Have you ever forgotten to replenish your bottle of vitamins? This is a common problem: we near the end of our bottle, forget to add it to our grocery shopping list, and soon we are out of that essential daily vitamin. The next thing is that you skip a few doses, and you give up your routine. It was a healthy habit that did not stick. On the other end of the spectrum, some online marketplaces, like Amazon, allow you to set an auto-replenish subscription. You click that auto-replenish button, and the vitamins just show up at your doorstep monthly. Problem solved, right? In these models, the vitamin companies do not really know you, so they have no clue if the products are targeted to your needs, or if the products seem to be working for you, or if you acquire too many bottles and need to adjust your shipment cadence. The replenishment process is treated as binomial: ship a single product every month or don’t ship a product at all. For many people, this will lead to products that don’t work for their needs or a pile of unused product.
So, how do you get a targeted product shipped to you at the cadence that you need? Personalized vitamins are an emerging category of product that fit this billing. They build a level of knowledge and intimacy with the consumer that cannot be found in mass market retail stores, or online marketplaces. A personalized vitamin company will get to know you right off the bat through an online survey. These surveys will ask questions about your diet, fitness, health background, health status, demographics, and lifestyle. The collected data is used to targeted a set of vitamin recommendations. Some companies deliver these recommendations in pill packs. These are packaged daily supplements in individual servings. The issue with pill packs is that they can be cumbersome for some consumers. The price and pill load may be unsustainable for most people, except those supplement lovers that are willing to take a handful of pills daily. There are also offerings that focus on customized supplements. In these approaches, the personalized dose is built into a single pill or liquid mix. It is often easier to sustain and afford these types of options. It is always good to search for a company that is physician-led and focuses on single pill personalization. A personalized all-in-one multivitamin is a convenient method to get your calibrated dosing and curated set of nutrients.
How Long Does it Take to Feel the Effects of a Personalized Vitamin?
It takes a long time to lose some nutrients from your system, and therefore, it can take a long time to build them back up. There are certain nutrients can take months to be repleted (such as Iron). Others can take up to a year (such as vitamin D and E which are fat soluble). When people look for personalized vitamins because they want vitamins for energy and tiredness, they may need iron, vitamin D and certain B vitamins that help give you energy. These combinations may help initially with some symptoms, but it can take 6 months or more for some of these vitamins for energy and tiredness to take full effect. In other words, some aspects of a custom vitamin may be helpful in a few weeks, while other benefits may not be apparent for months.
There are other components of personalized vitamins may have benefits that take years to have an impact. For instance, vitamins for your bone health can take years to show they are helping. That is because the absorption of vitamin D, calcium and magnesium into bone and their role in strengthening bones is a slow and prolonged process. We spend the first 35 years of our lives building up our bones and the rest of our lives trying to keep and maximize this strength. Bone health is a slow process to be sure, but one that pays off over decades as we age without fractures and other downfalls of osteoporosis.
People often seek vitamins for sleep improvement. It turns out that taking a personalized vitamin quiz to get personalized vitamins can help with sleep as well. Unlike taking a nightly sleeping pill, getting the right vitamins in an all-in-one personalized vitamin can also help with sleep over time. Repleting important nutrients such as iron can help with restless legs and magnesium with muscle aches. Magnesium also has important functions in bringing about sleep. Regardless, none of these things happen with just a short duration of time. It takes time and patience for iron stores to rebuild and for magnesium to take effect. It also turns out that vitamins for sleep are also vitamins that give you energy since better sleep leads to better energy over time.
Vitamins for heart health also can take extended periods to show effects. Preventing heart disease is certainly not something one can hope to see in weeks or months, but rather this an effect seen after years of taking the right combination of vitamins for heart health.
Yet, there are other nutrients where the effects are seen in a short period of time. It can take weeks to see the impact of nutrients like Biotin on hair and nail growth. A customized dosing of B-vitamins can improve energy levels in a short period of time. And, the right mix of supplements can reduce hot flash symptoms in a short period of time. There is clearly a range in the period of time that it takes for nutrients to demonstrate their efficacy.
Meet Your Personalized Vitamin and Start a Long-Term Relationship
Your personalized vitamin company will get to know you through detailed assessment, and in turn, they will be well-positioned to go with you on a long-term journey of taking a daily vitamin. The company will listen on the front-end to your needs and create a personalized profile of your health and lifestyle. This profile can be used to calibrate, and re-calibrate your formula over time. If you wake up and go on a new diet, you might require a different daily vitamin. If you visit your primary care doctor, and learn that you have heart risk, you might require a different daily vitamin. If you move to a different part of the country with colder climate and less sun exposure, you might require a different daily vitamin. Your personalized vitamin can follow your changes, and update your formula as needed. This is advantageous to keeping you engaged with your vitamin routine, and adherent over the long-term.
Another way that you personalized vitamin company can work with you is through email communication. They can deliver education to your Inbox pertinent to your formula. They can solicit feedback on how the vitamin is performing through follow-up surveys. They can deliver reminders when it is time to reorder your vitamin, so you never run out of stock.
Finally, a personalized vitamin company can allow you to control the cadence of your delivery. Maybe you want less frequent shipments so you can save on shipping costs. Perhaps you have excess inventory and want to slow the delivery of vitamins. These companies are willing to work with you to customize your delivery schedule.
It is important to look for a reputable company with world-class education and leading physician-experts. A community of vitamin takers, facilitated by physicians, can be a powerful forum to understand the benefits of nutritional supplementation and experience the upside of personalization.
