:confused: [B]About supplements--there's controversy about how useful they are. Some say they're just a way to make the manufacturer's wealthy. Anyway, what concerns me is the list of ingredients on my vitamin/calcium bottles. What IS all that stuff ? Is there anyone who knows how to find out what these ingredients are???? Is one brand 'better 'than another,and what about price? I can't afford the pricey brands. Help out there, anyone?

To find out more about the ingredients in your vitamins, you could do a search for each of them individually. I know it is time-consuming, but it will give you a better understanding of what you are putting into your body.

As for brands and pricing, I would stick with a reputable company (there are several suggestions throughout this board). You can find good supplements for reasonable prices. I would stick with prices that are somewhere in the middle. If they are too cheap, it makes me wonder if the vitamins are any good, and if it's too high, you feel like you are being ripped off.

Good luck with your search.:)

I was looking for a multivitamin for a friend and noticed
that the market is flooded with all kinds, prices are all
over the place. To make sense of this madness, I had
to research each vitamin seperately to really find out
the recommended dose and what is considered the overdose dose, lol ....

I used the information on the Linus Pauling Institute
website to understand what each vitamin does and dosage
recommendations, etc.

Armed with knowledge now, I entered this data into a spreadsheet
and began my vitamin quest. I spent about 1 month
entering multivitamin data from many different vendors into a spreadsheet to
better understand what each manufacturer is doing with each
multivitamin and I color coded each ingredient to get a visual indicator.

In the end, I noticed that many brands are not balanced
well, some give you alot of 'this' {perhaps unsafe amount}, but
not enough of 'that'. Some brands don't give you much of
anything across the board. Plus, prices are all over the place.

In the end, I did find certain brands that was acceptable
for my situation, but it took alot of homework on my part
to understand the subject matter.

Pricing on individual dietary supplements {single ingredient} is also crazy. I have a database for certain
supplements too, price per pill, price per milligram. I've seen drug store supplements costing up to 10x more than
the same ingredient bought online.

Example, take something simple like 'Biotin', my database
shows a price as low as 1.4 cents per milligram up to
3.7 cents per milligram just by changing to a different
brand, that about 2.5x more money spent.

Another supplement, ALC... a 250mg dose can cost
7.5 cents up to 25 cents, almost 3.5x markup by changing
brands.

ALA is interesting as it comes in a few different forms.
As cheap as 2 - 4 cents for 100 mg dose, up to $1.44
for the same dose, 350 - 700x markup.... lol

Moral of the story. Homework.