Supplements Guide: Side Effects & Best Multivitamins

Vitamins and supplements like melatonin and fish oil offer health benefits but can cause side effects if misused. Learn about the impact of saw palmetto on blood pressure and find the best multivitamins for young women and adults over 50.

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Is Melatonin Safe for Kids?

Short-term use of melatonin supplements as a sleep aid is generally considered safe for otherwise healthy children if approved by the child's healthcare provider. The safety of long-term use in children remains uncertain.

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Nutrition Facts for Prawns

Prawns are a shrimp-like shellfish in the biological group of marine animals known as the decapods. Despite some anatomical differences between true shrimp and prawns, these closely related creatures are nearly identical from a nutritional perspective, due to similar feeding habits and body composition.

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Vitamin B for a Burning Mouth

The B complex vitamins include eight water-soluble nutrients that support your body systems. A deficiency of one or more of the B vitamins can cause numerous, diverse symptoms, including a burning mouth. Lack of B vitamins in your diet or abnormal absorption from your intestines can lead to a deficiency.

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Side Effects of Too Much T4

The thyroid gland produces the hormones thyroxine, or T4, and triiodothyronine, or T3. The thyroid hormones circulate in the bloodstream and act on nearly all body tissues, influencing the pace of activity, or metabolism. Too much T4 and T3 characterizes the condition known as hyperthyroidism.

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A List of Fat-Soluble Vitamins

Your body requires fat-soluble vitamins to support a variety of tissue and organ functions. Fat-soluble vitamins differ from water-soluble vitamins in that your body stores fat-soluble vitamins, primarily in the liver.

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What Is the Function of Folic Acid?

Folic acid is the supplemental, inactive form of the naturally occurring B vitamin folate. Once absorbed into your body, folic acid is converted into metabolically active folate.

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Should Calcium and Iron Supplements Be Taken Together?

Dietary supplements are big business in the United States. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that approximately 53 percent of the adult population takes at least one nutritional supplement. Calcium is the leading mineral supplement taken by Americans.

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Potassium and Acidosis

Balance among electrically charged atoms and molecules is essential to maintaining chemical equilibrium in your body. Potassium is the most abundant, positively charged atom inside your cells. Because acids and potassium both have a positive electrical charge in your body, their concentrations are interdependent.

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Low Vitamin D & Muscle Twitching

Vitamin D modulates calcium metabolism, which affects your bone health and muscle function. The contraction and relaxation of your muscles occurs in response to nerve stimulation that triggers rapid calcium flow between compartments within your muscle cells.

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What Are the Symptoms of Potassium Deficiency?

Potassium is one of the body’s most important minerals. It is present in every cell of the human body. In solution -- as it is in the body -- potassium carries a positive electrical charge and is one of the body’s four main electrolytes along with sodium, chloride and bicarbonate.

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