Are health products becoming snacks? Can vitamin gummies help maintain health?

Song Ge

Not long ago, the topic "Why can't we eat too many vitamin gummies" sparked heated discussions on a social platform. Nowadays, a piece of gummies has become a favorite of young people in terms of health preservation. There are a wide variety of dietary supplements on the market. No matter what you want to supplement, omega-3, vitamin C, or calcium, iron, and zinc, you can find the corresponding gummies. Young people who "quit sugar" have fallen in love with another kind of functional gummies. Is there really no health problem that can't be solved by a piece of "sugar"?

Vitamin supplementation exceeds tolerable upper limit

Vitamin gummies also have a place in the maternal and infant health care product market. Many young parents are worried about their children's unbalanced diet and nutrient deficiencies. Coupled with the influence of advertising and marketing, they often give priority to supplementing their children with gummies. Compared with vitamin tablets, vitamin gummies are more like candy and have good palatability. Children love to eat them and supplement their nutrition, which is the best of both worlds for parents. But is taking functional gummies really effective? Can it be the first choice for long-term nutrient supplementation for children?

Since vitamin gummies are not under the supervision of drug regulatory authorities, it may be difficult for manufacturers to accurately control the amount of vitamins added compared to ordinary vitamin chewables and tablets.

In 2015, the Canadian Chechi Duwe Group recalled two vitamin D gummies because the tested products contained almost four times the vitamin D content indicated on their labels, and the recommended intake for children aged 8 and under exceeded the daily tolerable upper limit. The "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents (2022)" recommends that children aged 1 to 18 years old should have a daily intake of 10 micrograms of vitamin D; the maximum tolerable intake for children under 4 years old is less than 20 micrograms; and the maximum tolerable intake for children aged 4 to 7 years old is less than 30 micrograms. Excessive intake of vitamin D in children under 8 years old can lead to vitamin D poisoning, causing headaches, nausea, vomiting, constipation, loss of appetite, dehydration, and weight loss.

It tastes good but it doesn’t solve the nutritional problem

The processing of soft candies requires conditions such as acidity and high temperature. For vitamins that are not acid-resistant and cannot withstand high temperatures, there is a problem of content degradation. For example, vitamin A, vitamin D3, and pantothenic acid are not acid-resistant, while vitamin A, vitamin B1, niacin, vitamin D3, and vitamin K have low melting points and are not resistant to high temperatures. Not only will the content of the above vitamins be greatly lost during the processing, but they will also be severely degraded during the subsequent shelf storage period. Therefore, when supplementing vitamins through the processing technology of soft candies, the vitamin content that can be ingested will be greatly reduced. Parents should not take it for granted that as long as their children eat vitamin soft candies, they can solve the nutrition problem.

In addition, some vitamin raw materials have their own odor. For example, most B vitamins have a bitter taste, which requires the addition of various sweeteners, flavors and other additives to mask the taste and make it easier for people to accept. Excessive consumption may increase the risk of health problems such as obesity and tooth decay in children.

There are many kinds of vitamin gummy products on the market, and the content and categories of various nutrients contained in each product are also different. How much nutrition a child consumes in his daily diet, what nutrients he is still lacking, and how much supplementation is needed, all these need to be evaluated and tested by professional nutritionists, and then targeted and reasonable supplements can be made. Blindly following the trend is not advisable.

Most functional gummies are overrated

Many young people are easily fooled by some "popular science online articles", and there are many who often buy probiotics and hyaluronic acid gummies, blueberry lutein gummies, and niacinamide whitening gummies. Take hyaluronic acid gummies as an example. In the "grass planting" articles on some social platforms, the words "good for the skin" and "chew out watery skin" are particularly highlighted. However, the efficacy of hyaluronic acid edible products is still inconclusive. Under normal circumstances, after oral administration of hyaluronic acid, the large molecule hyaluronic acid will be digested and decomposed in the gastrointestinal tract, first converted into small molecules of sugar, and then absorbed by the human body. The absorbed small molecules usually enter the blood circulation and will not penetrate into the skin. Many functional gummies that seem to have the "halo" of health products are actually "overrated".

In daily life, as long as the food is diverse and reasonably matched, it is possible to take in enough vitamins through diet. In addition, the premise of vitamin preparation supplementation is to carefully check and evaluate, and if it is necessary to supplement, combine the guidance of professional nutritionists, choose appropriate preparation products, and supplement according to the recommended supplement dosage.

(The author is a nutritionist at the Nutrition Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University)