The Hippo7 multivitamin is marketed as being 100% vegan, based on using vegan-friendly nutrient sources. And it’s also designed to provide the nutrients that plant-eaters may lack due to avoiding animal food sources.
To critically evaluate this multivitamin’s authenticity, this Hippo 7 vitamin review examines each nutrient included in the supplement.
But first, let’s evaluate why vegans need vitamin supplements.
Why Do Vegans Need Vitamin Supplements?
Meatless diets are packed full of nutrients and offer numerous health benefits. In fact, vegans may avoid many health-related consequences of eating meat, like increased risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and colorectal cancer.
However, no diet is 100% sufficient.
Vegans and vegetarians may experience nutritional deficiencies like zinc, calcium, vitamin B12, and iron.
That’s where the Hippo 7 multivitamin comes in. It provides not only those much-needed nutrients, but also several other vital nutrients. An added bonus is that the multivitamin is processed at a state-of-the-art facility right in the US.
Hippo 7 Vitamin Review: The 7 Essential Nutrients for Vegans
To determine whether this supplement is right for you, you need to examine how valuable the minerals are. It’s not enough to have a bunch of minerals, but the sourcing and specific variety can significantly impact its value.
So, this Hippo7 vitamin review examines each of the seven vitamins important for vegans.
Vitamin D3
The fact that Vitamin D is only naturally present in very few foods makes it valuable not just for vegans but non-vegans too.
Hippo 7 sources this fat-soluble vitamin from lichen.
However, what makes the vitamin D3 in this supplement unique is because Hippo 7 uses Vitashine™ as cholecalciferol. Not only is Vitashine™ the only plant-based vitamin D3, but also cholecalciferol is the form of vitamin D that your body produces when exposed to sunlight.
But why is this vitamin so valuable?
Well, vitamin D3 modulates as many as 1,000 genes in your body, influencing cellular growth, protein synthesis, and immune function.
Here’s a general overview of the potential health benefits:
- promotes calcium absorption
- maintains adequate phosphate and calcium concentrations
- enables normal mineralization of your bones
- modulating cell growth
- reducing inflammation
- maintaining neuromuscular and immune functions
Omega-3 (DHA/EPA)
Omega-3 is just as valuable as the vitamin D3 included in this multivitamin.
What is unique about Omega-3 DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) is that they are found in oily fish, unlike Omega-3 ALA (alpha-linolenic acid) which is found in plant oils. That makes the two Omega-3 varieties vital for vegans.
Fortunately, you don’t have to extract Omega-3 DHA and EPA from oily fish.
True to its vegan-friendly approach, Hippo 7 gets the Omega-3 fatty acids straight from where fish get the nutrient – marine algae that the fish eat.
Omega-3 (DHA and EPA) offer incredible health benefits, including:
- help form the structures of your cell membranes
- Omega-3 DHA is necessary for your sperm, retina, and brain
- provide energy for your body
- support your body’s immune, cardiovascular, endocrine, and pulmonary systems
Vitamin B12
With vitamin B12, Hippo 7 goes a step further than most supplements.
That’s because the multivitamin contains methylcobalamin, a more active form of vitamin B12 found in foods. This is drastically different from commonly used supplements containing cyanocobalamin, a synthetic vitamin B12 variety that doesn’t come from nature.
The last thing you would want in your supplement is synthetic nutrients, and Hippo 7 ensures that you get truly natural nutrients.
The water-soluble vitamin B12 is particularly useful for the following health benefits:
- supports proper red blood cell formation
- enhances neurological function
- helps form about 100 substrates like hormones, DNA, lipids, RNA, and proteins
- supports fat and protein metabolism
Calcium
The nutrient bioavailability (percentage of the nutrient absorbed in your body) is a crucial consideration made by Hippo 7 when including calcium.
This is evident in the fact that the multivitamin has calcium carbonate, which provides high levels of elemental calcium, unlike other dietary calcium varieties. Best of all, it’s naturally vegan.
But how valuable is calcium?
Well, you need calcium to develop and maintain your skeleton. The calcium gets stored in your bones and teeth for strength and good structure. If you don’t get enough calcium, you may end up with osteoporosis, a condition of low bone density. If you don’t know, this condition happens to be quite common in western cultures.
But that’s not all. Calcium also supports neuromuscular and cardiac function.
Iodine
Iodine is naturally found in such foods as tuna, cod, seaweed, and various dairy products. Hippo 7 makes sure to source its iodine from the naturally nutrient-rich waters of the Atlantic, a vegan-friendly source.
It’s a vital nutrient to have since it keeps your thyroid working properly.
Iodine helps your thyroid gland to make thyroid hormones. This, in turn, helps:
- control growth
- enhance your immune system
- support natural repair processes
- promote heart health
Iron
Although iron is found in foods like spinach, lentils, meat, and seafood, Hippo 7 sources it from a chelated mineral.
Why is that?
The chelated mineral source provides a more gentle form of iron that your body can more readily absorb. Therefore, you’ll get more iron into your body after consuming far fewer multivitamin supplements.
The iron will help your body to produce enough healthy, oxygen-carrying red blood cells. Without this, you may not have enough oxygen transported from your lungs to your muscles and other body tissues. One result of this is that you’ll get tired much faster since your muscles won’t get the necessary oxygen.
Zinc
The zinc found in this Hippo 7 multivitamin comes from amino acid chelates. This source provides vegan-friendly and far more bio-available zinc than other sources like red meat, seafood, poultry, nuts, and beans.
Moreover, zinc is quite a mineral superstar.
This mineral supports the active function of more than 300 enzymes in your body. That’s why it affects multiple functions like your natural healing processes, nerve function, sense of taste/ smell, and digestion.
Verdict
One thing that stands out in this Hippo7 vitamin review is the use of highly bio-available nutrients. This can not only help ease digestion but also requires less quantity of supplements to get sufficient nutrient absorption in your body.
Above all, Hippo7 certainly meets the expectation of being a vegan-friendly multivitamin.
