According to ConsumerLab.com president Dr. Tod Cooperman, most alarming was that the brand, The Vitamin Shoppe Multivitamins Especially for Women, had lead contamination.
"I was definitely shocked by the amount of lead in [this] woman's product," he said. "We've never seen that much lead in a multivitamin before." The Vitamin Shoppe women's product showed 15.3 micrograms of lead per two tablets. The amount of lead is more than 10 times the amount allowed in California.
Some brands had more or less of a particular vitamin than claimed with some multivitamins not even dissolving well and could very well pass through the body without being absorbed correctly.
"Half the products were fine, half were not," said Cooperman.
ConsumerLab.com is a firm that independently investigates hundreds of health and nutrition products and publishes reviews.
In its latest report ConsumerLab.com sampled a selection of the popular multivitamins available and sent them brandless to two independent laboratories for testing.
According to David Schardt, a senior nutritionist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, several of the popular multivitamins on the market did deliver as promised.
The brands that passed the tests were: Centrum Silver, Member's Mark Complete Multi, One A Day Women's and Flintstones Complete.
"I think this confirms the advice often given: You're safer choosing a well-known brand sold by some company or store that you have confidence in," Schardt said. "There are no guarantees but that's your best bet."
