Not All Vitamins Are Equal

A recent U.S. national survey has shown that at least 78 million Americans use multivitamins on a regular basis. That provides a huge market for manufacturers and suppliers of nutritional supplements. Imagine how large the market must be on a global basis. Consider the revenue that must be generated for these manufacturers and suppliers.

A question that has often arisen is, “Are people getting a good product for their money when they buy these supplements?”. I’m not referring to the need for vitamin supplements – I believe that has well established by scientific and medical research. I’m referring to the fact that in such a huge market, competition becomes steep. Price becomes a prime factor in such competition. This is especially true in a market where the end user is not educated as to product differences and really has no way of knowing the differences between products. We’ve all heard the adages, “ A vitamin is a vitamin” or “it just produces expensive urine anyway”. There appears to be either a general belief that companies will produce a good product or a general resignation to he fact that you take what you get. In either case, price and marketing strategies become major determinants as consumers decide what products they will buy.

Who Do We Trust

We all know of unscrupulous corporations. The news keeps us aware of the fact that corporations don’t always have the best interests of the end user in mind. Is it any different in the manufacture and supply of nutritional supplements than it is in other industries? Can the general public be confident that the product they pick up form the shelves will give them the best benefit. Considering that they are usually uninformed in this area, they rely heavily on the information provided by the manufacturers and suppliers. Can the end users be confident that they will derive any benefit at all from the nutritional products they purchase?

According to many studies, the answer is no. There are studies that indicate that such confidence on the part of the public may be false confidence. Consider the following:

"Multi-vitamins are some of the worst offenders. In a recent study, Linda Shaffer and Michelle Fairchild of Yale New Haven Hospital, evaluated 257 brands of vitamins bought off the shelf at pharmacies, grocery stores, and health food stores. Many were incomplete or had too little or too much of one or other nutrient. Only 49 were considered adequate..." Dr. Michael Colgan, Optimum Sports Nutrition

"...since the nutritional supplement industry is now largely unregulated, you can't be sure of product purity or the amount of active ingredient in a supplement - even from one package to the next of the same product." Buyer Beware, Mayo Clinic, June 1997

“This study showed that there are products sold on the Canadian market
which use statements on their label which are difficult to define. However,
such terms and statements seem to be used to add pseudoscientific and
unjustified value to the product; such statements should be avoided.
Today’s customers cannot assume that the product they buy will have an acceptable quality with regard to the disintegration behavior.” Investigation of vitamin and mineral tablets and capsules on the Canadian
market: J Pharm Pharmaceut Sci (www.cspsCanada.org) 9(1):40-49, 2006

A study published in the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association addressed the failure of prescription prenatal vitamin products to meet USP standards for folic acid dissolution. The results of the study were that only three out of nine multivitamin products met USP specifications for folic acid release. Most missed by a wide margin; folic acid dissolution from two products was less than 25%. J Am Pharm Assoc (Wash). 1997 Jul-Aug;NS37(4):396.


“The potency and purity of dietary supplements can vary widely... Doctors at Duke University recently examined 12 bottles of L-carnitine and found that most samples contained 60 percent or less of the substance. More than half of the brands were indigestible by humans; in other words, it was going in one end and out the other.”

“In the marketplace today, the general public doesn’t know what brand to trust, and what not to trust.” Dr. Jess Thoene, University of Michigan
Quotes from Newsweek , "Industry Unmonitored"

The following quote sums it all up. The purpose is to make money; not to necessarily have a product that is useful to consumer. This is scary.

"When I first got into the dietary supplements business, I thought you needed some sort of expertise in this field . . . boy, was I wrong. Most vitamin manufacturers have “house blends” of certain types of products that you can simply “private label”.

All vitamin companies have their own diet pill blends . . . their own arthritis blends . . . etc. All it takes is a brand name and a label and you’re in the supplement business.

I made up a name for my new product and had labels made for the product through the pill manufacturer. Viola! My very own, trademarked brand name dietary supplement in less than a week’s time." Vincent James, The 12 Month Millionaire

All companies are not as blatant about the profit motive and all show such diminished concern for the consumer. But the reality is that the profit motive is what drives the supplement industry and very few companies produce a quality product. Marketing plays a large role in convincing consumers to purchase products and consumers often purchase dietary supplements based on inaccurate or incomplete information.

So, is there anybody you can trust in this industry? The answer is yes. There are some companies that do produce good products. The next post will address an in depth study of the supplement market which pinpointed the companies that do make nutritional supplements that do promote health.

Vitamins are Necessary

The following is a summary of an article that was published in the October 2007 issue of the British Journal of Nutrition. This article points out the necessity of fortifying our bodies with vitamin and mineral supplements.

Although this article does not directly address the issue of some supplements not being adequate, other research and articles do. Comparison guides have been produced and research has been conducted by Pharmaceutical and forensic companies showing that not all supplements are created equal. The studies have shown that some brands of supplements do not have the ingredients stated on the container; some brands contain such a large quantity of waxes and bindings that the body cannot dissolve them and some brands use lower end raw materials. The studies have shown that few companies manufacture their own supplements. At times, some companies will contract out the production of their products to the lowest bidder.

This research reinforces two reports, published in the June 19, 2002 edition of JAMA in which the authors conclude that the current North American diet, while sufficient to prevent vitamin deficiency diseases (such as scurvy and pellagra), is inadequate to support the need for optimal health.

