Live Well Vitamins & Lifestyle Guide

How to Evaluate Vitamins and Supplements

Everyone needs a balance of essential nutrients from a variety of foods to stay healthy. Yet it’s not always easy to eat right when you’re on the go. That’s why some of us reach for vitamins and supplements to fill in the gaps.

Yet, with a plethora of multivitamins, herbs, and botanicals out there, how can you tell if a supplement is safe -- or right for you?

9 Questions to Ask About Vitamins and Supplements

Although there’s contradictory evidence as to whether a daily multivitamin staves off disease, many people add them to their diet to maintain or boost health. Others, such as premenopausal women, sometimes choose individual vitamins and minerals, like iron, to fill in specific gaps.

If you’re evaluating supplements and vitamins to add to your diet, here are nine questions to ask your doctor, pharmacist, and/or registered dietitian:

• What health benefits does this supplement offer me?
• Do I need this supplement for my health?
• What is the recommended dose for this supplement?
• When and for how long do I need to take this supplement?
• Which is most appropriate and effective for me -- a pill, powder, or liquid?
• Which form of the vitamin (vitamin D2 or D3, for instance) is the best?
• Does this supplement or vitamin have any known side effects?
• What are the best brands of this supplement?
• Does this supplement interact with any medications or foods?
• Will I need to stop taking this supplement or vitamin if I have to undergo surgery?

Which Vitamin Form Should You Choose?

Once you know which vitamin or supplement is right for you, you’ll discover many can be bought as pills, liquids, or powders. Typically the difference between them is the rate at which your body absorbs the supplement and how quickly the supplement becomes active. For example, liquids are absorbed faster than pills.

Certain supplements are in pill form because they become ineffective, or even dangerous, if exposed to stomach acids. Some people need to take a liquid if they have difficulty absorbing vitamins or supplements from a pill.

And not all formulations of a particular vitamin are the same. For example, vitamin D supplements come as either vitamin D-2 (ergocalciferol) or vitamin D-3 (cholecalciferol), with some preliminary evidence showing that vitamin D-3 tends to be the more active form. When in doubt, talk with your doctor about which supplement suits your needs.

Supplement Safety

The FDA does regulate dietary supplements; however, it treats them like foods rather than medications.

Unlike drug manufacturers, the makers of supplements don’t have to prove their products are safe or effective. Instead, the FDA can force a supplement from the market only if it proves that the supplement is unsafe. That’s an important point to keep in mind. A supplement could be on the market for years before enough people had adverse health effects to prove it’s unsafe. However, there are some efforts in the works to bring supplement manufacturers up to certain standards (called GMP) that are similar to those for pharmaceutical makers.