The Vitamin Debate Continues - Should You, or Shouldn't You?

by WiredBerries Editors — August 27, 2007

We’ve all been told for years that a daily multivitamin is good for us, but lately vitamins have been getting some bad press. ConsumerLab.com, a watchdog of the supplement industry, found that more than half of the 21 multis it tested had either too much (or too little) of certain vitamins or had been contaminated with dangerous substances such as lead. Next, a controversial European study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, made the claim that taking vitamins may actually shorten your life!

So, what’s the real story? Leading nutrition experts at Harvard and Tufts are attempting to set the record straight. They’re saying that quality multis are not dangerous and the paper’s findings are simply wrong. According to them, the paper analyzed previous studies, which included people who were sick before taking vitamins. In other words, it probably wasn’t the vitamins that were responsible for shortening lives. Also, the paper ignored two major studies that found vitamins do, in fact, reduce the risk of death.

However, the study from ConsumerLab.com shows that you can’t assume all multis are created equal. There are currently no uniform manufacturing rules for supplements, so a multi may not be what it claims. Your best bet? Check vitamin bottles for the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP), NSF International (NSF), or ConsumerLab (CL) seals. The USP and NSF are nonprofit groups that verify whether companies offer contamination-free products and use good manufacturing practices. Those that carry these seals are likely to be safe and reliable.

Another interesting find was that price didn’t determine quality. In fact, some of the priciest vitamins failed the independent tests, while some cheapo brands passed with flying colors.