How do daily vitamin supplements work?

Dear Reader, 

The allure of a magic pill can’t be denied. However, the efficacy of multivitamins is somewhat unknown and whether you should take them is a personal decision. Multivitamin supplements, which contain a combination of essential vitamin nutrients, can be helpful in making up for nutritional gaps in your diet. But whether your body absorbs the vitamins comes down to very individual factors about how the supplement is made as well as what you ingest with the supplements (like water or food). Feel free to read on if you want to be absorbed by information about vitamins—a breakdown of the types of vitamin supplements and how they’re taken up is encapsulated in what follows.  

What’s known about vitamins? 

Little research has been done on vitamin supplements. This is partly because it’s difficult to standardize recommendations when supplement formulation varies greatly from product to product. There’s also more known about how the human body derives vitamins from food than from supplements and the mechanisms for the two routes are likely very different. This is because food, unlike supplements, contains other nutritional elements that moderate vitamin absorption. Because of the lack of knowledge about supplements and how well they work, any claims that vitamin manufacturers make about efficacy should be taken with caution. 

What are the different types of vitamins?  

All of the B vitamins and vitamin C are water-soluble vitamins. You might have guessed it from the name, but these vitamins dissolve in water. To properly absorb water-soluble vitamins, it’s recommended to take them without food but with water, or water-based liquids like fruit juice. However, some liquids may not be the best choices—milk, for example, is a fatty beverage and coffee and alcohol have been found to interfere with vitamin and mineral absorption. Once your body has absorbed as much as it can, it expels these vitamins via urine. This means that excessive amounts of these vitamins aren’t necessarily helpful. 

Fat-soluble vitamins include vitamins A, D, E, and K. These vitamins are dissolvable in fat and are best absorbed when taken along with food. These supplements travel through the small intestine where they’re absorbed and distributed to the bloodstream. Once your body has taken up these fat-soluble vitamins, excess amounts are stored in your liver, fatty tissue, and muscles. The result is that the body can later rely on these reserves. Unlike water-soluble vitamins, extra amounts of fat-soluble vitamins are not expelled, so taking too much of these may lead to toxicity. 

Multivitamin supplements contain a combination of vitamins, both water-soluble and fat-soluble. Because of these dueling types of vitamins, it can be hard to know what to pair with multivitamins. If you take your multivitamin with food, fat from the food helps the body absorb the fat-soluble vitamins. But the downside is that your body won’t be able to absorb the water-soluble vitamins. On the other hand, drinking water or other water-based liquids with your multivitamin can help you absorb the water-soluble vitamins, but at the same time won’t help you absorb fat-soluble vitamins. Though multivitamins are convenient in that they cut down on the number of pills needed to swallow, you might consider taking water-soluble and fat-soluble vitamins separately for full absorption benefit. 

What are the different types of release vitamins? 

In addition to various in vitamin solubility, vitamins can also come in a variety of different release formulas, including: 

• Immediate-release supplements which deliver their ingredients immediately upon ingestion. This can be helpful if you’re looking for fast-acting results. 
• Controlled-release supplements release their contents slowly over time. This keeps a certain level of the supplement constant in the body over time. 
• Delayed-release supplements release the vitamins at a designated point after ingestion. This can be helpful in maintaining the integrity of the supplement until it gets to a specific part of the gastrointestinal tract. 

What other factors impact vitamin absorption?  

The make-up of the vitamins directly relates to their ability to be absorbed by the body. This includes the coating and the other non-active ingredients in the supplements that all determine how it breaks down in your body. 

In addition to how vitamins are manufactured, other factors impact vitamin absorption. For example, you might have trouble absorbing vitamins if you have chronic stress, high alcohol consumption, or an unhealthy gut.  

Is taking multivitamins worth it? 

A multivitamin may be helpful in filling vitamin and nutrient gaps that food alone can’t fix. If you feel like this applies to you, are a vegetarian, have food allergies or intolerances, or experience other problems associated with eating particular foods, you might consider taking multivitamins.  

Because little research has been done about multivitamins, there’s not a clear answer about their effectiveness. Deciding whether multivitamins are a “waste of time” is ultimately a personal choice, and one that could be supported with the help of a health care provider. Making an appointment to get blood work may give you more insight into your current health status. From there, a health care provider could give you more tailored advice about any vitamins or supplement they think could be useful for you. 

The fact that there’s no clear answer here might be a bitter pill to swallow but wishing you the best of luck getting your nutrients!