Multi Vitamins

I found out the other day that orange juice concentrate is made by boiling down oranges and one of the by-products of the process is the vitamin C used in tablets.

What brand are you taking?

Unless the label says otherwise, no, they didn't boil down vats of carrots or grapefruits to get the vitamins. They are synthesized in laboratories.

Vitamin C was the first to be artificially produced. The 1937 Nobel prize or chemistry was given or the synthesis. Nowadays, it's produced by fermentation of glucose. Most comes from China these days.

I take a mutli every day except when travelling.

What brand?

Manch, The brand I have is Centrum. But the question would apply to any brand.

No idea how they're made. But I recall that 'The Guardian's' (UK centre-left newspaper) 'weekend' doctor advised a few months back that it's better not to take supplements.

It's not so much that supplements are inherently evil. It's more that (as should be obvious) it is always better to get your vitamins, minerals or whatever from foods, not pills. There's just so many more goodies in an orange than in a vitamin C tablet.

Another issue is that some people figure they can substitute a vitamin supplement for a decent diet. It's OK to live on fast food or to eat only meat & no vegetables or some other notion--you can make up or it by taking a vitamin. Wrong.

Oh, yeah. I forgot to add. When you are talking about just the vitamin itself, there is no evidence that a vitamin derived from a natural source (e.g. rose hip vitamin C ) is any better or more bioavailable than one synthesized in a lab. Quality control is a different issue, but again that is a function of how good the manufacturer is. There is no inherent reason why those rose hips would be "less contaminated" or "purer" than that synthesized pill. In fact, so called "natural" supplements often vary radically in the amount of the nutrient actually in the package, no matter what the label says.