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Where Vitamin Supplements Come From

It's no secret that we typically don't get enough fruits and vegetables. So we typically start using vitamin supplements to make sure we're getting enough vitamins and minerals. But where do these products actually come from? Are vitamin supplements any more natural than white flour or pharmaceuticals?

Both drugs and vitamin supplements can be artificial or natural. Many vitamin supplements produced today are artificial. However, the world of “natural” isn’t always a good thing though. Poison hemlock, hallucinogenic mushrooms, rhubarb leaves and sprouted kidney beans are all natural – and potentially deadly.

There are six categories of nutrients used in the manufacturing of vitamin supplements:

 1. Natural source

These include nutrients from vegetable, animal or mineral sources. But before making it into the supplement bottle, they undergo significant processing and refining. Examples include vitamin D from fish liver oils, vitamin E from vegetable oils, and natural beta-carotene.

When a vitamin is marked “natural”, it only has to include 10% of actual natural plant-derived ingredients. The other 90% could be synthetic.

Consider vitamin E tocopherols, which can be extracted from vegetable oils (often soybean, due to low costs).

2. Nature-identical synthetic

This includes nutrients completely manufactured in a lab with the molecular structure identical to the same nutrients occurring in nature. Manufacturers often prefer this process because of the cost and scarcity of natural resources. Most standard vitamin supplements on the market today are this type.

An example here would be vitamin C. Most vitamin C currently manufactured is synthetic, coming from China. Vitamin C is a weak acid. If you look on the back of a bottle of vitamin C, it'll prob be listed as ascorbic acid.  The ascorbic acid in supplements is often derived from corn starch, corn sugar, or rice starch.  And it takes a lot more ascorbic acid to get close to what you actually need from vitamin C.

3. Strictly synthetic

 Centrum is strictly synthetic

These nutrients are manufactured in a lab and are different than the same nutrients found in nature. Synthetic vitamins can have the same chemical constituents, but still have a different chemical shape/structure.

This is important because some of the enzymes in the human body only work properly with a vitamin of the correct shape. When we give the body concentrated forms of synthetic nutrients, it doesn’t always appear to have an appropriate delivery system.

Starting materials for strictly synthetic supplements can be anything from coal tar to petroleum to acetylene gas. These supplements are made in facilities via chemical manipulations with the goal of duplicating the structure of the isolated vitamin. Specific formulas for the process aren’t made available to the public (sorry, I tried).  So, essentially, you don't quite know what you're getting.

An example is vitamin B1. Coal tar is a widely used foundational substance for this vitamin(yes, this means it’s from coal). Hydrochloric acid is often added to allow precipitation. Then fermentation, heating, cooling, and other steps are completed until a final synthetic vitamin is created. It’s then dried and tested for purity before being shipped to distributors.

Now, to get a natural vitamin B1 supplement the process is quite different.

The food or botanical containing the desired vitamin is harvested and cleaned (let’s say wheat germ). It’s then placed in a vat to be mixed with water and filtered to create an extract and remove fibre (unlike in whole foods, where you want fibre). The post-filtration extract of the sourced food contains the nutrients found in the original whole food. It’s then dried and ready for packaging.

4. Food cultured

This involves the same process behind cultured foods like yogurt, kefir, miso, and sauerkraut. Nutrient supplements are often grown in yeast or algae. Culturing in and of itself creates nutrients and can make them more bioavailable.

Raw materials (minerals and some synthetic nutrients) are added to yeast/algae suspensions where they concentrate within cells. The yeast/algae are then harvested, ruptured, and made into a vitamin supplement. The theory here is that yeast/algae contain the nutrients they’re fed in a whole food complex.

5. Food based

One kind of food based supplement is made by enzymatically reacting synthetic and natural vitamins with extracts containing vegetable proteins and then making this into a supplement. This is not food cultured, because the nutrients are not grown into a whole food, as in the yeast/algae suspensions.

Manufacturers don’t often use concentrates or extracts derived from whole food sources because of low nutrient potency, fluctuating nutrient levels, limited shelf life. Nutrients are easily degraded by heat, pH changes, light, and oxygen.

6. Bacterial fermentation

This includes nutrients produced by genetically altering bacteria. Genetically altered bacteria can produce nutrient by-products.

Examples include CoQ10, amino acids, vitamin D2, vitamin K2, riboflavin, vitamin B12, and melatonin.

 Nutrients from food?

Most people are interested in vitamin supplements because they fear they don’t enough nutrients from food.

This is a worthwhile concern: nutrients can be lost from soil due to fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, irrigation, farming practices, and other causes. The USDA has reported that the nutrient content of vegetables has fallen since 1973. Of the vitamins we do ingest from whole food, absorption can range from 20 to 98%.

Do vitamin supplements prevent disease?

A 2002 study in JAMA concluded that adults would be better off taking a multivitamin supplement each day. The authors didn’t specify synthetic or natural. Other reviews have concluded that beyond treatment of deficiency, vitamin supplements don’t promote health or prevent cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Data indicates that vitamin supplements can actually lead to more cancer (specifically breast and prostate), cardiovascular disease, kidney damage (in those with diabetes), and fractures, while not helping prevent infections and sick days.

However, it’s important to remember that chances of certain chronic diseases can increase for those who are deficient in certain micronutrients.

The American Dietetic Association (ADA) recommends that the best nutritional strategy for optimal health and reducing the risk of chronic disease is to choose a wide variety of whole foods.

A report from the National Institutes of Health noted that individuals who consume high dose single nutrient supplements and fortified foods along with multivitamin/mineral supplements are at risk for undesirable effects.

Notice the synthetic vitamins added to Corn Flakes and Special K. Check out the ingredient listing.

 Summary and recommendations

With all of the data regarding nutrition and optimal health, the most convincing information tells us to focus on what we eat — not what we get from a pill bottle.

Synthetic vitamin supplements are isolated man-made chemical compounds, and appear to be in the same class as other synthetic pharmaceuticals.

Some supplements hold real benefit. For instance:

●      folic acid for pregnant women

●      iron for those who are anemic

●      B-vitamins for those dealing with alcoholism

●      vitamin D for those who’ve undergone bariatric surgery

●      vitamin C for someone with scurvy

If you want to find a natural vitamin supplement, look for one with a label that indicates “naturally occurring food sources.” If the potency of the vitamin is higher than anything you would find in nature (e.g., 1000% vitamin B-3 per serving), the product likely contains synthetic ingredients.

 Extra Stuff

Fortification of foods with vitamin B-3 has lead to intakes greater than twice what’s recommended, most notably in kids, who eat processed fortified foods. This higher intake of vitamin B-3 might lead to increased appetite and impaired glucose tolerance.

Capsules that enclose vitamin supplements can be derived from plant sources, like seaweeds, or animal sources like gelatin. Animal gelatin is from tallow, animal bone, marrow, or tissue scraps, and may include diseased tissues.

The tablet coating methylene chloride is a carcinogen.

Food color additives are often used in children’s vitamins..

The Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) are based on synthetic vitamins. We don’t fully understand how they translate to whole food alternatives.

Yours in Health,

Joshua Morgan

And now for some sources:

Roan S. The dirt on dietary supplements. 2009

United States National Library of Medicine. TOXNET.

Epstein D & Dohrmann G. What you don’t know might kill you. Sports Illustrated. May 18, 2009.

Hickey S & Saul AW. Vitamin C: The real story. Basic Health Publications. 2008

Ji Sayer. Is your multivitamin toxic?

Andrews, Ryan. 2011

Cooperman T, Obermeyer W, Webb D. Consumerlab.com’s guide to buying vitamins and supplements. Consumerlab.com. 2003.