Gummy Vitamins: Just Say No

LabdoorScience
Gummy Vitamins

LabDoor scientists analyzed best-selling children’s and adult gummy multivitamins for levels of over 23 key vitamins and minerals. We found major reasons to recommend that gummy vitamins are bad for you, both for your health and your wallet, especially when compared to LabDoor multivitamin reviews for best-selling standard multivitamins.

Gummy vitamins don’t contain enough nutrients:

Common multivitamins contained 80% vitamin content and 271% more mineral content compared to equivalent gummy vitamins. Furthermore, testing on the top 8 most popular minerals found that the best-selling standard multivitamins averaged all 8 of these minerals per product, while the majority of gummy vitamins contained just one of these minerals per product.

Sweet Math: Gummy Vitamins vs. Standard Multivitamins

  • Standard multivitamins contained nearly 2x the vitamin content and over 3.5x the mineral content per serving vs. standard multivitamins.
  • Gummy vitamins contained nearly 7x the sugar and 4x the calories per serving vs. standard multivitamins.
  • Gummies also recorded larger label claim variances than standard multivitamins for 5/6 key vitamins, meaning that true vitamin content is more likely to be significantly off its claims in gummy vitamins than standard vitamins. Vitamins A and C were the standouts, varying by more than twice as much in gummies than in standard multivitamins.
  • Kids’ gummy vitamins pose risk of vitamin overdose in young children. Vitamins A, B-3, and B-9 were recorded over their Upper Limits (ULs) for children 1-3 years of age and within 25% of their ULs for children 4-8 years of age.

Most multivitamins show little benefits:

Our research has made it clear that traditional multivitamins are significantly higher-rated than their gummy vitamin competitors. But should you be taking any form of daily multivitamin? A recent study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that over an eight year period, measuring the results for over 160,000 test subjects, those who took a daily multivitamin saw no additional health benefits from their expensive habit. As always, we highly recommend you review your medical condition with a doctor and/or dietitian before adding a nutritional supplement to your diet.

Gummy vitamins can be dangerous:

While there are actually lower levels of vitamins and minerals in most gummy vitamins, they can still carry a risk of overdose. And the appearance and taste of gummy vitamins may increase the risk for this accidental overdose. Vitamin overdose is much more common with fat-soluble vitamins such as A, D, E, and K, and with minerals like iron, so care should be taken when adding any supplemental vitamins and minerals to your diet.