Best Multivitamin for Men 2020

In the age of ‘too-muchness’, we lack what’s important. Too much communication, not enough connection. Too much information, not enough understanding. Too much food, not enough nutrients.

We’re in a unique era where food is abundant and everywhere, and yet we struggle to maintain adequate nutrient levels. Perhaps this has always been an issue and, in fact, we’re actually better now than we’ve ever been at staying well-nourished.

But well-nourishment doesn’t exactly come easy nor without discipline.

“Being healthy” is almost a skill, these days. It requires studying, practicing, and dedicating a not insignificant amount of time to maintaining. Hence the interest in supplements, namely multivitamin supplements, which, all things considered, possess the potential to save men a hell of a lot of time.

So long as we know which are the best multivitamins for men…

…Which, funny enough!, is the topic of this article: The Best Multivitamins for Men to Buy in 2020.

If you just want the quick answer, you can check out the highest rated multivitamin here: www.performancelab.com.

However, if you want to know everything you need about multivitamins, let’s first cover the preliminaries, such as:

Why Should Men Take a Multivitamin Supplement?

Or perhaps first we should ask: Should men take a multivitamin supplement?

The attitude a lot of people have towards multivitamins tend to be, “Sure, why not? It’s not like it’s hurting anything.” And this is true: multivitamins almost never come with any harsh side effects or any long-term negative impact on health. People sort of take them with a shrug and get on with their day.

But this attitude obscures the true, important, life-essential benefits of taking a multivitamin supplement. In fact, for many who stick with a multivitamin for the long run, they actually wake up one day surprised realizing, “Wow, I actually feel good and I’ve been feeling good, and I’m only just noticing.” This is the realization that multivitamins work and that they fulfill a void in one’s diet otherwise gone unnoticed.

It’s not until your micronutrient levels are up to par that you realize how shitty it feels to be constantly malnourished.

They say ignorance is bliss, but that doesn’t mean that “bliss” is a good thing. If anything, it means that bliss is a state of being happy with a much lesser version of yourself than you can be. So, with that, I warn you: if you keep reading, you can no longer claim ignorance and blissfulness. Instead, you’ll realize where your inadequacies are, which is a painful realization, and know how to address those inadequacies, which is power.

If any of the following health measures seem to be lacking on your end, the answer to the question above (“Should men take a multivitamin supplement?”) becomes more and more a “Yes!”

The Male Health Benefits of Multivitamin Supplements

Testosterone Synthesis

Predominantly synthesized in the testes, testosterone is the hormonal testament to one’s maleness. (Yes, testes, testosterone, and testament all share the same etymological root.) While this sex hormone is important to both male and female health, it’s largely associated with male health due to its higher concentration in males.

Testosterone has various health functions, most notably those related to muscle growth and sexual health. Healthy testosterone activity allows for men to build bigger muscles, and it sustains a healthy libido and sexual prowess. Properly balanced with other sex hormones, such as DHT and estrogen, testosterone is key for a man’s health and wellbeing.

It’s even linked to cognition. Age-related issues with depression and fatigue often correlate with an age-related drop in testosterone levels, hence the increased interest in testosterone booster supplements beyond the age of 40. However, in addition to testosterone boosters, multivitamins may help by supplying the micronutrient precursors and cofactors involved in testosterone synthesis and balance.

Anabolic Muscle Gains

One pathway for increased anabolic muscle gains: better testosterone status. This is actually why bodybuilders take anabolic steroids: to mimic the muscle-building effects of testosterone with synthetic testosterone. However, it’s not the only pathway to anabolic muscle gains (although, it’s arguably the most important to men).

Minerals and vitamins involved in protein metabolism and synthesis, cellular energy production, and growth factor activity also play a key role in maintaining an anabolic environment that’s ripe for muscle growth. Not to mention all of the bio-pathways involved in protecting muscle tissue against oxidative stress and hormonal stress and inflammation, as well as any other muscle-damaging forces that spike with aging and high-intensity training.

Energy Expenditure and Fat Loss

While the word “metabolism” refers to a lot of things happening across the body (arguably everything), usually we use the word to refer to how our body uses cellular energy: Does it store it as fat or use it for muscular activity?

