Confused About Vitamins?

Few consumer items are as mind-boggling as nutritional supplements. Store shelves featuring endless bottles of vitamins, minerals and essential oils can leave the potential buyer thoroughly confused.

The two nagging questions: Which are the best quality, and of those, which are right for you and only you?

Fortunately, Andrew Weil M.D., a world-renowned leader in integrative medicine, whose books have sold more than 10 million copies, has spent a lifetime researching nutritional supplements.  His special area of expertise is in determining the most bioactive form of various supplements; in other words, the form that is most likely to provide benefit. In every case, the form he recommends is the one he specified for products sold online via the Vitamin Advisor and Weil Nutritional Supplements, sold at selected retail stores.

(Dr. Weil donates all of his after-tax profits from royalties from sales of Vitamin Advisor products and Weil Nutritional Supplements directly to the Weil Foundation, an organization dedicated to sustaining the vision of integrative medicine. As of December, 2007, Dr. Weil had contributed more than $1 million to the Weil Foundation.)

Here are examples of his chief insights among the major supplements:

Vitamin A: Some forms of supplemental vitamin A, when taken in even moderate daily doses, can be toxic. Dr. Weil specifies the use of mixed carotenoids - these are substances that the body converts to vitamin A, avoiding toxicity potential and maximizing effectiveness.

Vitamin D: Inexpensive vitamins tend to contain vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol), the kind synthesized by plants. But when humans eat plant-derived D2, very little is converted to D3 (choleciferol), the kind most readily used by the human body and which skin makes when exposed to ultraviolet light. Dr. Weil specifies D3 in his supplements, as this form has been shown to have greater biological activity in human tissue.

Vitamin E: In nature, this vitamin is found as a combination of eight different active compounds - four are called tocopherols, and four are called tocotrienols. Many manufacturers use inexpensive, synthetic versions of one or only a few of those eight forms. In his supplements Dr. Weil specifies a complete, naturally derived tocopherol/tocotrienol complex that more closely mirrors the natural vitamin E found in foods.

Calcium: Manufacturers make calcium supplements in many forms, including calcium carbonate (the most common type), calcium lactate and calcium aspartate. Dr. Weil specifies calcium citrate because it is more easily absorbed, especially by older people who may have less stomach acid. Although more expensive, calcium citrate is more than twice as bioavailable as calcium carbonate.

Fish Oils: Oils derived from the fat of cold-water fish, a source of essential omega-3 fatty acids, can be contaminated with toxic heavy metals. Dr. Weil recommends seeking out products that, like his fish oil supplements, have received the highest rating for purity - five out of five stars - from the International Fish Oil Standards program.

"Vitamins are much like anything else - you generally get what you pay for," says Dr. Weil. "But even very expensive vitamins sometimes miss the mark." One reason he worked with supplement makers to create better vitamins, he says, was that he could not find ones that met his specifications for his patients or himself.

As for finding the right mix of supplements and dosages that fits your unique, individual needs, the Vitamin Advisor questionnaire is carefully designed by Dr. Weil and his science advisory team to answer that question. The free online service provides users with a no-obligation, printable list of the vitamins and other supplements they need, and offers the option of purchasing the vitamins online only if they wish to do so.

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