Today, people are bombarded with advertisements about vitamins that purportedly make your skin glow, help you lose weight, lower your cholesterol, prevent heart attacks or strokes, and even give you energy. But are multivitamins the cure-all?
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Health experts agree that certain multivitamins can be beneficial to certain groups of people like pregnant or breastfeeding women, people with cancer or diabetes, and even your stereotypical bohemian vegan who doesn’t get the nutrients because of their eating habits.
However, for most people, getting the vitamins and minerals they need through the food they eat is best. But most people, especially Americans, don’t get the vitamins and minerals they need because this is a fast-food nation, so taking multivitamins can help supplement what they don’t get through their fast food intake.
But don’t expect miracles from your multivitamin intake. In a recent study published in the ‘Archives of Internal Medicine,’ researchers followed more than 160,000 postmenopausal women and found that the use of multivitamins had ‘little or no influence’ on the rates of cancer and heart disease.
Before you go spending your hard earned money to buy and swallow these horse pills, it’s best to ask your doctor what you need or don’t need and what is best for you before buying these ever-changing over-the-counter supplements.
The next question, ‘are multivitamins safe?’ The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) do not regulate multivitamins, so consumers have to rely on the manufacturers to ensure the safety of the drug. And many manufacturers are not particularly concerned about your health, they want the almighty dollar. There is a good website called, ‘consumerlab.com’ that tests these multivitamins to ensure their safety.
Consumers of these multivitamins should also be skeptical about the health claims on the labels of vitamin bottles. Sometimes there can be dangerous additives (one vitamin was found to contain lead), or too much or too little of the vitamin itself.
I don’t like to mention company names, but in this case I will just for the safety of the consumer and it’s public access anyway. In 2009, the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) said they were going to sue Bayer Healthcare over claims the company made about one of their products.
Bayer claimed the vitamin ‘selenium’ prevented prostate problems, and David Schardt at CSPI said that Bayer is ‘exploiting men’s fears of prostate cancer just to sell more pills.’ In 2007 Bayer also claimed one of their products made one lose weight, which it did not, and Bayer was fined over three million dollars.
I hope you found this multivitamin review worth your time, and remember, vitamin supplements can be helpful, but it’s best to discuss what you need with your doctor before buying anything over-the-counter being advertised.
