Are Gummy Vitamins Good For You?
If you spend any time watching television you’ve probably seen ads that feature actors with enormous smiles on their faces and seemingly unattainable levels of energy after popping what appears to be a piece of candy in their mouths. They say the gummy vitamin they ingested, often looking like a fruit snack seen in sugary treats intended for children, has given them the essential vitamins needed to rise up and seize the day.
Now we all know what the majority of television ads are meant to do: sell us consumer products under the guise that they are absolutely amazing for us without ever explaining the negatives that could be associated with using or consuming their product.
Take the sports drink Gatorade for instance, they’ll show you a professional athlete who tells you that drinking Gatorade will give you the electrolytes and fluid you need to maintain the energy and hydration necessary to perform at your best. What they don’t tell you is that a 16 Fl Oz Gatorade contains 26 grams of sugar in the bottle per serving. I had a family member who reached near diabetic levels of blood sugar after consuming multiple bottles of Gatorade a day thinking it was somehow good for him.
So, is the same happening with your gummy vitamin? The answer is a resounding YES.
A general rule of thumb: a supplement that is made to look like candy including gummy and chewable products, most likely feature ingredients that do more harm than good to the body. They’re generally filled with ingredients that are designed to make them tasty but are actually extremely unhealthy.
According to a 2017 New York Times article, vitamin gummies contain one to two grams of sugar per vitamin. This is mostly due to the sugary coating on the exterior of the vitamin that makes them taste like the candy they’re meant to mimic. Some gummy vitamin supplements contain much more. The Times found that a 1,000 milligram dose of Nature Made Gummy Vitamin C contains 8 grams of sugar. Taking a 1,000 milligram dose of Vitamin C through a digestible pill avoids the negative side effects associated with excessive sugar consumption.
Gummy vitamins also tend to feature ingredients like fillers, food colorings and artificial preservatives that, like candy, are intended to make them look appealing and have a longer shelf life. According to an article from the American College of Healthcare Sciences, certain food colorings have been linked to increased hyperactivity in children, serve no valuable health functions and cover up that the ingredients in your vitamins have been degraded due to exposure. Fillers commonly found in gummy vitamins like Hydrogenated Oils, Magnesium Stearate and Titanium Dioxide, among many others, can both lead and contribute to negative health problems.
The majority of gummy vitamins also fail to meet the 13 vitamins our bodies need from our diet as recommended by the US Food and Drug Administration. According to a report from ConsumerLab.com that tested 50 different multivitamins, 80 percent of gummy vitamins failed to meet dietary supplement standards. The study also found that a good portion of vitamins failed to meet the nutrient percentages represented on their labels.
For patients of bariatric surgery, do yourself a favor and avoid taking gummy and chewable vitamins as an effective multivitamin. Television ads that depict those who take gummy vitamins as high-energy, overly-efficient, perpetually-happy people as a result are simply using smoke and mirrors to hide the negatives of taking their supplement. Vita4life Multivitamins contain no fillers or preservatives and provide the 13 dietary vitamins recommended by the FDA + more! Make Vita4life Multivitamins part of your daily vitamin regiment today!