There’s been quite the discussion recently about whether vitamins are good for us—pretty much every major news outlet covered the statements by a group of doctors who said perhaps we shouldn’t bother. However, many of us WILL still bother (and even the study’s authors said that Vitamin D, which can be hard to get naturally in our cloudy region, was an exception). If you are still going to take vitamins and perhaps also herbal supplements, how can you know what are the best choices, and the best brands?
We have two fantastic databases for you to answer these questions! The first is Consumer Lab, which is provided by an organization which actually tests the vitamins and supplements sold, by brand, and then gives the results. You can check out products by amount of ingredient, cost, brand, and approval rating. Here’s an example of some results for Vitamin D (with the product names removed):
The other database is Natural Standard. The hardest thing about considering herbal supplements is finding good evidence to support using them! In Natural Standard you will find detailed articles about hundreds of supplements (including vitamins), complete with information about how they interact with other medications, and “grades” for how strong the evidence is for using them for a particular reason. Here are some of the “grades” for Echinacea:
Check out these databases by clicking on “Articles and Research” on the library’s home page, and then on “Health and Medicine”. Be sure to ask us if you have any questions, and stay well!
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