A multivitamin supplement helps people fill nutrient gaps in their diets by providing them with extra minerals and vitamins. Can you get by just fine on whole foods? Sure, but there are reams of data suggesting that the risk of illness and quality of life can improve when people consume sufficient nutrients. Bone fractures appear to decrease when people supplement with vitamin D, for example, and fish oil seems to lower the risk of various inflammatory conditions. (1)(2)
However, when trying to decipher which is the best men's multivitamin, there's more to account for than which has the highest amounts of all the vitamins and minerals. Some multis actually had too much of a nutrient, and too much of certain nutrients like vitamin C or selenium can cause digestive issues. Some nutrients cancel one another out - like how an uptick in zinc can make calcium absorption difficult.
There are also many healthful chemicals and compounds outside of the standard 26-ish vitamins and minerals like boron, plant extracts, antioxidants, digestive enzymes, and more. We took a look at the top brands on the market to land on the best men's multivitamins.
Editor's note: The content on BarBend is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. The opinions and articles on this site are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. It's always a good idea to talk to your doctor before beginning a new fitness, nutritional, and/or supplement routine. None of these supplements are meant to treat or cure any disease. If you feel you may be deficient in a particular nutrient or nutrients, please seek out a medical professional.
Check out our multivitamin video review for an in-depth breakdown of multivitamins, their benefits, and the different brands you should try.
The best vitamin worth your money isn't the one with the most ingredients. It's the one that has the right ingredients in the right doses.
Ritual found that men consume fewer fruits and veggies compared to women and, as a result, are probably not getting the nutrients they need to perform and feel their best. So they created a formula with 10 ingredients they feel men are most in need of - a few of them being vitamin E, vitamin K, magnesium, and iron. Ritual - which uses transparently sourced ingredients and delivers them in a time-release capsule to ensure the vitamins are absorbed in the intestine and not in the stomach where they can be eroded by acid - is meant to aid a diet that's already decently high in nutrients. For example, one serving contains 30mg of magnesium, which is just seven percent of what you need in a day.
Best Overall Ritual Essential for Men
Ritual offers men everything they need and nothing they don't in a multivitamin. Their formula includes 10 ingredients that are thoughtfully dosed and sourced transparently.
Shop RitualSerious lifters who are striving for hypertrophy (muscle mass) train hard and often. Because of this, they need a multi that will help to protect their joints and support recovery.
Controlled Lab Orange Triad is a comprehensive men's multivitamin. These pills include glucosamine and chondroitin for joint recovery plus an interesting digestion and immunity complex that's made from various plant extracts. There's also no iron, an ingredient that men are often advised to limit in supplement form since men store more iron compared to women. The biggest potential downside is the dose is six pills per day, though you can adjust your serving based on your diet.
Best for Bodybuilding Controlled Labs Orange Triad
While six pills per day is a big dose, this supplement is well designed for athletes and provides several ingredients for joint health, digestion, and immunity.
Shop Controlled LabsGuys who are older need to be concerned with maintaining healthy nutrient levels to ensure they stay energized and sharp.
When you're over 50, there are things you just can't get away with anymore: drinking more than four beers and waking up headache-free, wearing skinny jeans, and failing to get your daily dose of vitamins and minerals. One study's findings show that adults over 50 are at risk of being deficient in both vitamin B12 and folate. (3)
The same company that snagged the best overall spot also tailored its formula for men over 50. It has the same 10 ingredients with the doses slightly adjusted to focus on bone health, as well as muscle function, immune function, and heart health. What we wrote above still stands. That is, you may need or want more in the form of vitamins, minerals, and herbs than what this multi offers.
Best for men 50+ Ritual Essential for Men 50+ Men over 50 are at a higher risk of specific vitamin deficiencies, research shows, which is why Ritual adjusted the doses of their multi formula to give men more of what their bodies need.
Shop RitualGummies just taste better than chalky chews or swallowing a pill, so you probably won't mind taking more of them. It also helps when you know the product you're taking isn't serving you up useless fillers.
SmartyPants Adult Complete Gummy took our top spot. The serving size is six gummies, but this brand has a lot going for it that you'll find missing in many competitors:150 milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids, 225 percent of the recommended daily intake (RDI) of vitamin D, and vitamin B12 from methylcobalamin. Bonus: it's pretty low in sugar and there are no artificial sweeteners.
Best Multivitamin Gummies SmartyPants Adult Complete Daily Gummy Vitamins
Low in sugar and free of artificial sweeteners, SmartyPant's gummies deliver Omega-3 fatty acids in addition to good suite of vitamins.
Shop AmazonInstead of going to the store and grabbing a multivitamin that has most of what you need, or even all of what you need but some of what you don't, some companies design vitamin packs custom to you.
One of those companies is Care/of. The first step of the process is taking a quiz, which asks you questions about your lifestyle and health goals to determine which of their 31 vitamins, minerals, herbs, and probiotics you'll receive in your pack. After analyzing your answer, Care/of will send you a handful of pills tailored towards your goals - which can include brain health, skincare, bone health, etc. With that, comes, well, a decent amount of pills (sometimes seven or more) you need to swallow.
The benefit of this is you're getting vitamins that your body may actually need. If you're feeling sluggish, then Care/of may send you vitamin D to actively pick you back up. Still, we have two points to make: There are other ingredients - such as cellulose, glycerine, silica - depending on your order, and though prices start at a low of $20, the cost usually comes out higher. (But you can remove pills from your order if you feel like you don't need them.) For more information about Care/of, you can check out our full review.