Exercise and movement are key to maintaining a healthy metabolism. After all, why would the body prioritize cellular energy towards the activation and reparation of muscle tissue if you’re not even using your muscles? However, in addition to exercise, the presence of certain vitamins and minerals may help regulate other related metabolic processes, including the regulation of blood sugar levels and fat oxidation.

By priming the nutritional components involved in fat metabolism and energy usage, multivitamins address the pro-stages to fat loss and lean muscle growth.

Heart and Cardiovascular Health

So many supplements that feel good and bump up our energy levels are absolutely horrible for our heart health and longevity. It’s almost like these stimulant supplements operate as a sort of withdrawal of our life’s total, limited number of heart beats. Live fast, die hard, and all that.

Except there are ways to live hard without affecting our heart health and cardiovascular system. Again, exercise accomplishes exactly this: it temporarily increases heart rate and blood pressure towards the increased likelihood of more, healthier heart beats.

Many minerals and vitamins assist with the integrity of blood vessels and heart health, as well as the regulation of heart rate and blood pressure. By improving the healthy development of red blood cells, clotting factors, and cognitive relaxation, multivitamins help keep the circulation in working order.

Skin, Hair, and Nails

Complexion isn’t a trivial concern of the vain. Healthy skin, hair, and nails signify a healthy body across the board.

Granted, while it’s true that many people have found a way to make their skin, hair, and nails look healthy without actually improving their health, you can generally spot the difference between the real thing and mask of appearances here. Micronutrients concentrated in the skin, hair, and nails (and even eyes) help maintain a healthy-looking complexion while also protecting against the noticeable aging effects of …well, aging.

Antioxidant Protection against Oxidative Stress

Oxidative stress is one marker of aging. In fact, many view it as synonymous with aging.

Oxidative stress, or free radical damages, negatively impact nearly all parts of the body. Free radicals rise under conditions of excess activity and duress. Overtraining increases free radical numbers to an unhealthy degree, as does chronic stress and sickness. Too much blue light exposure (i.e., staring at electronic screens) increases oxidative stress in the eyes and eating unnatural foods raises oxidative stress, well, everywhere.

Antioxidants are viewed as anti-aging compounds due to their neutralizing effects on free radicals. Some antioxidants have particular health advantages (e.g., vitamin C’s preventative effects against scurvy), but overall they assist with the longevity of one’s structural health and wellbeing.

Is a Multivitamin Supplement Necessary?

Are any supplements actually necessary? After all, their secondary nature is in their name, right: supplements are supplementary to …to what?

Well, to a well-balanced diet, of course.

Ideally, here’s how this whole arrangement should work: you exercise, sleep well, and eat a well-balanced, whole-food diet that supplies all of the essential and semi-essential micronutrients required for the maintenance and promotion of your general health and wellbeing. With that as your baseline, you add supplements to meet the heightened demands required of, say, your high-intensity training regimen or nootropic cognitive enhancement stack or personal competition goals, or what have you.

But here’s the problem: life’s complicated and tough, a well-balanced diet is expensive, and plus, with food processing being the way it is these days, there’s no guarantee that your “well-balanced diet” is actually all that well or balanced with regards to its nutrient content.

From the garden to the plate, any number of processing and cooking steps may sap the nutrient density right out of your food. Unless you’re personally seeing to the growing and curating of your diet, from garden and farm to table, you can’t be 100% sure that your diet’s all that great. Which totally sucks.

Multivitamin supplements pick up the modern diet’s slack.

And, again, if you’re an athlete or a bodybuilder or a neurohacker, or anyone dedicated towards self-improvement, the path towards success is much sturdier and straightforward with the help of a multivitamin. In fact, a really good multivitamin serves as a foundation to other supplements, making it one of the first supplements you should consider before adding others.

Best Multivitamin for Men to Buy in 2020

Many multivitamin supplements try to stand out from the crowd by adding gimmicky hybrid elements to their formula – e.g., fat burning multivitamins, caffeinated multivitamins, multivitamins for hair growth, etc. However, the best multivitamins stand out by simply being the best multivitamins. By supplying the best minerals and the best vitamins at the best price with the highest quality ingredient forms.

That’s what makes Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi stand out as one of the best multivitamins for men (and for women). Really, it’s a model example of how a multivitamin should work, given that it supplies all of the key micronutrients required for general health and wellbeing, nothing more and nothing less. And they’re all supplied in high quality ingredient forms that the body’s actually able to absorb.

