One A Day is a multivitamin product developed by Bayer, a global healthcare corporation. The One A Day label includes multivitamin products specifically for men, women and targeted to different lifestyles. The benefit of taking a multivitamin is to supplement a healthy diet and provide essential nutrients that are not obtained through dietary sources. Determining how many pills to take depends on your health needs and the amount that poses a risk for hypervitaminosis, or vitamin toxicity.
Products
Bayer seems to have a multivitamin product to meet nearly every need. There's a One A Day multivitamin for men and women of all ages, men and women over 50, women's prenatal, vitamins for active lifestyles, teens, healthy skin and candy-like gummie vitamins for grownups. These products contain all of the essential vitamins necessary for healthy functioning. Bayer's products also include vitamins formulated for the unique concerns of particular audiences: For example, Women's 50+ contains ginkgo for memory and concentration.
Dosing
The Institute of Medicine, or IOM, has developed recommended daily allowance, RDA, guidelines and adequate intake suggestions for all essential vitamins and nutrients, as well as safe upper levels of intake, or UL. Before taking two One A Day multivitamins, you should talk to your doctor about your unique needs, find out the vitamin and mineral RDA established by the IOM and compare that to the vitamins in the One A Day product of your choice. If one vitamin already meets your daily RDA, that does not necessarily mean you cannot take two, as the UL is often much higher than amounts found in commercial vitamins. Also, people with a vitamin deficiency often need much more than the RDA.
Recommended Daily Allowance
One A Day Women's Health, a multivitamin any woman can take, contains 2,500 IU of vitamin A, 60 mg of vitamin C, 1,000 IU of vitamin D, and many other vitamins. According to the Office of Dietary Supplements, healthy adult females need 2,310 IU of vitamin A, 75 mg of vitamin C and 600 IU of vitamin D. Based on official guidelines, taking a single One A Day multivitamin will not meet a woman's requirements for some vitamins, such as vitamin C. As long as the UL is more than double the dose offered by your One A Day multivitamin -- unless your doctor instructs otherwise -- taking two pills should not put you at risk for toxicity.
Considerations
Experts agree that the best way to get the RDA of vitamins and minerals is through diet. Whether taking a multivitamin will improve your health, however, is still inconclusive. In 2009, researchers from the Women's Health Initiative study found that taking a multivitamin did little to improve cardiovascular health or thwart major cancers, indicating the possibility that multivitamins could be useless in disease prevention.
In one respect, taking more than one pill does pose a concern. In 2007, MSNBC reported that out of 21 major commercial vitamin brands on the market in the United States and Canada, just 10 satisfied the claims stated on their packaging or met quality standards. Additionally, many products contained vitamins in amounts that differed from what was listed on the label, potentially putting individuals who take more than one serving -- or one pill -- at risk for health complications.
References
- Hoovers: Bayer HealthCare AG
- HuffPost Health: Vitamins, How Many Americans Use Them? April 2011
- University of Nebraska NebGuide: Upper Safe Levels of Intake for Adults, Vitamins and Minerals
- Office of Dietary Supplements: Vitamin A
- Office of Dietary Supplements: Vitamin C
- Office of Dietary Supplements: Vitamin D
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