A vitamin a day gives more than bargained for

When you hit up your local nutrition center for some daily vitamins, most of us don't think twice about questioning the authenticity of their benefits. ConsumerLab.com tried testing 21 multivitamins between the States and Canada to find out that only ten met their label's claims or quality standards.

If that isn't bad enough, one particular vitamin set off alarms when The Vitamin Shoppe Multivitamins Especially for Women brand was found to have lead contamination. Half of the vitamins didn't have enough of the product their labels claimed, or they had too much of it. To add insult to injury, some of them didn't even dissolve in the right amount of time, meaning the body could not have absorbed what it needed.

Don't panic and throw away your multivitamin just yet. The good news is that some of the most popular brands passed the test. Centrum Silver, Member's Mark Complete Multi, One A Day Women's and Flintstones Complete were among the successful ones. Read on to find out more results and to see why taking a vitamin with too much punch in the pill could be dangerous.