Expired multivitamins won't make you sick or cause any negative health impacts, but they won't provide the same volume or quality of nutrients promised on the label. Like your favorite cooking spices, as vitamins age, they lose more potency, so the older the multivitamin, the less potency it will provide. Is it safe to take expired vitamins. At the expiration date, the product must still contain 100% of the dietary supplement ingredients listed on the label, provided it is stored under appropriate conditions.
Expired vitamin C is most likely not dangerous, but its potency could be significantly reduced. Vitamins don't “spoil” in a way that could harm you. They just lose potency with age (don't they?).
Expired vitamins probably won't harm you, but they may not provide the same benefits as fresh supplements.
Solid formulations (such as pills and capsules) degrade more slowly than gummies or liquid formulas.Because the FDA doesn't require that supplements be researched in the same way as prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, there are few studies on the potency of vitamins over time. The expiration date (or “optimal consumption” or expiration date) on a supplement bottle means that the manufacturer guarantees that the vitamin is fully potent until that date. After that, it may or may not be as powerful, but it doesn't promise anything. Good sources of vitamin C include fruits and vegetables, with the highest concentration in grapefruit, sweet yellow peppers, kiwi, broccoli, chili peppers and vegetables, such as kale, parsley and spinach with mustard.
Keep reading to learn more about how long vitamins keep their full strength, how to increase their lifespan, and much more. While it's probably not dangerous to take vitamin C after its expiration date, you'll almost certainly have lost potency. Although vitamin E is an antioxidant and oxidation will be slower because of that, eventually vitamin E oil will start to smell bad. If you put your hand in the vitamin container every morning after preparing lunch for the children, you could contaminate the bottle with food waste or bacterial particles and affect its lifespan.
The lifespan of multivitamins is based on the specific vitamin, which loses its potency most rapidly. While its vitamin potency will gradually decrease, its candy-like flavor and texture will decrease at the same rate as gummy candies. This is because the 26% Food Drug Administration does not require manufacturers to include these types of dates in their packages (the same is true for other vitamins, such as multivitamins containing vitamin C and products such as Emergen-C). Even the potency of vitamin C consumed as a food source depends on external factors, such as cooking temperature, exposure to oxygen, handling of the food in question and its age.
If you want to grow your muscles, certain vitamins and minerals can help you increase muscle, energy and recovery. You may prefer to store vitamins in the bathroom or kitchen for easy access, but these are actually two of the worst places to store them. How quickly a vitamin expires depends on several factors, some related to manufacturing and others related to your habits. When they reach their expiration date, supplements begin to lose their potency and, ultimately, their effectiveness in meeting your supplementation needs.
Gelatin and pectin products, such as vitamins in gummies, are more like foods than supplements, as they can become rancid over time, depending on how they are prepared and stored. However, there are no large scale studies that have evaluated the degradation of different types of vitamin C, so it is not known which brands are the best in terms of expiration dates. While they aren't likely to harm you, most supplements have lost enough potency when they reach their expiration date that you don't receive the amount indicated on the label.
