Standard Process Vitamins

Do multivitamins go bad past the experation date?

I cleaned out my pantry yesterday, and found a new box of multivitamins that expired last year, do I need to toss them or are they ok?

Public Comments

1. i think it's better to toss them away, you never know....
2. Depending on the vitamins. Things like Vitamin C disintegrates after 6 months, so I'm guessing they are overdue and usless
3. When in doubt - throw them out.
4. i doubt they will do you any good, the certainly wont be effective anymore - thats what it said on the one show the other week anyway
5. what the hell is experation date? and its not new because its expired and i think they go bad, i mean very bad
6. Yeah multivitamins have the experation date
7. The expiration date is the date when the active ingredient is at 90% of the potency that the label says. The equation used to figure that is A^(-kt) where A is the amount of active ingredient, k is the halflife, and t is the time. Financial wizards and physicists among us will recognize the equation, as it's the same one used to figure continuously compounded interest and radioactive decay. Since a multivitamin has a bunch of ingredients in it, probably the expiration date was figured based on the ingredient with the shortest half-life, ie, the one that decays fastest. So, there is probably some viable vitamin left in there. My multivitamin has an expiration date about 2 yrs after the date I purchased them. Personally I would trash them, buy a much smaller bottle, and take those. As far as doubling goes these are 2 things to watch out for: Vitamin A can be toxic in excess (there are reports of people dying after eating bear liver which has a lot of it). If the Vitamin A is in the form of beta carotene, however, your body can regulate the amount that gets turned into Vit A. So, beta carotene = good. Iron is also not a good thing to take too much of, especially if you are a man. (It has been shown to increase men's risk of cardiac problems).
8. some multivitamines may cause renal diseases after expirations so it better that u get rid if them