Are all natural vitamins really better than vitamins that are not all natural?

Answer 1

* No - not really. They have the same effect on your body. The problem with vitamin pills usually is that they are significantly higher doses than you require. Also by eating "natural" vitamins, you are getting other nutrients you need from your food. I would never take vitamin pills unless tests are showing that you are not getting enough. Most people are fine, and it is just advertising by the vitamin companies to get you to buy. Answer

* There is a great deal of misinformation in the above post. I will take each point individually: 1. All natural and non-natural (man-made) vitamins DO NOT have the same effect on your body! I began to learn this from a Biology professor in college. She provided the example of Vitamin E: The natural form has a specific shape that makes it useful in the body. The man-made form is shaped differently, making it of little or no use in the body. She went on to state that vitamins, such as the one advertised to take one a day, provide no real benefit in the body. 2. Vitamin supplements generally DO NOT provide significantly higher levels than our bodies require, but significantly lower amounts than what our bodies need. Many people base their knowledge of this matter on the standards set forth by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, independent studies have shown that those standards are significantly lower than what is actually needed in our bodies. If one bases the needed amounts on those standards, it would appear that many vitamin supplements provide much higher levels than what is needed, when in reality, they do not. 3. It is true that you get natural vitamins from the foods you eat. You just do not get enough! Our soil has been overused, abused, and poorly managed for decades. This has caused nutrients to be depleted, which in turn means that our foods are not as nutrient-rich as they once were. While some nutrients, such as nitrogen, can be replaced, other nutrients, especially, phyto-nutrients, can not be replaced. They are just lost or severely minimized, not only to the soil, but to the foods grown in those soils. Phyto-nutrients are vital for the health of the body and if they are not taken through supplementation, your body is just not getting them, or at least not getting enough of them. Also, in order to get the vitamins and other nutrients our bodies need, even if the foods are grown in good, vitamin-rich soil, one must eat a healthy diet. That doesn't mean going out to McDonald's and eating foods that have been processed to the point that the nutritious part has been removed, such as white flour. If one is not eating a healthy diet, they have no way of getting the nutrients they need from their foods. 4. Having a test done to ascertain whether your body is getting enough vitamins is actually not necessary, although I would guess that almost every person is not getting enough of one or more vitamins and tests would show that. 5. While it is true that some companies just advertise to sell a product, it is not reasonable to assume that is true for the majority of companies. I have little doubt that some companies just want to sell a product and honestly could not care less if that product actually does what they claim it will do, as long as they make thousands of dollars from the sale and nothing can be proven that would cause them trouble. However, I do not believe that is the case for most companies, especially the smaller companies who do their own research or use the research of trusted others to develop their products. There is a great deal of information and research findings available to anyone who is interested in learning more about all natural Vitamins and Supplements, or anything that has to do with keeping our bodies healthy. While there are two views presented here, each person has to make up their own minds and the best way to do that is to be informed. Answer I applaud the above response. The only thing forgotten was the fact that most retail vitamins are full of synthetic impurities like colorings made from petroleum. The U.S. government in the 1930s discovered that the nutrients in U.S. farmlands were essentially already depleted, and the problem gets worse every year that artificial fertilizers are used. This means that to a degree everything we eat is depleted from what it once was in history. It is a wonder that we are as healthy as we are, and that is not saying much.