Immune boosting. Brain healthy. Tummy soothing. Whole aisles in Whole Foods and other stores are filled with rainbow-colored bottles bearing these promises and others, and they are marketed to parents like you and me, who want nothing more than to have healthy, bright, gastrointestinally secure children—particularly this time of year, when bugs, moods, and too-rich foods can run roughshod over our carefully laid holiday plans.
Many parents “swear by” some sort of vitamin, mineral, or herbal blend, which is why 1 in 9 kids take some sort of supplement. But real research about the benefits—and more important, safety—of kid-targeted supplements just isn’t there. Dietary supplements aren’t tightly regulated by the FDA the way medications are, which means that companies aren’t required to meet a strict criteria of certain safety standards or prove certain health claims before their products land on a shelf near you. This truth was magnified recently, when a premature baby in Connecticut died after being given a probiotic powder that was contaminated with a fungus. Manufactured by the popular supplement brand Solgar, ABC Dophilus powder was marketed as a supplement for babies and children specifically before the contamination was discovered and it was pulled from the shelves.
This news shouldn’t incriminate probiotics on the whole: They are prescribed by many doctors to help replace the good bacteria in kids’ guts when they are taking antibiotics, and research has supported their use in premature babies with certain conditions. But it is a reminder that supplements are not without risk; and because regulation is so weak, it’s often unclear what those risks actually are in the first place. It reminds me of something a dietary researcher told me when I was editing a story about supplements for children as an editor at Child magazine: “Natural doesn’t mean neutral.” Many supplements sell themselves on being derived from nature or eschewing chemicals, but that shouldn’t lead us to believe they are necessarily harmless as a result. Moreover, while supplements suffer from a lack of testing in people generally, research on their effects in children is especially scant.
Cases like the one in Connecticut and many others will hopefully serve as a wakeup call that the government needs to rethink its position on supplement regulation in the U.S. In the meantime, it’s essential that when we choose over-the-counter supplements for our families, we do so caution and in close concert with a physician who knows your child’s medical history well. Some supplements may interfere with medications your child is taking—for instance, vitamin C interferes with the absorption of acetaminophen (Tylenol). Meanwhile, according to a 2012 report, children who take multivitamins are at greater risk than those who don’t of getting too much iron, zinc, copper, selenium, folic acid, and vitamins A and C, which is why the AAP does not recommend the use of multivitamins in kids with a reasonably varied diet. From time to time, a reputable, well-tested supplement may be just thing to help a child thrive. But in most cases, your pediatrician will probably tell you that supplement is unnecessary, in which case you’ll cut back on your grocery bill as well as unclear potential risks to your kids’ health.
photo credit: KitAy via Photo Pin, cc
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