With today's busy lifestyle, it's often difficult to ensure that you are getting all the fresh food you need for a healthy diet. The best advice is to eat a balanced diet, however many factors may impact on our diet and our nutrient levels. Some of these include lifestyle, eating patterns and even the way we store and prepare food.

If you can't achieve optimal vitamin and mineral intake with your diet alone, a vitamin and mineral supplement is recommended. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (or JAMA) recommends that all adults take a multivitamin supplement to combat sub-optimal levels of vitamins and minerals.¹

The purpose of a multivitamin and mineral supplement is just that - to supplement the diet, not replace it. A multivitamin and mineral supplement is convenient and it provides peace of mind that we are achieving the recommended dietary intakes of essential vitamins and minerals everyday.

Inadequate or subtle deficiencies in several vitamins are risk factors for chronic illness and most people do not consume optimal amounts of vitamins from diet alone.¹ The JAMA study recommended that all adults take a multivitamin supplement everyday in the interest of maintaining good health and preventing chronic illnesses.¹

With so many multivitamin and mineral supplements available it is often difficult to choose the one that is best suited to your needs.

A good multivitamin and mineral supplement should have the right balance and range of essential vitamins and minerals to help promote health and to prevent illness.

It will also have levels close to the recommended daily dose of vitamins and minerals that are not readily available in the western diet and, at the same time, should not contain an over supply of nutrients that are overly abundant in the western diet. It also should not have an over supply of fat-soluble vitamins in order to avoid the risk of toxicity.

A comprehensive study of multivitamin and mineral supplements by the Human Nutrition Unit at the University of Sydney found that the vast majority of supplements available in Australia do not contain all of the 13 established vitamins or do not contain amounts close to the recommended daily requirements.

Of the 163 products that were surveyed, and based on the following three criteria:

• It should be complete and contain all 13 established vitamins
• It should be balanced and contain ingredients in the proportions of their nutrient reference values
• It should contain only nutrients and not contain any pharmacologically active ingredient, herbal or other.

Centrum was named one of the best multivitamin supplements available in Australia.²