It’s part of a healthy lifestyle for Cylina Slajda, “I take my vitamins every morning usually, I do my best to do that.”
She takes a multivitamin along with targeted supplements.
“I look for active lifestyle and female. Because i do a lot of runs and competitions like that,” Slajda says.
Vitamins are not only good, they’re essential. And truth is many of us need help.
“What I really recommend to most of my patients and when I talk about this subject, is be academic about it,” says Dr. Sal Lacagnina. He is the VP of Health and Wellness for Lee Memorial Health System.
While millions of Americans spend billions of dollars on vitamins and supplements. Most are self-diagnosing- taking what they want, without knowing what they need.
“Oftentimes what we find is people may be taking a lot of supplements and they have no clue what they’re supposed to be taking,” Dr. Lacagnina says.
A new trend in wellness is to screen for nutritional deficiencies. Low levels are linked to several medical conditions- while overdoing it with mega-doses has a downside too. Getting an accurate read does away with the guesswork.
“There are specialized blood tests that you can use to measure the levels of all of your vitamins, all of your minerals, and all of your antioxidants. Then you can decide what you need to take,” says Dr. Lacagnina.
The next step in a wellness plan- is to use the knowledge to build a better diet.
“The healthiest way to get vitamins in your body is by eating healthy food. A lot of people will substitute and say, ‘if I’m not eating healthy enough, I’ll just take some vitamins’ That’s not a solution.”
Part of finding a proper solution- is to truly target the problem.
View More Health Matters video segments at leememorial.org/healthmatters/
Lee Memorial Health System in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of medical care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For nearly a century, we’ve been providing our community with everything from primary care treatment to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries.
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