A recent investigation by consumerlab.com indicates that multi-vitamins may be doing more harm than good. They tested 39 different vitamins, and of those, 12 failed completely. You can get the complete results at their website; however, an article on MSNBC.com gave some of the results. It said one of the women's vitamins (The Vitamin Shoppe Multivitamins - Especially for Women) had an alarming amount of lead present, while a children's vitamin contained too much Vitamin A, which can be harmful, especially to youngsters. Although there are no regulations controlling the amounts of lead that can be in a consumable product, you don't want too ingest too much of it. Too much includes the amounts present in one of these vitamins! The good thing is most of the popular brands out there, such as One-A-Day Women & Centrum Silver, passed the test. It was suggested that this is probably because these larger companies have a lot more at stake - their reputation amongst consumers could cause serious damage to their sales if it was discovered they were not up to standards. Check out MSNBC.com's article for a good starting point on the topic.
For information on vitamins in general, check out the Harvard School of Public Health's website. Their site will give you a breakdown on the major vitamins and nutrients needed. An alternate site, which is equally informative, is put out by Oregon State University.
No comments:
Post a Comment