Multivitamins have become a staple of the health community for many reasons. Not only do they fill in nutritional gaps in your diet that may form as a result of unbalanced meals or poor food quality, but they do so with ease and convenience. Your goal should always be to consume the nutrients your body needs directly through your diet, but juggling meal plans on top of all your other responsibilities can sometimes be impossible. Multivitamins are a great all-in-one solution that gives you some extra peace of mind knowing that your body always has a ready supply of vitamins and minerals.

If you are still at an early step in your journey with supplements, however, figuring out the smaller details can be overwhelming. There are tons of questions that surround the creation of a multivitamin regimen, such as how much should you be taking, which specific nutrients are necessary to have every day, what is the best type of multivitamin for efficient absorption, and many more. In this article, we will focus on answering questions pertaining to the proper dosage for liquid multivitamins for adults and how that dosage may vary according to unique situations. Remember that you should always discuss a new supplement with your physician before starting to take it on a regular basis.

Following Instructions and RDAs

When figuring out your liquid multivitamin dosage, one of the more important sources to check is the label of the supplement brand you have chosen. It will contain instructions on how much of your multivitamin you should be taking each day. This dosage may vary for age groups, with toddlers being on the lower side and adults receiving a higher amount. Most multivitamins will likely require adults to take somewhere between 1-2 mL of the supplement in order to gain the full effect of the nutrients. In fact, our Liquid Daily multivitamin recommends that adults take 2 mL each day, children and teens (4-17)  take 1 mL, and toddlers (1-3) take 0.5 mL. This range depends on the variation in amounts of nutrients that your body needs at each age level.

One of the factors that supplement brands take into consideration when deciding on dosage instructions for their product is recommended dietary allowance (RDA). The RDA for any given nutrient indicates the amount that your body needs to consume on a daily basis in order to stay healthy. Since all vitamins and minerals play their own unique roles within the body, their RDAs will vary. Let’s look at the minerals zinc and calcium as an example. Zinc is a trace mineral, meaning your body does not need a lot of it to function. The RDA for zinc is about 8-11 mg, depending on age and gender. Calcium, on the other hand, is a macromineral, which is required by your body in much higher amounts (1). The RDA for calcium is 1,000 mg, basically 100 times more than zinc.

When crafting a supplement’s formula, brands need to keep RDAs for the various nutrients in mind. Many do not include macronutrients like calcium and instead choose to focus on micronutrients like trace minerals and the essential vitamins. Liquid Daily in particular uses a blend of micronutrients that contains only the highest quality formats of the following vitamins and minerals: vitamins A, E, D, and K, the B complex vitamins, zinc, selenium, iodine, chromium, and silicone dioxide. With these vital nutrients mixed into our formula alongside an organic fruit blend, just 2 mL of Liquid Daily when taken on a regular basis can potentially supplement your diet with an added boost of nutrition.

Variations in Standard Dosage

Depending on your unique health situation, you may need to take more or less of your supplement to properly accommodate your needs. This is particularly common in the case of a deficiency. Your doctor may require that you take a slightly higher dose of a supplement containing the nutrient that your body is currently lacking. In this case, and in all cases, it is always best to follow the instructions of your physician and take your supplements carefully.

Additionally, pre-existing health conditions may require you to consume less of a particular nutrient or avoid it entirely. These are known as contraindications, and they can have a drastic impact on both the supplements you choose and the amount that you take. Below, we have provided a list of contraindications commonly associated with multivitamins (2):

• Iron metabolism disorder - increased iron storage.
• An overload of iron in the blood.
• Hemolytic anemia - a type of blood disorder where the red blood cells burst.
• An ulcer from too much stomach acid.
• Gastritis - a type of stomach irritation.
• Ulcerative colitis - an inflammatory condition of the intestines.
• Diverticular disease.
• Excess iron due to repeated blood transfusions.

If any of these conditions apply to you, then you should exercise a bit of extra caution when choosing a supplement. Pay close attention to the ingredients listed as well as their amounts and be sure to ask your doctor before officially starting the regimen.

Resources

1. “Macromineral.” Britannica, 2021, https://www.britannica.com/science/macromineral.
2. “Who Should Not Take Multivitamin?” WebMD, 2021, https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-163552/multi-vitamin-oral/details/list-contraindications.