New Study Shows That Your Vitamin Could Be Dangerous
Thursday, January 25th, 2007According to a study done on ConsumerLab.com, less than half of the multivitamins in the marketplace have the amount of vitamins stated on their labels. Some had dangerous levels of certain vitamins while others even contained high levels of lead.
The company had independent laboratories test 21 brands of multivitamins that are on sale in the United States and Canada. Only about half of them contained the listed amount of vitamins.
A daily serving of The Vitamin Shoppe Multivitamins Especially For Women was found to contain 15.3 micrograms of lead, which is five times what the average person is exposed through with food, wine and other sources. This could cause serious problems if taken on a daily basis.
Hero Nutritionals Yummi Bears, a brand of children’s vitamins, were found to contain too much vitamin A. If regularly taken, these could potentially weaken bones and cause liver problems.
Other pills either had too much or too little of listed ingredients and some tablets took too long to dissolve, which means that much of their nutritional value may pass through you undigested.
The good news is that there were certain vitamins that had the listed amount of vitamins. Among these were Centrum Silver, Member’s Mark Complete Multi (Sam’s Club), One A Day Women’s and Flintstones Complete.
The bottom line? Remember that over the counter supplements do not have to be tested for consistency like prescription medications do. Stick with the bigger, better known name brands.