While it is desirable to support our body's metabolic pathways with a balanced and synergistic blend of nutrients directly from food, sometimes it is not possible to obtain all the nutrients for optimal health from food.
There is widespread evidence documenting the need for supplementing our diet with micronutrients. Current intake of individual micronutrients is significantly below the established dietary reference intake levels. The soils used for farming are known to contain depleted amounts of essential minerals like selenium and zinc. As a result, the fruits and vegetables grown today have a fraction of the potency of nutrients that were found 20 years ago. Many foods ingested today have lost nutritional potency due to storage, shipping, freezing, and preservation methods that alter their biochemical makeup.
Increased stress in modern western society has been shown to reduce body stores of magnesium and other nutrients, with increased need for antioxidants to neutralize the increased number of free radicals induced by greater loads of external toxins and internal stress hormone breakdown products.