Are Your Vitamins Working?

Vitamins can be a hot topic. Some folks are pro vitamins while others feel they are a waste of money. One of the questions people always ask, is how do I know if my vitamins are working?

To really know if your vitamins are making a difference to your health, you would need to complete blood work before you started your regime of vitamins and then follow up several weeks later and compare the results.

But there are  a few things you can do right now.

First, is your body absorbing the vitamin?   Take this home test to find out.  Fill a glass with a cup of vinegar, drop your vitamin into the glass and wait for 30 minutes. If your vitamin has dissolved that’s a good indication that your stomach acids would work the same and the vitamin would be absorbed  easily into your body.  If the vitamin is still whole and sitting at the bottom of the glass, you might want to consider switching vitamin brands.

Second, vitamins don’t last forever, so remember to keep them in a dark, cool, dry place and keep an eye on the expiration date.

Thirdly, never take a new vitamin supplement without talking to your doctor or health care practitioner first. Here are some questions you should be asking:

• How would this supplement help me, and how much should I take?
• What does the research say about its benefits & what are the side effects?
• Can I take it along with my other medications?
• What are the best brands of this supplement in terms of quality, and how well they work?

Fourthly, you may also want to know whether your vitamins are natural or synthetic.

Look for products that contain the words “100 percent plant-based” or “100 percent animal-based” on the product’s label. Manufactures are allowed to use the term “natural” if at least 10 percent of the product comes from natural food sources.

If the product’s label does not contain a list of natural food sources, then the product is synthetic. Look for food sources such as yeast, fish, vegetable and citrus.

A synthetic salt is added to supplements to increase the stability of the vitamin or mineral. Look for these terms on the label: acetate, bitartrate, chloride, gluconate, hydrochloride, nitrate and succinate.

Here is list of common synthetic vitamins:

• Vitamin A: Acetate and Palmitate
• Vitamin B1 (Thiamine): Thiamine Mononitrate, Thiamine Hydrochloride
• Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin): Riboflavin
• Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine): Pyridoxine Hydrochloride
• Vitamin B12: Cobalamin
• Vitamin C: Ascorbic Acid
• Vitamin D: Irradiated Ergosteral, Calciferol
• Vitamin E: dl-alpha tocopherol, dl-alpha tocopherol acetate or succinate

If you are getting the recommended amount of nutrients by eating a variety of fruit, vegetables, cereals, dairy, and protein, there might be no additional benefit from taking a vitamin.  Remember that unless your health-care provider  or doctor tells you that you need more than 100 percent of the recommended daily intake of a particular nutrient, you probably shouldn’t exceed that limit.