Nutrition
2016-04-05
This paper is devoted to the issue of the vitamin supplements. They are substances that can be added to the diet to enhance the human health and prevention of different diseases. Vitamin supplements are usually produced in the form of vitamin and mineral complexes.
The prices of vitamin supplements vary from several dollars per one packaging to some hundred dollars. It depends on the quantity of tablets and their composition, manufacturer and promotion. There are a lot of the vitamin supplements in the US. The most popular are the following: Centrum, Theravit, Vitrum, Perfectil, Berocca and some others. According to the common opinion, the multivitamin complexes are necessary for especially those people, who have unbalanced nutrition or are malnourished. Manufacturing the vitamin supplements is regulated by FDA. At the same time, they are regulated differently in comparison with the foods and drugs.
All the vitamin supplements can be divided into three main groups.
complexes that contain around 30-50 percentages of the recommended daily intake (RDA) for humans;
complexes, which contain almost the entire dose of the vitamins recommended daily intake;
complexes with a high content of vitamins (more than 100 percentages of RDA). Moreover, the content of vitamins E and C can be ten times more than the RDA in such complexes, in other words it is up to 1000 percentages of the RDA. The contents of other vitamins can be in the range of 100 to 300 percentages of the RDA (National Institutes of Health, 2016).
Vitamin supplements, which consist of about 100 percentages of the daily requirement of vitamins, are useful to eliminate the deficit within 1-2 months of their intake. Other complexes with a higher content (more than 100 percentages) are designed for rapid elimination of vitamin deficiency. They are usually taken during 10-14 days. There are so many different forms of vitamin supplements. The traditional form is pills or capsules. Other forms are chewy candy, pastilles, marmalade. There are vitamins in powder form, syrups, effervescent tablets, gels or drinks, ready to eat in.
It should be noted that some combinations of several vitamins or elements are undesirable. Examples of such combinations are the following: vitamin B1 and PP; iron-manganese; nickel-zinc; nickel-manganese; copper-zinc; copper-iron; copper-manganese; zinc-iron; zinc-manganese. At the same time, almost all vitamin supplements can cause allergic reactions. One can say that the majority of vitamin supplements consist of the additional elements, which can negatively impact on the human health. In this case, there are a lot of supplement risks. For example, some supplements can cause serious side effects; others can interact with the prescription and non-prescription drugs. It makes the drugs less or more potent.
The FDA issued a great number of warning letters to the marketers about illegal disease claims in 2012 and 2013 (Berkeley University of California, 2016). Despite this, a lot of manufacturers make unsubstantiated health claims on their labels, which do not comply with laws.
Other claims are connected with the poor absorption of vitamins and the possibility that some food can be replaced with vitamins. For example, millions of people around the world take the tablets with vitamin D and calcium to prevent age-related loss of bone mineral density and protect against fractures, but the reception of these vitamin supplements is not entirely justified.
There is insufficient evidence that these supplements can prevent fractures. On the contrary, they may advisedly impact on the kidneys and cause strokes. Thus, the benefits of these supplements are significantly exaggerated by their manufacturers. In conclusion one can say that the most important problem of vitamin supplements is connected with the desire of companies to earn more without paying attention to the possible negative consequences for the human health.
References
Berkeley University of California,. (2016). Supplement Claims: What's Allowed. @berkeleywellness. Retrieved 4 April 2016, from http://www.berkeleywellness.com/ supplements/other-supplements/article/supplement-claims-whats-allowed
National Institutes of Health,. (2016). Office of Dietary Supplements - Background Information: Dietary Supplements. Ods.od.nih.gov. Retrieved 4 April 2016, from https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/DietarySupplements-HealthProfessional/