50% off first purchase Care/Of
Care/of creates custom multivitamin packs that are tailored to the user's specific needs. Whether you want to prioritize your bone health, heart, brain, or up your focus and energy, Care/of has a formula for that. Use the code BARBEND50 for half off your first purchase
Shop Care/OfFor real vitamin nuts, a green powder - which offers probiotics, digestive enzymes, and antioxidants - may be what you need to scratch your nutrient itch.
A greens powder is a mix of vitamins and grounded down vegetables that you drink. The thought is that a green drink provides more benefits. As far as Athletic Greens go, you don't get much better. The Athletic Greens formula offers 700% of your daily vitamin C and 100% of your B vitamins, K2, and zinc. It also boasts 7.2 billion colony-forming units (CFU) of probiotic bacteria for gut health. The one downside? A lot of the ingredients are wrapped up in blends, so there's not full ingredient transparency.
Athletic Greens Ultimate Daily
This nutritious greens powder is NSF certified for sport and includes 75 absorbable ingredients and is free of gluten, sugar, dairy, eggs, and nuts. It is compatible with vegan, keto, and paleo diets.
Shop Athletic Greens Shop Athletic GreensHere's a list of some of the vitamins and minerals that you should ensure are in your men's multi formula.
Vitamin D is made when sunlight is absorbed into your skin, which triggers a chemical reaction that forms the vitamin. It's estimated that 50% of people worldwide aren't getting the recommended vitamin D intake (about 1,000 international units or IU). (4)
This vitamin helps our bodies absorb calcium, therefore better fortifying our bones. A lack of vitamin D can result in weak bones or even bone loss. It's found mainly in fatty fish, egg yolks, and juices, cereals, and milk.
This nutrient is abundant in red meat, so vegetarians and vegans may not get enough. And you need iron to regulate energy levels, safeguard brain function, and the formation of red blood cells. You can boost iron levels naturally by eating more spinach, organ meats, red meat, quinoa, and broccoli.
You'll be hard-pressed to find a nutrient that's touted more highly than omega-3 fatty acids. That's not to say it hasn't earned the praise - after all, they do help prevent heart disease, improve your vision, and ease inflammation. (5)(6)
Folate is technically a B vitamin, but it's especially important as it is responsible for cellular division, and DNA and red blood cell production. Some people have a genetic mutation that prevents your body from converting folate inside of your body into a usable form. Eat fresh fruit and vegetables to get your levels up.
There are eight vitamins, and together they help to manage our body's energy levels. Individually, B12, which is found predominantly in animal products, keep our nerves and blood cells healthy.
Your body needs zinc, and yet it's essential - meaning you can't produce it naturally. Zinc helps with healing wounds, immune function, general growth and development, and protein synthesis. Also, 300 enzymes need zinc to function properly. Common food sources that contain zinc include fish, poultry, meat, shellfish, eggs, and whole grains. (7)
This essential nutrient is important for bone health and energy production. Also, magnesium helps to make protein, ease sleep (8) and regulate muscle function. You can intake your magnesium intake by eating spinach, artichoke, soybeans, brown rice, tofu, and nuts.
This vitamin is really an antioxidant, and its main benefit is that it protects your cells from being damaged. It's important to note that this vitamin is fat-soluble, which means it's stored in your body's fat. So you may not need to supplement with a high dose. Medically, not many studies have linked vitamin E to improved conditions, but your body still needs it. Try and get it from foods such as sunflower seeds, peanuts, mango, tomato, and almonds (really, most nuts).
Another fat-soluble vitamin, vitamin K produces a compound that helps clot blood to boost your metabolic health. It also regulates your calcium stores; essentially, vitamin K ensures that your bones get calcium and that your arteries aren't clogged with it. Foods that contain vitamin K include green leafy veggies, fish, liver, other meat, and cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower.
There's more to picking a men's multi than just the ingredients inside. To ensure only the best selects made this list, we considered the following three factors:
We're looking at multivitamins here, so if a product just hits you with some calcium and Vitamin K that's more of a bone health supplement than a comprehensive multi. But we haven't selected many multivitamins that just have vitamins and minerals - as we mentioned above, there are some with enzymes, some with omega-3s, some with compounds that haven't yet been described as 'essential' by the FDA.
For example, nettle leaf extract, for example, has been linked to lower inflammation in a few studies, like a 2013 study in Phytomedicine. (9) It's hard to say which results are totally definitive here, but we like it when most of a product's ingredients are backed by science and extend beyond just vitamins.
We're not about to say that every nutrient needs to have a really high dose. If you're following a healthy diet, it's unlikely that you need a thousand percent of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin B12. But when it makes sense, we want the right nutrients to have the right dosage for the average consumer. Which brings us to…
Some nutrients interact with each other, which also plays into potency and dosage. The Journal of the American College of Nutrition, for example, is one of many publications to have printed a study that found too much zinc in a supplement can lower the amount of calcium you absorb. (10)
Men should aim to meet the recommended intake of all vitamins and minerals, but they tend to be lowest in magnesium, Vitamin D, potassium, and especially iron, which is the most common deficiency on Earth.
Vitamin D, zinc, and magnesium have ties to optimal testosterone levels. A person also needs to eat sufficient calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat, and cholesterol - being overly restrictive in any of these can lead to a drop in testosterone. Generally speaking, you need to eat enough of all your micronutrients and macronutrients to keep hormones in top shape.
Be specially mindful of include calcium, Vitamin D, and Vitamin K (for bone strength), magnesium (for sleep) omega-3 fatty acids (for inflammation), B12 (for blood and nerve health), and zinc (for hormonal health and energy).
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