Choosing The Best Vitamin Supplements - Let The Buyer Beware!

Are you confused as you stand before the vitamin counter trying to select the best brand of vitamin ?  Doctor's prescription in hand for Vitamin D, I asked the pharmacist the brand name which would be used to fill the prescription and also took note of  others on the shelf and headed home to do some serious research. This is a long post, but if you read it through , you just mind gain from my findings.

It is vitally important to your health that you choose vitamin supplements that are actually used by your body and not quickly eliminated. It's because the vast majority of supplements are not assimilated by the body, yet the supplement industry of which vitamin or nutritional supplements are a part, are a literal multi-billion dollar a year enterprise.

There are many problems in the Nutritional Supplement Industry. It is essentially unregulated - there are no serious government approved vitamin ratings. Many formulations are not based on good medical and scientific research - this results in incorrect ingredients and/or incorrect ratios of ingredients.

Many products sold in Canada do not have a Drug Information Number (DIN) or National Product Number (NPN), while no guarantee, it shows that the government has at least looked at the list of ingredients.

Here are some effective tips when choosing quality vitamin supplements.

Product Development and Nutrient Reactions

The supplement you're considering should be rigorously tested and its creation process overseen by certified professionals. Vitamins work in a precise symbiotic synergism. Getting optimal assimilation is 0% art, 100% science. In other words, the vitamin supplements should be scientifically formulated and certified with each batch.

Manufacturing Procedures

These should utilize pharmaceutical blending not paddle/ribbon blender-type mixers. In addition, contact the company to ask if they have a Certificate of Analysis on file, confirming the potency of each batch. If the company ignores you or hesitates, that's not a good sign. Lastly, you should select a vitamin supplement maker that adheres to pharmaceutical GMP compliance - this is the highest standard possible.

Optimal Delivery System

The supplement should have enteric coating for optimal assimilation in the human system. This is critical yet almost nobody considers this when choosing a vitamin. If they did, they would save a lot of money.

Product Quality & Freshness

The ingredients the vitamins are made from should be made in smaller batches with the manufacturing process NOT outsourced out to other manufacturers. Remember, most vitamin and mineral supplement makers, as well as herbal product manufacturers are unregulated by the FDA.

Product Quality Control

Strict procedures developed and tested at least 3 times to ensure that each tablet of a product line will be identical in potency and purity to each other tablet of that line. Then the procedures are run 3 more times to verify the results will be consistent from batch to batch of the product line.