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An Approach to Investigate Content-Related Quality of Nutraceuticals Used by Slovenian Consumers: A Case Study with Folate and Vitamin D Supplements

A predisposition for the efficiency of nutraceuticals is that the product contains a sufficient quantity of a vitamin. Several studies have highlighted different quality issues. Our objective was to investigate whether the contents of the vitamins in selected types of food supplements were in accord...

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Autores principales: Žmitek, Katja, Krušič, Sanja, Pravst, Igor
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8068987/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33924488
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods10040845
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author Žmitek, Katja
Krušič, Sanja
Pravst, Igor
author_facet Žmitek, Katja
Krušič, Sanja
Pravst, Igor
author_sort Žmitek, Katja
collection PubMed
description A predisposition for the efficiency of nutraceuticals is that the product contains a sufficient quantity of a vitamin. Several studies have highlighted different quality issues. Our objective was to investigate whether the contents of the vitamins in selected types of food supplements were in accordance with labeling. We focused on two types of food supplements where content-related quality issues could result in public health risks: food supplements for supplementation with (a) folic acid (as 5-methyltetrahydrofolate (5-MTHF)) in pregnancy and (b) with vitamin D in the general population. The study was done on supplements from the global supply that are typically used by Slovenian consumers. We sampled one production batch of 30 different food supplements—six and 24 samples with 5-MTHF and cholecalciferol, respectively. We found samples with vitamin contents outside the 80–150% tolerance interval in both sets. Particularly, 5-MTHF was found to be more problematic, probably due to its lower stability. This study shows the need for better quality control. Quality control is needed during both the manufacturing process and product shelf lifetimes. Content quality should be also subject to external controls by authorities. Voluntarily quality control schemes would also enable consumers to identify products of sufficient quality.
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spelling pubmed-80689872021-04-26 An Approach to Investigate Content-Related Quality of Nutraceuticals Used by Slovenian Consumers: A Case Study with Folate and Vitamin D Supplements Žmitek, Katja Krušič, Sanja Pravst, Igor Foods Article A predisposition for the efficiency of nutraceuticals is that the product contains a sufficient quantity of a vitamin. Several studies have highlighted different quality issues. Our objective was to investigate whether the contents of the vitamins in selected types of food supplements were in accordance with labeling. We focused on two types of food supplements where content-related quality issues could result in public health risks: food supplements for supplementation with (a) folic acid (as 5-methyltetrahydrofolate (5-MTHF)) in pregnancy and (b) with vitamin D in the general population. The study was done on supplements from the global supply that are typically used by Slovenian consumers. We sampled one production batch of 30 different food supplements—six and 24 samples with 5-MTHF and cholecalciferol, respectively. We found samples with vitamin contents outside the 80–150% tolerance interval in both sets. Particularly, 5-MTHF was found to be more problematic, probably due to its lower stability. This study shows the need for better quality control. Quality control is needed during both the manufacturing process and product shelf lifetimes. Content quality should be also subject to external controls by authorities. Voluntarily quality control schemes would also enable consumers to identify products of sufficient quality. MDPI 2021-04-13 /pmc/articles/PMC8068987/ /pubmed/33924488 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods10040845 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Žmitek, Katja
Krušič, Sanja
Pravst, Igor
An Approach to Investigate Content-Related Quality of Nutraceuticals Used by Slovenian Consumers: A Case Study with Folate and Vitamin D Supplements
title An Approach to Investigate Content-Related Quality of Nutraceuticals Used by Slovenian Consumers: A Case Study with Folate and Vitamin D Supplements
title_full An Approach to Investigate Content-Related Quality of Nutraceuticals Used by Slovenian Consumers: A Case Study with Folate and Vitamin D Supplements
title_fullStr An Approach to Investigate Content-Related Quality of Nutraceuticals Used by Slovenian Consumers: A Case Study with Folate and Vitamin D Supplements
title_full_unstemmed An Approach to Investigate Content-Related Quality of Nutraceuticals Used by Slovenian Consumers: A Case Study with Folate and Vitamin D Supplements
title_short An Approach to Investigate Content-Related Quality of Nutraceuticals Used by Slovenian Consumers: A Case Study with Folate and Vitamin D Supplements
title_sort approach to investigate content-related quality of nutraceuticals used by slovenian consumers: a case study with folate and vitamin d supplements
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8068987/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33924488
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods10040845
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