With millions of Baby Boomers now constituting an enormous market for anti-aging products, the makers of nutritional supplements have found a new way to present their products. The same vitamins and minerals that have been added to fortified foods and sold to parents as necessary for their children's healthy development are now being marketed as anti aging vitamins and mineral essential for those at the other end of the age spectrum.

Vitamins and minerals which marketers promise will help young people mature properly are now also marketed to help mature people regain some of their lost youth. It may seem a bit of a stretch to think that anti aging vitamins and minerals can really turn back the clock; is there any scientific evidence to back up such claims? The anti aging vitamin market is worth billions of dollars, but what are its customers actually getting for their money?

Will taking one, or a handful, of pills each day actually provide you with more energy, mental alertness, and youthful skin? The answer seems to be that yes, anti aging vitamins can have some positive effects against the passage of time, but those effects will depend in large part on the vitamins you choose to take, the concentrations and combinations in which they are formulated, and the reputation of their manufacturers.

Research has long since established that free radicals are one of the major causes of aging. Free radicals come from several sources; they are a natural by-product of the body's breaking food down into energy, and they also result from exposure to the sun and pollution, stress, and smoking. Free radical oxygen atoms attach themselves to molecules in healthy tissue, and can interfere with the functioning of those cells and eventually that tissue. Aging is thought to be the result of that tissue damage as it accumulates over time.

Antioxidants are known to bind with and neutralize free radicals. Any anti aging vitamin formula which is not loaded with antioxidants is not going to be of much use. Vitamins A, C, D, E and the Vitamin A precursor beta carotene, and Coenzyme Q10 are all proven antioxidants. For more info see on Aging Well

The B vitamin family is known to reduce the effects of stress, another source of free radical production. Fish oils and flaxseed, with their Omegs-3 fatty acids, maintain mental performance by allowing the neurons in the brain, which is sixty percent fat, communicate more effectively with each other.

Any anti aging vitamin formula worth its price will have at least those elements; if it is missing one or two, you can take them individually. But if more than one or two are not included in the formula, you are probably holding a bottle of nutritional supplements born of some marketer's slick attempt capture a piece of the anti aging vitamin market by to capitalizing on the eagerness of Baby Boomers to outrun Father Time.