Review of: Century Mature Multivitamin Multimineral for Men

This product, Century Mature Ultimate Men's Multivitamin/Multimineral Supplement, provides an excellent value for the nutrition dollar. It's just as good as some similar formulations that sell for three times as much.

I almost gave this a five-star rating. The product itself deserves that. But the packaging has issues.

The product box makes four claims. Let's examine each of these claims, then move on to other aspects of this supplement. The four claims are that the product meets these needs:

1. Men's health.
2. Immune support.
3. Energy metabolism.
4. Eye health. 

Men's health. The label says this is specially formulated with the key nutrients to help meet the nutritional needs of men 50+. There's no further elaboration on what that special formulation is. I didn't find it on the manufacturer's Website, either.

The nutrition panel provides a vitamin/mineral %DV that looks similar to other formulations for men (for premenopausal women, the difference is iron is also included but you don't want that for men or postmenopausal women).

What might pertain to men over 50 would be gingko and saw palmetto, neither of which are in this supplement.

But if you're not on the highly toxic grain-based diet or consuming MSG (via processed "foods") you can get by without these two ingredients. Unfortunately, most Americans are on the highly toxic grain-based diet and are sucking in huge amounts of MSG.

If you are "normal" you will need something more than a multi-vitamin with these added. Your best strategy is to prevent the problems by correcting your diet. While it is normal to try to fix the toxin-based diet with supplements or medicine, that strategy always fails.

This supplement does provide a good level of "nutritional insurance" for men's health. But I don't see evidence is is specially formulated for that purpose. Nor do I think it should be. So, no problem on this score with this product compared to the competition.

Immune support. "Antioxidants to help support immune function." The role of antioxidants is to reduce cancer risk by neutralizing free radicals. So whoever wrote this blurb wasn't at the station when the train pulled out.

Immune support comes from adequate amounts of Vitamin C, B12, and D3. This product provides 200% of the DV of C and 1667% of the RDA of B12. That's a fairly normal formulation.

But what about D3? First of all, vitamin D in capsule or pill form has a low absorption rate. Sublingual application is really the way to do it.

And you need far more than the 150% of the DV shown on the label. Your blood level of D3 needs to be more than twice what the federal government says it needs to be; this fact is extremely well-documented.

The label doesn't say what form of D is provided. Because you can't get sublingual application when you swallow a capsule, don't look to your multivitamin for your D. So, no problem on this score with this product compared to the competition.

Energy metabolism. They got this right, as one role of B vitamins is to help with producing energy from your food. These vitamins are water-soluble, and are often leached out (during food preparation) of the typical sources most Americans eat. That's one reason people try to compensate with dangerous "energy drinks". Take this supplement, and you can skip the heart palpitations and other ill effects of those drinks.

Eye health. They got this right, also. But beware any time you see this claim. The normal way of fulfilling it is to add huge amounts of actual Vitamin A (typically as straight retinoic acid). That puts you at risk of Vitamin A poisoning, something that a group of arctic explorers famously died from after trying to subsist on liver.

Many "eye health" supplements are downright dangerous, for this reason. But the designers of Century Mature took a safe approach. They supplied 70% of the Vitamin A needed and 29% of that is beta carotene.

They also added lutein, which is found in many vegetables. If you eat much squash or pumpkin, you get plenty of this. You'll find it in the same foods that are also high in beta carotene.

Chemical derivatives

There's a marketing claim that only cold-pressed vitamin supplements (from real food) are any good. The same marketers tell you that you need these supplements because our poor soils produce foods that is low in these nutrients. Do you see the logical conflict, here?

The vitamins you need are not some mystical substance. They are actually those chemicals listed on the ingredients panel of "hot processed" supplements. What's missing are the enzymes that are included in the cold-processed supplements. If the soil is too poor for these plants to produce these chemicals, it's also too poor for them to produce these enzymes. It's really not a soil problem, so much as a food choice problem. That's why you need a multivitamin. It's really nutritional insurance.

Remember, you are supplementing. You are not substituting a pill for food.

With minerals, it's a similar thing. But the idea that your body can't use "inorganic minerals" is idiotic. There isn't "organic calcium" and "inorganic calcium." By definition, minerals are inorganic.

Other comments

I found no downside to this product. The capsules are reasonably sized, no so "choke on the horse pill" problem. These are larger than some competing products, but manage to stay under the "too big" limit.

One unscientific test of any vitamin supplement is to see if its delivery system is any good by monitoring urine color. Granted, this is an imprecise approach at best.

But I have tried multis that leave me peeing bright yellow or even green. That means the binders or whatever should protect the product from premature breakdown aren't there, or the binders are too strong and the breakdown is too late for absorption to take place.

Where a product has high levels of B12, this test seems more valid to me because the yellow will be especially intense.

As with my normal vitamin supplement, I ate this with breakfast. Consistently, I noticed only a pale coloration. That indicates to me that the 1667% of DV of B12 isn't being hugely wasted.

Another issue is smell. I don't know if it really matters, but some supplements have endowed my urine with a foul odor. I don't see how that can possibly be good. That did not happen with this product.

Conclusion

You can disregard the two hyped up product claims on the box. Satisfying those really isn't the job of a multivitamin, so it doesn't matter whether this product actually fulfills those claims or not. But those claims do not belong on the package.

It has a good nutrient profile, seems to absorb well, and is sensibly priced. I've seen similar formulations at three times this price. For those reasons, I wanted to give this a five-star rating. But the bogus claims on the package require me to drop that a notch. A good product does not need dishonest embellishments. Please fix the packaging!

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