In other words, they actually work.

While the Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi supplement splits into two formulations – “For Men” and “For Women” – we’re focusing on the “For Men” variation of this stack. However, generally speaking, what works in this formula also works in the “For Women” version, with only a few gender-targeted differences to distinguish them.

Here’s a deeper look at the “For Men” formula:

Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi Ingredients

Altogether, there are 26 ingredients in this multivitamin: 13 vitamins and 13 minerals. Without diving too deeply into all of the ins and outs of this multivitamin stack, here’s a brief description of each ingredient and its respective health benefits:

• Vitamin A: taken for vision, skin, and bone health, vitamin A is an antioxidant that’s great for the immune system.
• Vitamin C: a well-known antioxidant, vitamin C helps reduce free radical damages while staving off scurvy (that’s right, pirates).
• Vitamin D3: strongly associated with testosterone activity, vitamin D seems to have a direct impact on male hormones as well as bone and immune health.
• Vitamin E: antioxidant for cardiovascular, hair, skin, nails, and tissue repair, often taken with vitamin C for the duo’s potential fat burning synergy.
• Vitamin K1 + K2: bones, cardio, and connective tissue, vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin that’s particularly important for blood clotting.
• Vitamin B1: or thiamine, a popular nootropic B vitamin usually taken in the form of sulbutiamine, a B1-B1 bonded cognitive enhancer.
• Vitamin B2: or riboflavin, a B vitamin essential to red blood cell formation and cell growth, as well as energy metabolism and oxidative stress resistance.
• Vitamin B3: or niacin, a popular pre-workout ingredient used to improve blood circulation and protein metabolism.
• Vitamin B5: or pantothenic acid, involved in the synthesis of coenzyme A (CoA), a cofactor in fatty acid oxidation and amino acid oxidations.
• Vitamin B6: or pyridoxine, one of the more popular B vitamins for its well-documented benefits on mood and cognitive performance.
• Vitamin B7: or biotin, which supports hair, skin, and nail health, as well as energy metabolism, blood sugar levels, and cell growth.
• Vitamin B9: or folic acid, a B vitamin particularly important to growth and development, making it especially important in women’s and prenatal multivitamins.
• Vitamin B12: or cobalamin, an important cofactor in over hundreds of pathways; as we age, B12-deficiency naturally increases, making B12 supplementation increasingly important over time.
• Calcium: often taken for bone and joint health, calcium also plays a key role in cardiovascular and hormonal health.
• Iodine: a key mineral for thyroid health and the production of thyroid hormones.
• Magnesium: one of the most important minerals, magnesium is popular as a standalone supplement for its noticeable, well-documented effects on sleep quality, mood, and relaxation.
• Zinc: directly related to the production of testosterone, zinc is a particularly manly mineral, one that also benefits vision and immunity.
• Selenium: an antioxidant mineral that helps protect immunity, thyroid health, and cells from oxidative damage.
• Copper: supports energy metabolism, nervous system, cardio health, red blood cell formation, vision, and more; also, it’s important for zinc-containing supplements to add a little copper due to zinc’s negative effect on copper levels.
• Manganese: an enzyme cofactor involved in the regulation of blood sugar, energy metabolism, and bone health.
• Chromium: viewed as a weight management mineral, chromium assists with energy expenditure and blood sugar regulation.
• Molybdenum: a trace mineral used for the removal of toxins, particularly from the metabolism of sulfur-containing amino acids.
• Strontium: heavily concentrated in the bones, strontium assists with …well, bone health – and also joint health.
• Inositol: supports nervous system, skin health, cognition, and mood; inositol is somewhat of a nootropic ingredient with potential anxiolytic effects.
• Vanadium: supports healthy blood sugar levels, cardiovascular health, bone health, muscular function, and growth factor activity.
• Boron: this mineral seems to improve the testosterone:estrogen ratio by inhibiting aromatase, the enzyme responsible for converting testosterone to estrogen.

Other Ingredients: Vegan Plantcaps® Capsules

Matching the nature-identical design of Performance Lab’s BioGenesis™ processed multivitamin ingredients, the Plantcaps® capsules are constructed out of fermented tapioca (pullulan) and thus register in the body as a food source, not as an unnatural additive.

