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Supplement Gummies - They are tasty. But are they good for you?
Supplement Gummies - They are tasty. But are they good for you?
Get to know how they work and their pro's and cons.
How do vitamin gummies work?
These tasty, chewable supplements are easier to take than swallowing pills.In a similar form as the pill counter part, gummies carry nutrients into your body orally. Gummies come in single-vitamin and multivitamin formulas. Whether you want to take the guesswork out of it all with a multivitamin or you have a specific health concern that a specific vitamin will address, it’s easy to choose a gummy vitamin that targets your health and wellness goals.
Gummy candies are often made from gelatin to provide their structure, but modern gummy vitamins can also have other ingredients like beeswax, acacia gum, and coconut oil.
To create the sweet taste, gummy vitamins often contain glucose syrup or sugar alcohols like sorbitol. Most gummy vitamin brands have around 3 to 8 grams of sugar per serving.
Upside of vitamin gummies
So, are gummy vitamins good for you? If you’re more likely to take your vitamins if they’re in the form of a gummy, then yes — gummy vitamins are good for you. They’re also a great solution for adults and kids who can’t swallow pills but who need a daily supplement.
Gummy vitamins do deliver the vitamins like its pill vitamin counterparts.
Gummies are known to be absorbed faster than pills. So depending on what type of vitamins you are taking, this may benefit you. For example, electrolyte gummies for your recovery would be better in a gummies form rather than a pill. On the other hand, probiotics, you would want to have it in a pill form so it survives all the way to your large intestine.
Downside of vitamin gummies
On the flip side, there may be some potential downsides to taking gummy vitamins, depending on your relationship with sugar. One of the main appeals of gummy supplements is their crave-worthy taste — which usually comes from added sugar.
While the sugar content in a gummy vitamin might not seem too high, it can add up. If you are taking multiple vitamins in gummy form, it can easily exceed your daily sugar intake.
Gummy vitamins don't work as well as pills since they often contain inconsistent levels of the nutrients on their labels and tend to degrade faster than conventional pill vitamins.
Vitamins in gummy form also increase your risk for dental decay since the sugary gelatin can get stuck in your teeth and may tempt children to overuse them since they taste like candy.
Potential higher risk for overuse. Children may think of gummy vitamins as candy and take more than they should. Some vitamins, if you take too much, you can risk having health effects like kidney stones or heart disease.
They may contain varying amounts of nutrients. This is because they are harder to manufacture than pills, Cooperman says, which makes it harder to ensure that they truly contain the proper amount of each vitamin and mineral.
Gummy vitamins tend to lose their potency more quickly than pills, meaning that it's harder to predict how long gummies will last on the shelf. To make up for this, some manufacturers include extra doses of vitamins in their gummies, which can cause problems if you take in too much of these nutrients.