Are Expensive Vitamins More Effective Or Safe?

Both vitamins and minerals are essential nutrients and act together for normal cell growth, function, and development. By working together, vitamins and minerals help heal wounds, shore up bones, and boost your immune system. There are 13 essential vitamins and without getting enough of these vitamins, you just cannot enjoy a good health.

Speaking of vitamins, there are two types of them; fat-soluble and water-soluble. Your body’s fatty tissue stores fat-soluble vitamins, whereas water-soluble vitamins are used by your body almost immediately. You need both types of vitamins to stay healthy, and you can get enough from dietary sources. The problem is that many people do not know much about designing and following a balanced and healthy diet, and it often results in nutritional deficiencies. This is exactly the situation when people look towards multivitamin supplements to fix their vitamin deficiencies.

Is it true that expensive vitamins are more effective or safe?

The simple answer is no. The cost does not play a big role here, but you need to consider a number of factors to get your answer.

The Harvard School of Public Health has stated that taking a daily multivitamin is a good way to ensure that you are getting enough of important nutrients.

However, many experts have also mentioned that you need to take multivitamins as a good “backup” to ensure proper nutrition, and understand that these supplements are no substitute to veggies, fruits, nuts, whole grains, and healthy oils.

Nevertheless, multivitamin supplements have their benefits, but you need to learn how to select the right one, especially when they are so many options, including inexpensive and wallet-busting supplements. The simple answer is that there is no set method available to determine if expensive vitamins are more effective or safe.

• In terms of safety, a study performed by ConsumerLab.com shows that you can’t assume that just any and every vitamin is safe. A majority of multivitamins are not required to undergo rigorous testing procedures by the FDA since they are considered to be dietary supplements. Additionally, there are no uniform rules for the manufacturing of the supplements, which means that vitamins from different companies could be manufactured differently. Source

What it implies is that multivitamin supplements may or may not contain what is mentioned on the label. These supplements may not have enough of each vitamin or mineral, which directly affects their efficacy. Some experts have also expressed the same concern. For instance:

• A multivitamin may not contain what the bottle says it contains (either less or more in terms of the dosage of the vitamins), it could be contaminated with something from the manufacturing plant, or it may have tainted ingredients.

Due to the issue related to contamination, you will be better off selecting a supplement from a popular brand. Price of a multivitamin supplement has nothing to do with its quality; in fact, consumer reviews suggest that some of the most expensive multivitamin supplements failed miserably. Therefore, the safest bet would be to put your money on a popular brand with the seal of approval from the concerned authorities.

Why You May Want to Take Multivitamin Supplements?

It is a fact that you need to eat healthy foods to obtain vitamins, but sometimes, certain factors, such as temptations to eat unhealthy foods and busy schedules keep you from receiving adequate nutrition from dietary sources alone. Here are some other reasons why you may want to include a multivitamin supplement in your diet.

• The introduction of many modern agriculture techniques has left soil deficient in important minerals, which is why you may end up developing mineral deficiencies.
• Many foods have to be shipped long distances and in many cases, have to be stored for long durations, which may lead to the depletion of vitamins in these foods.
• Genetically bred vegetables and fruits may look pretty but they lack nutritional content.
• Erratic eating habits, such as eating on the run, eating without chewing your food, and stress can lead to poor digestion and absorption of vitamins and minerals. It can also lead to a vitamin deficiency.
• The extensive use of pharmaceutical drugs can also make it difficult to digest food. The use of antibiotics can reduce the number of healthy bacteria in your gut, which in turn can lead to nutritional deficiencies and other health issues.
• The increase in the levels of environmental pollution in water, air, and food has increased the need for nutrients because your body needs vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients for detoxification. This is true for vitamins like vitamins A, C, and E because they have antioxidant properties as well.

Due to all these and many other reasons, people decide to include a multivitamin supplement in their diet, which is a good thing to do under certain circumstances. However, the problem is that not all multivitamin supplements are the same. They vary greatly in terms of the the price they charge, which often makes people think that they are going to get better results when they put their money on an expensive multivitamin supplement.

Things to Consider Other than Price

Instead of price, you should pay attention to other important factors to select a good multivitamin supplement. For instance, you should consider if it is based on synthetic ingredients or whole food ingredients. Synthetic vitamins or ingredients are sourced from the lab, whereas organic vitamins are obtained from real food. Some studies suggest that organic supplements are better than synthetic vitamins. However, it is important to note that organic vitamins tend to be more expensive as compared to synthetic vitamins.

Organic multivitamin supplements are likely to work better because you get all components of vitamins in a single serving.

For instance, if you talk about a synthetic supplement offering vitamin C, you will notice that they call it ascorbic acid. It is true that ascorbic acid offers health benefits, but you have to understand that it is only one element of the vitamin C complex. A whole-food based multivitamin is different in the sense because the supplement usually states that it contains vitamin C from cherries, acerola, or other citrus fruit. In this case, you will get ascorbic acid along with other synergistic compounds included in the full vitamin C complex.

No matter what types of vitamins you are taking and what you are paying for them, you should ensure that you do not take mega doses. Your body finds it difficult to manage vitamins and minerals in large doses. In fact, some studies suggest that taking larger doses of vitamins may increase your risk for cardiovascular disease. You will be better off taking a multivitamin supplement that provides you with no more than 100% of your recommended daily intake of different vitamins. It is better to take less and fill the gap by including nutritious food in your diet.