and with vitamin placebo by 0.028 (0.15) mm/y (P= .32). When patients with intercurrent death or MI were included, the primary outcome showed an increased risk for women in the active HRT group (P= .045), and suggested an increased risk in the active vitamin group (P= .09). Fourteen patients died in the HRT group and 8 in the HRT placebo group (hazard ratio [HR], 1.8; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.75-4.3), and 16 in the vitamin group and 6 in the vitamin placebo group (HR, 2.8; 95% CI, 1.1-7.2). Death, nonfatal MI, or stroke occurred in 26 HRT patients vs 15 HRT controls (HR, 1.9; 95% CI, 0.97-3.6) and in 26 vitamin patients and 18 vitamin controls (HR, 1.5; 95% CI, 0.80-2.9). There was no interaction between the 2 treatment interventions.

Conclusion: In postmenopausal women with coronary disease, neither HRT nor antioxidant vitamin supplements provide cardiovascular benefit. Instead, a potential for harm was suggested with each treatment.