By Previnex®
When we think of vitamins, most of us think of great supplements chock full of the things we may miss in our diets. We also think of them as great ways to boost our health, energy and immunity. But, did you know that many vitamins that claim to provide numerous health benefits actually contain potentially harmful compounds?
Knowing what is in your vitamin is an important step in maintaining your health.
What should be in your vitamin
Your vitamin supplement should contain either a single vitamin (like vitamin A, C or E) or a mix of vitamins (multivitamin) that comes from the purest possible sources. They should only contain carefully chosen ingredients that are naturally sourced and in the purest forms for high quality.
Buying a bargain vitamin is not a good bet for your health, as bargain vitamins generally use the cheapest forms of ingredients at levels that are not proven to deliver benefits. Make sure to read the vitamin supplement label to be sure that the vitamin you choose is giving your body the fuel it needs to perform at your best.
What should not be in your vitamin
Unfortunately many bargain brand vitamins may contain things you don’t want in your supplement. Many consumers are not aware that unlike prescription medications, vitamins and supplements do not need FDA approval to be sold in stores. There are not testing standards that they must adhere to before hitting the shelves, meaning with Food Grade supplements, contaminants could be present and there’s literally no requirement that the supplement will break down and be absorbed by your body.
When you take a step back and think about that, it’s downright frightening. If no one is really looking at the safety and effectiveness of our vitamins, are they safe?
Since 1999 the company ConsumerLab.com has extensively tested a wide range of vitamins and supplements to test for safety, contaminants, harmful ingredients and other properties of the products. The most recent test of multivitamins showed that out of the thousands of tested brands, 33 percent had some form of defect (defect = too little or too much of a listed vitamin/mineral, tablets/capsules that failed to break apart within a required time, and supplements that contained more than the upper tolerable limit of a specific vitamin/mineral). That's a whopping third of all mass-market vitamins. If a third of all vitamins are defective, how comfortable are you in your brand?
What you can’t see can harm you
It's scary to think that you can look at a vitamin bottle and it can look completely safe and make big health claims with fancy marketing, yet contain harmful contaminants. Multivitamin tests have shown trace amounts of metal, problems with absorption rates, too high and too low amount of ingredients and many other problems. Unfortunately when it comes to your health, what you can’t see CAN hurt you. This is why a thorough check of your multivitamin is very important for your health.
How do we know which vitamins are safe?
In order to have full confidence in your vitamin, you need to know what is really in it. Pay attention to the way the ingredients are gathered, the forms of the ingredients (found in the parenthesis after the vitamin listing on the supplement facts), if the supplements are produced at a pharmaceutical grade manufacturing standard, and whether the product is tested before hitting the market. These are important questions to ask when you are talking about your health!
For many of us taking our daily vitamin is an important way to round out our diet and make sure we are getting everything we need. While vitamin supplements can play an important role in your overall health, low-quality ingredients will not give you the improvements you are after, and quite frankly can be a waste of hard-earned money. Pay careful attention when choosing your vitamin to make sure you get the best ingredients that have been tested for quality and safety, and a supplement manufactured at the highest standards.
A pharmaceutical grade vitamin containing the most clinically proven forms of ingredients can give you the extra lift that you need to perform at your very best.
