Vitamins, Minerals, and Nutritional Supplements

Abstract

Vitamins, minerals, and nutritional supplements constitute materials which have been confused in the minds of consumers. They are promoted and sold by health care providers, including pharmacists, as well as by a wide variety of retail merchants. The relative safety and effectiveness of these substances in treatment of deficiency states has been extended to the notion that since the small recommended daily allowance ensures health or at least a non-deficient state, larger amounts will provide wellness or at least improve health. The proper use of diet, including vitamin and mineral supplements, has been supplanted by a form of unrestricted and unprofessional pharmacy practice. In large amounts, vitamins and minerals can have pharmacological effects including drug interaction and toxicity. The 1994 Dietary Supplements Health & Education Act has opened up the legal use by the general public of some pharmaceutically active ingredients unless they are demonstrated to be dangerous.