Five Things You Should Know About Vitamins

Health: Popping too many vitamin pills is not only a waste of money but can be bad for your health.

Price: Paying more for a name brand won’t necessarily buy you better vitamins.

Storage: Vitamins lose their potency over time and must be stored at, or below, room temperature. If bottles are sitting on a shelf in warm room or in direct sunlight, they may degrade even before their expiration date.

Quality: 30 percent of multivitamins have a quality problem: the pills might have more or less of a stated ingredient, or they might not dissolve properly.

Reliability: Products sold by vitamin chains tend to be more reliable than drugstore brands, and Wal-Mart and Costco’s vitamin lines are usually worth considering.

Full story in The New York Times.

Comments (5)

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  1. Tom H. says:

    Interesting. But didn’t you tell us in another post that vitamins really don’t help?

  2. Devon Herrick says:

    I’ve always read it is best to get your daily recommended vitamins in the form of healthy food. You cannot eat a burger with greasy fries and pop a vitamin pill and expect the same results.

  3. Nancy says:

    Devon, you’re a killjoy.

  4. Larry C. says:

    A different way of thinking about the quality problem is to see vitamins as generics. Obviously, all generics are not the same. Put differently, what this post says is that branding matters.

  5. Ricy Mardona says:

    I think this is among the most important information for me. And I’m glad reading your article.