Brandon Barrett's List: International view of mulitvitamins

• First, ConsumerLab.com, a watchdog of the supplement industry, found that  more than half of the 21 multis it tested had too much (or too little) of  certain vitamins -- or had been contaminated with dangerous substances such as  lead. Then a controversial paper from researchers in Denmark and other European  countries, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, made  the claim that taking vitamins may actually shorten your life.
• mins have been recommended for years because they help you get key nutrients if  your diet's low on fruits and veggies -- and may even help prevent cancer and  heart disease. And it's unlikely that one critical paper (speculating that  vitamin supplements might upset your body's natural healing process and boost  your risk of death) will change that.

• Longtime vitamin experts at Tufts University and the Linus Pauling Institute  at Oregon State University continue to say multis aren't dangerous and the  paper's findings are wrong. The paper analyzed previous studies, including many  with people who were sick before taking vitamins, so there's a good chance  vitamins weren't responsible for shortening their lives. Experts say the paper  also ignored two major studies that found vitamins reduced the risk of  death.
• At the same time, the study from ConsumerLab.com shows that you can't assume  just any vitamin is safe. Because there are no uniform manufacturing rules for  supplements, a multi may not contain what the bottle claims, could be  contaminated with something from the manufacturing plant, or might have tainted  ingredients.
• Avoid the vitamins singled out by ConsumerLab.com, and stick with mainstream  names such as Centrum Silver and One-A-Day Women's, which were found to be free  of impurities and accurately labeled. Also, check vitamin bottles for the United  States Pharmacopoeia (USP), NSF International (NSF), or ConsumerLab.com (CL)  seals. The USP and NSF are nonprofit groups that verify whether companies offer  contamination-free products and use good manufacturing practices. Not every  brand has the seals -- some don't want to submit to testing--but those that do  (Kirkland and Nature Made carry the USP seal, for instance) are reliable.
• Price isn't a sign of quality.

• In your childbearing years, make sure your multi has 400 micrograms (mcg) of  folic acid, which helps make and maintain new cells. And pregnant women should  take a vitamin with 600 mcg of folic acid daily; this nutrient also reduces the  incidence of neural tube birth defects such as spina bifida.
• A premenopausal woman should look for a multivitamin with iron to replace the  iron lost during menstruation. Menopausal women should go without the iron. "Too  much iron may raise the risk of heart disease," says Meir Stampfer, Ph.D.,  professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health.
• If you're taking a prescription, check with your doctor about risky  interactions. (Vitamin E, for instance, may be a problem if you're taking a  blood thinner.) If you're a cancer patient, you should ask your doctor about  risks before taking vitamins. "Cancer cells need vitamins to grow, too,"  Stampfer says. Plus, some vitamins can interfere with chemotherapy.

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