The all-natural status of Performance Lab’s capsules is important, as the bioavailability of multivitamin ingredients can be delicate. Capsules covered in colorants and manufacturing lubricants and magnesium stearate can negatively impact the absorption rate of the formula it contains. Thankfully, Performance Lab keeps all of the unnecessary, junky additives out of its product altogether, delivering an all-natural formula encased in all-natural capsules. The result is a totally clean, green, eco-friendly supplement that’s easy on the digestion and easy to absorb.

The Health Benefits of Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi for Men

If you read through the gigantor list of ingredients above and took the time to list all of the overlapping health benefits associated with each ingredient, you perhaps have a general idea of the health benefits of this stack. Generally speaking, Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi helps with everything.

However, the specific performance areas benefited by this stack include:

• Energy: both cellular energy production and expenditure.
• Strength: via protein synthesis, joint support, and muscle growth.
• Brainpower: well-nourished brains think quicker and clearer.
• Vision: antioxidant eye-vitamins and zinc’s general eye support.
• Sleep: via inhibiting excitatory brain activity at night.
• Testosterone: by directly and indirectly supporting T synthesis.

And then some.

A comprehensive micronutrient complex serves as a strong nutritional foundation to other performance enhancing health supplements. Without adequate vitamin and mineral levels readily available, your other supplements may struggle to have any positive impact on your health and performance.

In other words, multivitamins also seem to possess a meta-benefit of benefiting the benefits of other health supplements.

Who Takes Multivitamin Supplements?

Just about anyone can benefit from a multivitamin supplement. These are general health supplements designed to benefit the general population.

However, this isn’t to say that they don’t possess particular benefits for particular demographics. For example, athletes and bodybuilders may particularly benefit from a multivitamin supplement, due to their heightened micronutrient demands associated with their high levels of physical activity and mineral loss via sweat. Likewise, nootropic nerds may sustain a higher level of cognition for longer when all of their neurochemical precursor micronutrients are well-stocked and ready for conversion.

Special diets that lack various food groups often need to be augmented by a multivitamin to fill in the diet’s nutritional gaps. On that front, this formula may help.

Where to Buy Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi?

You can buy Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi through the Performance Lab website: www.PerformanceLab.com

Interestingly, Performance Lab supplements only sell through the Performance Lab website, meaning there are no Amazon or GNC, etc. listings. The upside here being that Performance Lab provides a lot of information on their formulas and ingredients and manufacturing processes.

How Much Does It Cost?

The pricing options for Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi are as follows:

• 1 Box: 120 capsules for 30 servings – $40
• 2 Boxes: 240 capsules for 60 servings – $76
• 3 Boxes: 360 capsules for 90 servings – $108

Essentially, a 1-box order runs you the full prices of this multivitamin: $40 – whereas each additional box reduces the price by an added 5% discount, with the best price per serving option being the 3-box order option at $108 (or $1.20 per serving).

If you plan on supplementing this multivitamin for the long run, buying in bulk at the 10% discount seems your best bet.

Safety and Potency

Can and should you take this supplement for the long run? Is it safe to do so?

Yes, absolutely. Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi is designed to be taken daily for, well, as long as you like. Whereas some health supplements may require a on/off cycle to avoid tolerance issues and/or to reduce the risk of side effect, this multivitamin seems to actually work best when used daily for the long-term.

Plus, the all-natural status of the formula and capsules should lessen any worry over adverse effects associated with unhealthy, under-the-radar additives.

Conclusion

If a multivitamin supplement covers general health and well-being, you should need any supplements beyond this one, right? That’s not exactly the way to look at multivitamins.

Instead, see them as supplements that restore you baseline to a healthy standard, a firm, healthy foundation upon which performance enhancement supplements actually enhance your performance beyond that baseline. Otherwise, those performance enhancement supplements may fail to actually improve your performance beyond what you may otherwise accomplish with proper nutrition, with a complex of healthy minerals and vitamins.

For men, a multivitamin may go a long way in supplying all of the essential micronutrient precursors to male hormones and growth factors. The result is a greater male capacity to build muscle, burn fat, have sex, and, well, do whatever other icky gross things that males do. And by supplying all of these essential micronutrients in easy-to-absorb forms, Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi for Men is one of the best multivitamins for boosting one’s male capacity.

*To buy Performance Lab Whole-Food Multi, visit: www.performancelab.com
or read our full review here.