The Maze of Multivitamins

Nutrition used to be so easy. Just eat three square meals a day from the four food groups, and your body would take care of itself.

Not so any more. Now we've got to deal with the food pyramid, with antioxidants eating up free radicals like some kind of chemical game of PacMan, with new studies finding new information about nutrition that, often as not, contradicts findings of the last study.

It's easy to feel lost when you're staring at those rows of plastic bottles labeled with names of vitamin and supplements in the drug store. What do all of those names mean? Which ones do you need? How do you decide? For that matter, do you need any of them? Are they really necessary, or is all this attention on vitamins and minerals just so much advertising hype?

Just what does a vitamin do, anyway?

"Vitamins act as cofactors in metabolism," says Timi Gustafson, a registered dietician and creator of Cyberdiet.com, an Internet site dedicated to nutrition. "Vitamins start or assist a biological cycle. They come in at different levels and pathways of the body to keep the cycle going. Think of it as a cascade. If a cofactor is missing, the cycle doesn't get completed, and the cascade stops flowing."

Even if you eat the most balanced diet, you'll have a hard time getting all of the nutrients you need, much less getting enough of all of them, according to Angela Cuocci, a certified nutritionist with Dynamic Women Exercise Centers in Maryland. "You can't get them all from food any more. It's too chemically processed. There is a significant percentage of nutrients taken from foods, even fresh foods and vegetables, because of chemicals in the soil and those used in preservation processes."

Enter the vitamin supplements. They deliver 100% of the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of vitamins and minerals. Take one of these, and your basic nutritional needs are met, right?

Well, sort of. Not all vitamins are created equal. How a vitamin is made and what it's made of effects how well it works.

First of all, it has to get into your system. Look for a supplement that's water soluble. That guarantees that the vitamins will get into your blood stream. If the label doesn't tell you, try this quick, easy, cheap, and generally accurate test - drop one of the pills into a glass of water. It should dissolve within an hour.

Some multivitamins boast that they are 'natural.' That sounds healthy, but what does it mean? According to the Food and Drug Administration's definition of 'natural,' it doesn't really mean much. For something to call itself 'natural,' only 10% of the item or product must come from natural ingredients. The other 90% can be made from anything else. In the case of vitamins, most of the synthetics are mad from petrochemical byproducts. That doesn't mean that they aren't effective, just that they are more closely related to a test tube than to Mother Nature. Also, some synthetic vitamins are not absorbed effectively by your body, so you don't get the full dose.

While you're reading the labels, you'll find that a lot of the brands offer more than the 100% RDA. You can get doses of 200%, 400%, 1000% over the RDA for some vitamins. Ok, if 100% is good for you, 500% must be five times as good, right?

Not so, although that's what some manufacturers would like you to think. Unless you have special physical needs, 100% of any vitamin or mineral is all you need. The excess won't be used or stored by your body. Most of the time, it will quite literally just pass through your system. Of the few vitamins that will be stored, you probably won't use up the reserve quickly enough to avoid an overdose. With some vitamins, like Vitamin C, an overdose actually reduces the effectiveness of the vitamin. Megadoses of some other vitamins can cause serious physical problems.

Herbal additions to supplements are another hype. Most of the time, the amount of herbal ingredients found in vitamin supplements is too small to be effective. Beta carotene, touted as a possible cancer preventer, is not effective in powdered form, which is how it is found in supplements, so buying a multivitamin with added beta carotene is mostly a nice gesture to the manufacturers bottom line.

What about those special health needs? You'll find vitamin supplements for 50+, concentration, menopause, PMS, bone health, and leg health, among others. Do any of those products actually help the conditions?

"It's definitely proven that certain kinds of vitamins are good for certain things. They can be helpful, but I'd still be very cautious," warns Cuocci. "I'm not sure the world in general has been on the vitamin kick long enough to back up all the claims with enough in-depth, scientific studies," she adds.

The best advice, say Gufstafson and Cuocci, is still the old advice: eat a balanced diet coming from the food pyramid. That, and a general multivitamin taken each day, will give you the foundation for nutritional fitness.

Nutrition on the Net

The Internet is a great place to find information about nutrition. You'll find sites that give basic information about vitamins, the food pyramid and how to develop healthy eating habits. Some include sample menus and the nutritional value of foods and links to other sites. There's also a lot of professional information to be found - abstracts from studies, reprints from articles in professional journals and information on the latest developments.
Here are some of the better sites that are aimed at nutritional novices:

WWW.Cyberdiet.com
Operated by Timi Gustafson, a registered dietician, this is a comprehensive site for learning about vitamins and nutrition. You'll find advice on eating well and dieting for health and weight loss. The nutritional profile helps you find a healthy goal weight and gives you the breakdown of your daily nutritional needs.

WWW.Vita-Web.com
Created by drug manufacturer Roche Pharmaceuticals, this is a lively, colorful site. Superheroes stand in for vitamins and minerals and explain what each one does for your body. While flashy and simple enough to attract kids, the site is also a good starting point for adults, too.

WWW.phys.com
This is another very comprehensive page, maintained by Conde Nast Publications. If you like self-tests and surveys, this is the site for you. There are tests to determine your ideal body mass index, weight, health risks and daily nutritional needs. This site also has a comprehensive encyclopedia of nutritional terms with hundreds of entries on nutrients, additives and supplements.

WWW.Familyfoodzone.com
Subtitled "How to Grow a Healthy Family," this has such things as "Mom's Food Guide to the Food Pyramid" and a lot of games for kids (parental involvement is encouraged) that teach nutritional basics.
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