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Fitness & Health

14th Dec 2010

Nutrition fact: Vitamin storage

Each week JOE.ie will be highlighting a health-related fact that can help improve your well-being. First up is advice on storing vitamins for best effect.

JOE

Having run through practically every substance found on earth that could realistically be described as having health benefits as part of ‘Magic Ingredient’, we’ve opted to kick off a new regular – on health facts. This week, it’s on storing your vitamins.

According to scientists at Purdue University, the kitchen is a poor choice of location in which to store your vitamins and multivitamins – and the bathroom is even worse. The study showed that high humidity makes multivitamins less effective.

Meanwhile, when they tested vitamin C – the immune system booster that helps alleviate muscle pain after exercise, they discovered that just one week in 86 per cent humidity (equivalent to being in a kitchen with a pot boiling), the vitamin’s effectiveness was reduced to practically zero. And it wasn’t just vitamin C – most of the other vitamins exposed to similar conditions degraded in the same way.

A recent report in Nutritional Supplements in Sports and Exercise, meanwhile, recommended that while we should all be taking multivitamins, they are most effective when kept cool and dry – so store them in the fridge.

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Topics:

nutrition