Vitamins With Gluten

If you have a gluten allergy or celiac disease, following a gluten-free diet is essential for your good health. Gluten is found in foods and beverages containing wheat, rye or barley as well as by-products derived from these grains. It may surprise you to learn that your vitamins may also contain gluten. This protein is used as an excipient in some medications and vitamins. An excipient is an additive like starch or gum arabic that acts like a binding agent for pills. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration permits the use of gluten in these products. If you experience allergy or intolerance symptoms, you should consult your doctor or pharmacist regarding a gluten-free option.

Is Your Vitamin Gluten Free?

Labeling for gluten-free products is voluntary. This means that your vitamin may or may not contain gluten. Even if a product is gluten free, the manufacturer is not required to label it as such. Vitamins that are labeled gluten free must follow the guidelines set forth by the FDA. This means that a particular product does not contain 20 parts per million (ppm) or more gluten. The threshold of 20 ppm is based on current technology for determining gluten content.

Gluten-containing Ingredients

To determine if your vitamin contains gluten, you should study the product's label. Several ingredients may indicate that the product has gluten in it. Adding to the difficulty is the nature of some of these additives. Some, like modified starch, may or may not be derived from wheat. The same applies to dextrins, maltodextrin and sodium starch glycolate. If you see any of these ingredients, you will need to do some further investigation by contacting the manufacturer to determine if a product is gluten free.

Gluten-containing Vitamins

While many manufacturers have a gluten-free line of vitamins, some sell products that contain gluten. This is often the case because of additional ingredients added to the product. Nature’s Sunshine Products, for example, sells several products containing oatstraw or wheat grass, including its Women's X-Action and X-Action Reloaded Men's. Food Source One Daily Multi and Alive! Whole Food Multivitamin w Iron contain barley grass. Oat-derived ingredients present an additional challenge. The gluten content depends on the type of oat. If you are gluten sensitive or intolerant, you may not be able to safely ingest foods containing this ingredient.

Citizen's Petition

In the future, the concern over vitamins with gluten may be a thing of the past. A Citizen's Petition to the FDA has been submitted to remove gluten from the excepted list of excipients used by manufacturers. As long as it remains on the list of permitted ingredients, individuals who follow gluten-free diets must scrutinize any over-the-counter supplement or medication they take. In the meantime, if you must avoid gluten, you should stick with product labeled gluten free to give you some peace of mind.