{"id":2447,"date":"2019-07-03T12:52:05","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T16:52:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/?p=2447"},"modified":"2019-06-25T12:57:25","modified_gmt":"2019-06-25T16:57:25","slug":"fitness-focus-who-really-needs-vitamins-and-mineral-supplements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/?p=2447","title":{"rendered":"FITNESS FOCUS: Who Really Needs Vitamins and Mineral Supplements?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Christie Donato<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The vitamin and mineral supplement industry is the latest commercial wellness space to receive the direct-to-consumer treatment, with brands like Care\/of<\/a>, Ritual<\/a>, and Hims<\/a>delivering personalized vitamin packets, prenatal multivitamins and gummy bear vitamins right to your door. They market on podcasts and via Instagram, touting a minimalist design perfect for the social media age. It\u2019s no secret that millennials care a lot about overall health and wellness, which has alcohol companies scrambling to rebrand booze as a \u201chealth drink\u201d<\/a>to capture the shifting markets. Vitamins and supplements have been on the rise for a while, with a 2013 Gallup poll<\/a>showing that half of all American adults reportedly take a daily vitamin.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not part of that 50 percent statistic, you might be a little curious about introducing vitamins and supplements into your life \u2014 I know I was. There\u2019s something pretty alluring about being able to pop a pill or two every morning to ensure that you\u2019re getting all your nutrients for the day. It sounds a lot easier than waking up early to make a balanced breakfast before work, that\u2019s for sure. Before diving in, though, the first thing you should know is that, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration\u2019s website<\/a>, \u201cthe FDA is not authorized to review dietary supplement products for safety and effectiveness before they are marketed,\u201d which means that vitamin companies are left to self-report, creating a \u201cBuyer Beware\u201d scenario. Third party organizations such as ConsumerLabs.com<\/a>,NSF International<\/a>and U.S. Pharmacopeia<\/a>exist to perform testing on vitamins and supplements, so look for certifications from these labs when choosing a vitamin brand. After all, these pills are going directly into your body, don\u2019t you want to make sure you\u2019re not unknowingly taking mustard, wheat or sugar fillers, or accidentally taking too high of a dosage?<\/span><\/p>\n

How common is the issue of mislabeled vitamins and supplements? Common enough that in 2017 CVS Pharmacy rolled out an initiative known as \u201cTested to be Trusted,\u201d<\/a><\/u>pledging to test all vitamins and supplements sold in stores and online through a third-party lab to ensure labels contained the correct information. In a 2019 report<\/a>, they announced that about 7 percent of all products failed to pass the test and were either pulled from stores or had their labels updated. <\/span><\/p>\n

Say you\u2019ve found a brand you trust. Should you really begin a vitamin regimen based on an online quiz or because your favorite influencer won\u2019t stop hashtagging biotin on all her posts? Here\u2019s the deal, there is little evidence<\/a>to suggest that the average American adult eating a reasonably healthy diet is likely to benefit from taking vitamins and supplements. Registered Dietetic Technician Mallory Burnham put it to me this way: \u201cThe average person who is eating a healthy, well-balanced diet doesn\u2019t need a multivitamin. The young, elderly and pregnant or nursing mothers are really the only ones who need supplementation.\u201d She recommends getting all of your vitamin and mineral intake from a natural source, like food, and if you are taking multivitamin it \u201cshould only be under the direction of your doctor or a registered dietician who knows your medical and diet history.\u201d Chances are good you\u2019re already getting all the nutrients your body needs, and, in some cases, it is possible to overdose on vitamins, so you may be doing more harm than good. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re worried that you may have a vitamin deficiency, there\u2019s an easy way to find out: ask your doctor to check your vitamin levels. With the help of a physician you can safely add vitamins into your routine without overdoing it. Don\u2019t have access to health insurance (that\u2019s about 44 million Americans<\/a>, in case you were wondering)? There\u2019s a very easy way to know that you\u2019re getting all the vitamins and nutrients your body needs, and that\u2019s by eating a healthy diet that\u2019s relatively high in fruits and vegetables and low in sugary foods. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Christie Donato \u00a0 The vitamin and mineral supplement industry is the latest commercial wellness space to receive the direct-to-consumer treatment, with brands like Care\/of, Ritual, and Himsdelivering personalized vitamin packets, prenatal multivitamins and gummy bear vitamins right to your door. They market on podcasts and via Instagram, touting a minimalist design perfect for the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[126],"tags":[880,881],"class_list":["post-2447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-fitness-focus","tag-vitamins"],"gutentor_comment":0,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/vitamin.jpg?fit=4798%2C3199&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2752,"url":"https:\/\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/?p=2752","url_meta":{"origin":2447,"position":0},"title":"SELF-CARE: Dealing with seasonal depression","author":"Staff","date":"January 2, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"By Nichole A. 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