Vitamin and herbal experation dates?

Question

how long is a vitamin or herbal pills good for after the experation date on the bottle?

Answer 1

The Pharmacy Tech gave you the best answer you are going to get. However, I wanted to add some that I know about from working in a health food store.

Vitamin C starts to become more acidic after the expiration date (the mfg. company knows when this is - they don't just make it up). Anything with oil in it starts very quickly to go rancid (fish oil, vitamin E, lecithin, et.al.) and become a carcinogen. The salicyns (White Willow, Wintergreen, Poplar, Birch, Meadowsweet) go acid very quickly after expiration. B vitamins deteriorate quickly and are useless.

Most other herbs, if they don't have any vitamins or other stuff in them, are safe to take, just not as potent as they were, for up to a year after the expiration. If they are alcohol extracts, they keep a long time, maybe 3 years past as a general rule. Single minerals, too, keep pretty well for 2-3 years past expiration.

Answer 2

As a former Pharmacy Technician, we were taught that because different products break down at different rates, you, the general consumer, cannot be sure of the effectiveness of the expired product.  The expiration date is what guarantees the effectiveness of the product.  Anything after that you are just guessing.  There is no "general rule of thumb" like 80%.  To get technical, the term is called "half-life" and the half-life of a product quickly diminishes once it starts breaking down.  Every product has a different half-life, based upon it's chemical structure.  However, most herbals won't hurt you after the expiration date.  It just won't work.

Answer 3

As a general rule, up to one year past the expiration.  If the product is fish oil, a probiotic, or something equally delicate then I would go by the expiration date.

Answer 4

on prescription medications the expiration date is when it would be estimated that the product still has 90% effectiveness if stored properly during its life. since herbals arent regulated i would assume the manufacturer probably just slaps a date on the bottle without any oversight from a higher power like the FDA, it may have some research behind it or it may just be a number they pulled out of their asses so you just dont know.

Answer 5

I was told by a nurse once that a year after expiration a med or vitamin usually has about 80% of it's original strength. Personally I don't take anything more than 3 mos. after the expiration.