Insufficient vitamin intake is apparently a cause of chronic diseases. Recent evidence has shown that sub-optimal levels of vitamins (below standard), even well above those causing deficiency syndromes, are risk factors for chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and osteoporosis. A large portion of the general population is apparently at increased risk for this reason.
Dr. Robert Fletcher and Dr. Kathleen Fairfield

The researchers base their guidance on the fact that more than 80 percent of the American population does not consume anywhere near the five-per-day servings of fruits and vegetables required for optimal health.

All of us grew up believing that if we ate a reasonable diet, that would take care of our vitamin needs. But, the new evidence, much of it in the last couple of years, is that vitamins also prevent the usual diseases we deal with everyday - heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis and birth defects.
Dr. Robert Fletcher

Following is the summary of the current article.

In order for the immune system to function properly and efficiently, your body requires adequate amounts of micronutrients. This can be provided to your body by taking a good multivitamin/mineral. This will enhance the immune system by supporting your body’s natural defenses on both the structural and cellular levels.

A recent article published in the British Journal of Nutrition summarizes the roles of selected vitamins and trace elements in immune function. The article points out that adequate intakes of micronutrients are required for the immune system to function efficiently.

Why is an adequate supply of such nutritional elements so important? A micronutrient deficiency suppresses your body’s immunity by affecting antibody responses. Thus results in an imbalance in the immune system. When this happens three is an increase in your body’s susceptibility to infections. This, in turn, increases disease and death risk.

In addition, infections aggravate micronutrient deficiencies by reducing nutrient intake, increasing losses, and interfering with utilization by altering metabolic pathways. Inadequate intakes of micronutrients are common in people with eating disorders, smokers (active and passive), individuals with chronic alcohol abuse, certain diseases, during pregnancy and lactation, and in the elderly.

Micronutrients contribute to the body's natural defenses on three levels: by supporting physical barriers (skin/mucosa), by promoting cellular immunity and increasing antibody production. Vitamins A, C, E and the mineral zinc assist in enhancing the skin barrier function. The vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E and folic acid and the minerals iron, zinc, copper and selenium work in synergy to support the protective activities of the immune cells. Finally, all these micronutrients, with the exception of vitamin C and iron, are essential for the production of antibodies.

Overall, insufficient and inadequate intake of these vitamins and minerals may lead to a suppressed immune system. This will increase your body’s risk of infections and will further aggravate and increase malnutrition. Therefore, supplementation with a multivitamin/mineral that includes these micronutrients can support the body's natural defense system by enhancing all three levels of immunity. Br J Nutr. 2007 Oct;98 Suppl 1:S29-35

Stay Healthy

Stay Healthy

Poor Joe! He was walking down Victoria Street yesterday as happy and healthy as could be. As he passed 4th Street he was whistling, checking out the people he saw and making mental comments about the people he saw. Occasionally he thought about the cruise he had planned for the next month. As he passed the 5th Street intersection, he felt little twinges of pain in his abdomen. As he passed the 6th Street intersection he was aware his pains were increasing and he started to wonder what was happening to him. He believed he was healthy. As he reached 7th Street he doubled over in pain and fell to the ground. An ambulance was called and Joe was taken to the Emergency Department of the local hospital. There, after many tests and several consults, it was determined that Joe had started to experience the complications from an undiagnosed bowel condition. Poor Joe – only three blocks away he was the happiest person in the world. Now his health was being questioned

What happened in those three blocks? Did a bowel diseae bug that was on the street looking for a home see Joe and jump into his bowel and start destroying Joe’s life?No! What happened is that Joe started to collect the dividends payable to him from his lifestyle choices.

That is what mostly happens when people get life threatening diseases – they get rewarded for the lifestyle they chose to lead. Poor diet, lack of proper nutrition and lack of exercise destroy our bodies. We have been told that over and over for years but most of us don’t listen. Somehow we develop the attitude that “it won’t happen to me”. Somehow, we believe that we are immune until that painful moment of realization comes home to roost. Then we cry and beg and pray to be cured. We spend all our money, and sometimes money we don’t have, on drugs hoping for a cure – or at the very least hoping for an easing of the pain and a little quality of life. Often, our family gets involved in our disease syndrome and their time and money also gets consumed as they try to provide care for their loved one.

In most cases we can avoid this scenario. By providing as much care, attention and maintenance to our bodies as we provide to our cars, boats, computers, printers, houses and our pets, we can keep our bodies healthy. We provide good care for our possessions because we don’t want to face a repair bill or a replacement bill and because we want them functioning as good as possible. But we don’t seem to have any respect for our body until it is too late. There is no replacement for our body and usually the repair is a stopgap measure. When the investment matures, the profits or dividends are collected. The profits we receive for most of our lifestyle choices are major losses!

It’s comforting to eat the junk food. It’s convenient to go to the fast food outlets. The manufacturers and sellers of those foods don’t care about the long term results you will experience. They care about their bottom line. Tobacco companies care about their bottom line. Drug companies care about their bottom line. The retail outlets care about their bottom line. Who cares about your bottom line? If it is not you, then it is nobody!

Each of us must take responsibility for our own health. Each of us must take responsibility for the results of our lifestyle choices. Each of us must realize and accept that when a major disease occurs, we have begun to reap the benefits of our choices and that we will most likely continue to reap those benefits.

This is one choice that has proved to be the best choice our family has made in regards to our health.

Each of us must ensure that we remain healthy. There are many guideposts and beacons showing us what we can do to make sure we get and remain as healthy as possible. Further articles posted here will look at a particular set of beacons - published medical research that addresses the requirements our bodies need to maintain good health. Optimal health is the desired benefit. Following the results and suggestion of these medical research projects is a big step towards achieving optimal health.