Testing For Vitamins
Should you get tested?
Many patients do not realize how many common medications and conditions can deplete levels of essential vitamins and nutrients. Vitamins and nutrients are important to several body processes. Simply put vitamin deficiency can cause many common medical problems including constipation, dry skin, low sexual desire, and polycystic ovarian syndrome. Also many people do not realize that a lot of over the counter vitamins do not really contain appropriate levels of active ingredients. In fact many of these vitamins can contain absolutely nothing. This continues to happen as a recent case in New York has shown.
Many patients think they are doing well by taking a general multivitamin. But do you know if that vitamin is replacing your specific deficiencies? After that do you even know about the quality of your vitamin manufacturer? You may be taking a vitamin that is not adequately replacing your deficiencies or replacing vitamins that you don't need.
There are specific blood tests that can be done in order to find our your specific vitamin or nutrient deficiencies. Many times these tests are covered by your insurance with a co-pay and some are available on a direct pay basis. For an example of some of these test check here. We recommend that if you have any questions about your nutritional status you may want to consider getting tested to make sure you are getting all the vitamins and nutrients that you need!