Department of Food Function and Labeling, National Institute of Health and Nutrition, National Institutes of Biomedical Innovation, Health and Nutrition, 1-23-1 Toyama, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8636, Japan.
Nutrients. 2021 Sep 8;13(9):3136. doi: 10.3390/nu13093136.
Most vitamins are primarily ingested from foods. However, it has been reported that intakes of some vitamins do not meet the nutrition reference values even in high-income countries. In this case, vitamin-fortified foods and/or vitamin supplements are helpful to fix insufficient/deficient status. However, it is not clear whether consumers are aware of their nutritional status or whether they use these products efficiently. To address this issue, we conducted an online cross-sectional questionnaire survey among 14,741 Japanese adults (over 20 years old, 7489 males and 7252 females) concerning the perceptions and prevalence of vitamin-fortified food and/or vitamin supplements. Differences in distribution among groups were compared using the chi-squared test. According to dietary habits, 33.2% of the participants consumed a well-balanced diet every day, but 25.5% could not because of time (41.6%) or money (36.9%) constraints. The perception of each vitamin varied: the highest was for vitamin C (93.2%) and the lowest was for biotin (41.9%). In addition, only a portion of the participants believed that they took sufficient amounts of each vitamin; the highest was vitamin C (22.3%) and the lowest was biotin (5.2%). Despite this situation, most did not use vitamin-fortified food and/or vitamin supplements due to economic reasons. Among vitamin-fortified food and/or vitamin supplement users, the purposes for the usage of these products were varied, such as maintaining health (80.5%), supplementation of nutrients (47.8%), beauty-related purposes (27.5%), and to prevent infectious disease (23.2%). To remedy nutritional status in individuals, it is important to improve not only consumer awareness but also the environment, which can lead consumers to use acceptable vitamin products without any burden.
大多数维生素主要通过食物摄取。然而，据报道，即使在高收入国家，一些维生素的摄入量也未达到营养参考值。在这种情况下，强化食品和/或维生素补充剂有助于纠正不足/缺乏状态。然而，目前尚不清楚消费者是否了解自己的营养状况，或者他们是否有效地使用这些产品。为了解决这个问题，我们对 14741 名日本成年人（年龄在 20 岁以上，男性 7489 人，女性 7252 人）进行了一项在线横断面问卷调查，内容涉及对强化食品和/或维生素补充剂的认知和流行情况。使用卡方检验比较了不同组之间的分布差异。根据饮食习惯，33.2%的参与者每天都能均衡饮食，但由于时间（41.6%）或金钱（36.9%）的限制，25.5%的人无法做到。对每种维生素的认知存在差异：维生素 C（93.2%）最高，生物素（41.9%）最低。此外，只有一部分参与者认为自己摄入了足够的每种维生素；维生素 C（22.3%）最高，生物素（5.2%）最低。尽管如此，由于经济原因，大多数人没有使用强化食品和/或维生素补充剂。在强化食品和/或维生素补充剂的使用者中，使用这些产品的目的各不相同，如保持健康（80.5%）、补充营养（47.8%）、美容相关目的（27.5%）和预防传染病（23.2%）。为了改善个体的营养状况，不仅要提高消费者的意识，还要改善环境，使消费者能够在没有任何负担的情况下使用可接受的维生素产品。
