The active ingredient is cheap, so tablet weight makes little difference to the production cost. It’s what happens next that hurts!

What consumers pay for is packaging, transport, warehousing, distribution, and retail.  All these stages add cost and take a profit.   By the time a product reaches the customer the purchase price is usually far above the manufacturing cost and then we pay VAT on it!  Other costs include insurance, printing instructions in ‘n’ languages, confirming the product is legal wherever it is sold, advertising, and dealing with complaints etc.

Trusted brand-names allow much more profit to be taken – customers don’t like risk, and assume that the brand of salt bought by their granny must be much better quality than some cheap foreign un-branded salt.  Maybe, probably not!

In the case of Vitamin D, the packaging alone might cost more than the pills!

The internet reduces sale price because it shortens the chain, especially reducing distribution and retail overheads.  Rather than having a Pharmacy in every High-Street, Vitamins are sold from a ‘Fulfilment Centre’.  This is a large automated Warehouse topped up ‘Just In Time’ direct from the ports, and fitted with a high-speed dispatch system feeding multiple delivery vans.  Rates and building costs are minimised, the system employs far fewer people, and customers like to buy cheap and easy online.   Downside is it destroys local shops, including Pharmacies, where customers often need the personal touch.  Fulfilment Centres don’t seem to be a nice place to work, and a  percentage of deliveries disappear or arrive damaged, whilst the reducing High Street means cash is slowly disappearing as a payment method…

Dave

On 20 January 2024 at 09:18 Nealeb Said:

Marketing?

I take regular vitamin D, at least during the winter months, as per common recommendations. The recommended daily dose is 400IU. I actually take 1000IU tablets because the “recommended” dose tablets are more difficult to find and cost more, and it seems that it is difficult to overdose on vitamin D! I think that for vitamin D 400IU is the equivalent of 10ug, so actually the amount of active ingredient is almost at homeopathic levels(*). Can’t be that that drives the cost difference!

(*) I exaggerate – a homeopathic dose would be about a thousandth of a molecule…

It is possible to overdose on Vit D. However, I started taking the high dose when Covid started. It has been suggested that the recommended dose is too low due to the dose being miscalculated. My reasoning for starting was that the most vulnerable to Covid were those with a darker skin and the elderly. Both groups tend to have low levels of vit D. I was surprised that there was never an official recommendation for the public to do the same.

It is better to buy the D3 version – more effective.

Not Vitamin supplements, and not homeopathy, so please forgive the digression:

I was contemplating just recently, how powerful some medications must be

The active ingredient of the Ramipril tablet that I take is 1.25 mg and I have one in the morning and one in the evening … to avoid the risk of side-effects from taking a single ‘large’ dose !

MichaelG.

And here’s me thinking this thread was about Michael being confused …

On 20 January 2024 at 16:59 Nealeb Said:

On 20 January 2024 at 13:49 File Handle Said:

It is possible to overdose on Vit D. However, I started taking the high dose when Covid started. It has been suggested that the recommended dose is too low due to the dose being miscalculated. My reasoning for starting was that the most vulnerable to Covid were those with a darker skin and the elderly. Both groups tend to have low levels of vit D. I was surprised that there was never an official recommendation for the public to do the same.

It is better to buy the D3 version – more effective.

Indeed – but I think the OD level is quite high. I was listening to something on the radio in the last week where a study had looked at the effects of a 10mg (not 10ug) dose and they seemed to think that they saw some benefits.  Not for everyone to copy but it does suggest that the limits are pretty high. I’m sure I’ve seen 4000IU tablets frequently on sale as well – ten times the recommended dose.

I thought that the benefits of vitamin D were fairly widely publicised, as being the only supplement that is of general (as opposed to cases of diagnosed deficiencies) use. It is made by the body but only in sufficient sunshine which is somewhat lacking in Northern latitudes and especially in winter when we all stay indoors anyway. This is also why dark-skinned people are particularly susceptible to a lack of “D” due to filtration of UV (presumably) by skin pigmentation. Certainly true for most people on ordinary diets that they get pretty well all other vitamins and minerals from that daily diet.

Michael – has your Ramipril (despite the dosage level – and yes, some of these drugs do seem to be clinically effective at remarkably low doses!) caused you to develop a cough? Both my wife and I have taken it in the past, both developed dry coughs seemingly at random times, and which went away when we were moved to alternatives. I think I’m on losartan now. Apparently a known effect but not one which everyone suffers from.

I have seen it suggested that the recommended dose was miscalculated by a factor of 10, so a dose of 10 x shouldn’t be an issue. If I remember correctly cases of overdose have been caused by unusual diets rich in it. It is a fat soluble vitamin so to get the best out of any supplement you need to take it with a meal containing fat / oil.
Skin colour is a balance between protecting against skin cancer and producing Vit D, so we have evolved the skin colour that matches the local sunlight intensity.