B-12 in Deva, Vitaforce and other Multivitamins

[kaitlin]

Right now, I'm taking the DEVA Vegan Multivitamin and an additional B-12 supplement. The DEVA multivitamin contains quite a bit of B-12, though. Is it necessary for me to continue taking the extra B-12? Are there any other supplements that I should be taking. Here is a chart of my multivitamin's nutritional information:



Thanks!

[Tigerlily]

Your body doesn't absorb all the percentage of the vitamins in a pill, so you're not really getting the 833% of B12 everyday. If I were you, I'd take the multivitamin (I actually cut mine in half) every day or so and take the other B12 supplement like once a week?

[RedWellies]

Why are you taking a multi-vitamin? Is it due to ill health/poor diet? If you are eating a healthy balanced diet, there should not be a need for a multi-vitamin in my opinion.

[kaitlin]

Why are you taking a multi-vitamin? Is it due to ill health/poor diet? If you are eating a healthy balanced diet, there should not be a need for a multi-vitamin in my opinion.

I've just recently become a vegan (a little over a month ago), so I don't think that I've entirely gotten the hang of it yet (in terms of getting all of the proper nutrients). I would appreciate it if you elaborated on this a little b/c I'm curious. I was under the impression that taking a multivitamin was beneficial. Do you think otherwise? Thanks!

[RedWellies]

Do you think otherwise? !

I do! Unless your diet is poor or you have health problems. It is only my opinion though, I'm not an expert! When I was a veggie, I had a blood test (mainly because my mum is a worrier!) and the doctor told me I was fine and in fact he didn't recommend multi vitamin supplements because you can overdose on vitamins, particularly vit A if you have a good diet.

I think if you eat a wide range of foods...pulses, veg, fruit, seeds, nuts, etc..then you should get all the vits you need if you are otherwise healthy. Vit B12 seems to be the only questionable one and there is information about that on here or on the vegan society website.

If you are newly vegan, you may find it helpful to search on Google for more info on each vitamin and the foods in which it can be found. Minerals are also important. That will help you have some idea of what to eat each day.

Hope that helps.

[j&k]

I just wanted to post here and elaborate a bit further on this discussion if nobody minds.

B-12 is a critical nutrient for every vegan to be taking supplementally. Although some people manufacture sufficient quantities in their gut, the only way to know if you do this for sure is to get blood tests drawn a couple times a year, and that's incredibly incovenient. Since supplemental B-12 has not been shown to be toxic in really any dose, there is no downside to taking it. Deficiencies in B-12 could ultimately lead to heart disease and anemia (although b-12 deficiencies can take years to develop).

Secondly, I am a firm believer in taking a high quality multivitamin because it is difficult to get all the nutrients you need on a daily basis, even from an ideal diet. Sure, you can get plenty of calcium, carotenoids, vitamin c etc., but where are you getting your Vitamin D, zinc, selenium, chromium, vanadium etc. from every single day. It takes immense planning and discipline to ensure appropriate intake of each of these nutrients.

That being said, I believe nearly all multivitamins out there are of low quality and do not adhere to the studies on supplements. For instance, the supplement you posted the label of, is a low quality supplement. Your supplement should not have synthetic vitamin A, iron or as much iodine as yours has. Further, the doses of B vitamins are higher than necessary. IT also uses inferior forms of synthethic nutrients (e.g. magesium oxide, zinc oxide). The Vitamin E is very poor quality -- it is synthetic rather than the natural form.

I have actually manufactured a very high quality multi vitamin called VITAFORCE at organichealthandbeauty.com

You may wish to check this out, because unlike your supplement, the nutrients come from food, not synthetic sources. There is a lot of good information on that website, and it can teach you a lot about the nutrients you need and why. If VITAFORCE is not a good fit for you, let me know and I can try another multivite for you.

Best,
Josh

[Korn]

I have actually manufactured a very high quality multi vitamin called VITAFORCE at organichealthandbeauty.com

Since you are a mulitivitamin manufacturer, it would be interesting to hear more from you about how the B12 in Vitaforce is produced. You know already that I'm a B12 fanatic... organichealthandbeauty.com writes that Vitaforce is made up of whole foods - I like that idea. I also like the claim that the nutrients are readily and safely absorbable 'because they come from whole foods'.

They write both that Vitaforce provides reliable and plentiful sources of nutrients and also that it contains both spirulina, chlorella and algae, which according to some sources may contain harmful B12 analogues that can disturb the absorption of active bio-avilable B12. We have this thread about B12 analogues in multivitamins (and animal foods), and have also recently discussed this PubMed report about up to 90& of the B12 in multivitamins being present as analogues, so it would be interesting to know more about the B12 in Vitaforce and also to hear if you the product actually have been checked for the ratio of active vs. passive of B12.

[j&k]

I like you Korn -- you have a very scientific mind!

Let me try and answer the best I can. To be clear, although we are the manufacturer of our product VITAFORCE, we are not the chemists that synthesize the nutrients nor are we the growers of our whole foods. Instead, we chose a contract manufacturer who is GMP certified and has impeccable credentials.

We then searched for the exact ingredients we wanted and then sought out the highest quality producers of those products. Our contract manufacturer then gathered all these ingredients from our various sources, tests them for purity, heavy metal content, pesticide residue etc. They then follow the GMP standards to mix our product, place oxygen absorber inside, seal the product, attach our labels etc.

To be clear about our product, all the nutrients shown in our nutritional label are 100% from food, with the exception of three added supplemental ingredients, which we added in to ensure completeness. Because the product is 100% vegan, we wanted to make sure it was complete in the nutrients that everyone, but particularly vegans need to be aware of: (1) B-12 (arguably not found reliably in vegan food sources); (2) Vitamin D (again, not found reliably in vegan food sources, and shown in studies that most people are deficient in this despite the sun as a source); (3) Folic Acid (obviously is plentiful in vegan diet, but impossible for us to find a sufficiently rich food source to get us 400mcg in our 13 gram serving size). Every other nutrient in VITAFORCE is 100% from its whole food ingredients.

So with that very brief history in mind, let me answer your question. We sought out a vegan, synthetic source of B-12 for completeness -- 20mcg of methylcobalamin. I believe methylcobalamin is the highest quality supplemental B-12 (I think cyanocobalamin is inferior). So, you know there is those 20mcg of supplemental b-12.

In addition, there is B-12 from nutritional yeast. From what I have read, I am convinced this is a human absorbable B-12, but at least in some scientific minds, there is a dispute over this. Because I did not wish to have any questions, I added in the supplemental b-12 mentioned above. But, I would guess there is approximately another 25%-30% of the B-12 form the nutritional yeast (let's say 1.7 mcg).

Then there is an additional amount from spirulina and chlorella. The spirulina manufacturer contends they have done studies to show that the B-12 contained in their spirulina is human absorbable. Again, there is controversy over this statement, and most scientists think it is not a reliable source. So, let's just say there is another 2-3 mcg.

Assuming then, we call the spirulina/chlorella b-12 analogues, then it looks like in all likelihood there is a roughly 11/1 ratio of human absorbable b-12 to analogue b-12.

We have not officially checked the ratio of active vs. passive of B12, because it didn't seem necessary based on how we formed our supplement.

Hope this is sufficiently responsive. If you have more questions, please ask!

Best,
Josh