One of the best with perhaps one fatal flaw...

As a chemist I am very aware that some forms of vitamins are better absorbed than others. Rainbow Light's Men's One Multi is very good.



I must start off by saying that no multivitamin is perfect. There is no multivitamin out there that has all vitamins and minerals in the ideal forms nor is there is a multivitamin that will have all your daily nutritional needs in every single area. Supplementation from another source is still going to be necessary... although a good multivitamin can really cut down the cost because if it's a good multi then one will not have to supplement much.



First I want to start off saying that it boggles my mind that Amazon does not provide the nutrition label for any of the supplements that they sell. One has to either go to the store and find the supplement or find it on another website. Amazon needs to fix this problem.



Now about this multivitamin. The things I really like about this multivitamin is that it is 100% natural and a food-based multivitamin. Nothing in this vitamin is synthetic. It doesn't contain any objectionable ingredients like titanium dioxide nor does it contain any fillers.



Another nice thing about this vitamin is that it contains probiotics vegetable extract saw palmetto lycopene etc.



Probably the best feature of this vitamin is that while most vitamin brands use cheap forms of minerals this multi is mainly good with the only exceptions being calcium and magnesium. Other than calcium and magnesium all minerals are in their most absorb-able form either as the citrate form or the amino acid chelate form. The forms you do not want to see are oxide forms of minerals or the carbonate form for calcium. Unfortunately this multi does have calcium as calcium carbonate and magnesium as magnesium oxide. But the fortunate thing about it is that the amounts of calcium and magnesium it uses are very negligible so one will still want to supplement calcium and magnesium elsewhere and from there get one that contains either calcium citrate/malate (not calcium carbonate eggshell calcium or coral calcium) along with magnesium citrate.



This multivitamin also contains vitamin A as 50% beta-carotene which is the safest form of vitamin A. I would prefer that all of the vitamin A would be in the beta-carotene form but as I said earlier no multi is perfect.



Selenium is in its active form as selenomethionine but unfortunately the label doesn't state whether or not it is in the L-selenomethionine form or the D-selenomethionine form. I am assuming it's L-selenomethionine but anyone who has taken an organic chemistry or biochemistry course would know that the chirality of a molecule can make all the difference in the world. But this multi contains 200mcg of selenium which the latest research says is the optimal amount of selenium to get the most health benefits.



To me none of the short comings of this vitamin are really that big of a deal especially since I haven't really found anything much better. Most of the minerals are in their ideal form which is fantastic it has vegetable extracts and it has at least 50% of vitamin A in the beta-carotene form.



Now as I said earlier there is still some supplements that will need to be taken to overcome the short comings of this multi. This multivitamin contains 800IU of vitamin D which according to my doctor the average adult should be taking about 2000IUs daily. So I supplement vitamin D to get the other 1200IU. Another thing is this vitamin contains negligible amounts of calcium & magnesium (which in this case this is good because calcium & magnesium are in their undesirable forms) so one may want to find a calcium & magnesium supplement in their ideal forms.



Other than that everything else in this multi-vitamin is really good and it is rare to find a multi of this quality.



Saying everything I just there is something that can make or break everything about this vitamin. And that is that this multi is in a tablet form. The ideal form of a vitamin is either liquid or capsule because tablets can be hard to digest and in some cases some manufacturers have been found that their vitamins don't dissolve fast enough (and yes this even happens to expensive brands that you'd find in a health food store).



To find this out get a glass of vinegar and heat it to about 98 degrees farenheit (approximately the same temp as the human body) and let this tablet sit in there for about 30 minutes. If it dissolves it should dissolve just fine in the stomach if it doesn't then it is junk. I haven't done this but every good thing about this vitamin would be wasted if it doesn't break down.



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