More about vitamins

How do you know if there are really 1,000 IU of Vitamin D in the bottle? How much should I be taking? Should I even be taking vitamins?

In answer to the last question, talk to your provider about vitamins and supplements. As much as possible, try to get sufficient vitamins from the food you eat. However, health status, age, gender and even where you live, can all impact what your body needs and the best ways of achieving that.

Keep in mind that some vitamins can interact with medicines, or should be taken at a different time than prescriptions. You can also talk to your pharmacist. Be sure to read the information that comes with your prescriptions.

The Office of Dietary Supplements provides a great deal of information on this topic, including fact sheets and research findings.

Dr. Ellen Hughes talk, “Nutrition in a Bottle: A Scientific Review of Vitamins, Minerals and Supplements,” provides an excellent overview and offers suggestions on everything from dosage to where to purchase supplements. This can be watched on-line at the UCTV website Dr. Hughes is an internist and integrative medicine specialist at the University of California San Francisco’s Osher Center for Integrative medicine. The program is also being aired on Dish Channel 9512. Check UCTV for airing times.

Knowing if your supplements really do have the amounts they say they do, is a bit trickier to address. The easiest way is to check the label for the USP mark. The United States Pharmacopeia (USP) is an official public standards–setting authority for all prescription and over–the–counter medicines and other health care products manufactured or sold in the United States. USP also sets widely recognized standards for food ingredients and dietary supplements. USP sets standards for the quality, purity, strength, and consistency of these products–critical to the public health. USP is a non-governmental, not-for-profit public health organization.

The store brands of Cosco and BJs are generally USP certified, as well as Nature’s Made. Be sure to check the label, as some vitamins within a brand may not be certified.

ConsumerLab.com does random sampling and testing of vitamins, supplements and nutrition. You will need to pay for their information. Sometimes articles will appear in the news providing limited findings.

Vitamins and supplements are not subject to the same regulation as prescription drugs, and not all companies want to pay for testing. Below are some ways to select a multivitamin as recommended by the nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group in Washington, D.C.
— Choosing well-known mainstream brands by companies that have a lot at stake.
— Buying from large, trusted retailers, not unknown sellers on the Internet.
— Looking on the bottle for a stamp from USP, NSF or ConsumerLab.com. While the stamp doesn't guarantee the product is safe and effective, it does indicate that the manufacturer has submitted the product for testing to show that it contains what is stated on the label.
— Not spending a fortune on vitamins. Pricey products toting all sorts of "extras" aren't necessary and may be trouble

Keep in mind that the web, while an excellent source of information, is a “snake oil salesman’s” dreaml market. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Look for sites that end in gov, educ, or org and talk to your provider.