Economy Is Down, Vitamin Sales Are Up

Dr. Martha Grout — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 21:46:00 +0000

April 4, 2009br /br /Sales of vitamins and nutritional supplements, which have grown consistently for years, have surged in recent months, rising as the stock market has fallen. People are clearly cutting back on many items, from bread and milk to designer jeans and flat-screen televisions, but they are stocking up on pills that they think can spare them expensive doctor visits.br /br /For the three months ending Dec. 28, sales of vitamins rose nearly 8 percent compared with the same period in 2007, according to Information Resources Inc., a market research company in Chicago. At the same time, sales of other health-related products — like cough and cold remedies, first-aid products and pain relievers — have been dipping, according to the Nielsen Company.br /br /The strong sales of vitamins and supplements have continued into this year. “Our best January and February in history are the ones that just happened,” said Tom Newmark, chief executive of New Chapter Inc., a 26-year-old supplements manufacturer in Brattleboro, Vt.br /br /Supplement sales have been a rare bright spot for Whole Foods. “We just reported our first quarter of negative growth in our company’s history, but the supplement area is performing better than the rest of the store,” said Jeremiah McElwee, a senior coordinator who oversees supplements sales for the company.br /br /strongDr. Grout’s Comment:/strongbr /br /This is an interesting trend. People are taking responsibility for their own health and realizing that Mother Nature has a big toolbox for preventive medicine. In June, 2008, Science Daily reported that supplementation with vitamins can often restore some deficient enzymes to full working order and thereby correct genetic defects. But what are you really getting when you buy a supplement? You hope it is truly “natural,” but that is too often not the case.br /br /a href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CpmH6pmUk9A/Sd0bj62LuFI/AAAAAAAAACY/0NX3RXwlDq8/s1600-h/VitaminMythExposed.gif”img style=”float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 109px; height: 151px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_CpmH6pmUk9A/Sd0bj62LuFI/AAAAAAAAACY/0NX3RXwlDq8/s200/VitaminMythExposed.gif” border=”0″ alt=”"id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322440638527682642″ //aThe Organic Consumers Association recently launched a “Nutri-Con” Campaign to “expose the hazards and limited effectiveness of synthetic vitamins and supplements, and strive to create mass consumer awareness and marketplace demand for truly organic, ‘naturally occurring’ vitamins, botanicals, and supplements. Part of this campaign will be … to expose the fact that 90% or more of the vitamins and supplements now on the market labeled as ‘natural’ or ‘food based’ actually are spiked with synthetic chemicals.”br /br /Better to have a consumer organization devise standards for supplements than to give that responsibility to the government.div class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4769404502414351890-490447700833998072?l=arizonaadvancedmedicine.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

Sklar Surgical Instruments » economy

Economy Is Down, Vitamin Sales Are Up