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Are All
Supplements Equal?
Introduction
Americans are now spending more than $17
billion a year on supplements for health and wellness.
Strangely enough, the rates of some forms of chronic
disease have not changed, while the rates of others
have actually increased. There are a number of reasons
for these poor statistics.
With an ever-increasing demand for
supplements, it makes sense for us to purchase those
that are the most effective for our needs. It may
surprise you to learn that over 95% of the
vitamins sold today are not vitamins at all, but
synthetic imitations. These synthetic
chemicals are not recognized by the body as food and
are not absorbed or retained very well. In addition,
rocks crushed into a powder, are sold as mineral
salts, a form that the human body cannot use
effectively.
It is very clear that not all
supplements are created equal. I will discuss with you
things you need to consider when deciding on your
supplement.
Whole Food Nutrients vs.
Synthetic / Isolated Nutrients
Although there are
numerous viewpoints on what kind of foods we should or
should not be eating, as well as the ideal ratio of
these foods, everyone from all corners of the diet and
nutrition world seem to agree on one thing: No matter
which foods we choose and in what ratios we eat them,
whole foods are better for you than refined foods.
It is confusing when a health
professional emphasizes how wrong it is to have
refined foods because of the depleted nutrients – and
then goes on to prescribe a packet full of isolated
refined nutrients.
Just like refined foods, these
refined vitamins have been robbed of all of the extra
accessory nutrients that they naturally come with as
well. In turn, like refined foods, they can create
numerous problems and imbalances in your body if taken
at high levels.
What Are Synthetic or
Isolated Supplements?
The countless brands of
vitamins and minerals available today all use isolated
chemical USP (United States Pharmacopoeia) nutrients.
In our modern world, we have become used to the
bio-medical model. This model is reductionistic in its
point of departure and believes that, in general
terms, medications and nutrients should be given as
single isolated substances. Nutrients are removed from
their natural environment and presented as a
synthesized single chemical.
Isolated nutrients or
synthetic nutrients are not natural, in that
they are never found in this form in nature. Taking
these isolated nutrients, especially at the ultra-high
doses found in formulas today, is more like taking a
drug. Studies show the body treats these isolated and
synthetic nutrients like foreign substances .
Not only are isolated nutrients
treated like drugs or other chemicals by your body.
Like drugs, they can create problems for you too.
Nature does not produce any nutrients in an isolated
form. For a nutrient to work properly in the body, it
needs all the other parts that are naturally present
in the food too.
If the parts are not all there from
the start, they are taken from the body’s stored
supply. This is why isolated nutrients often work for
a little while, then seem to stop working. Once your
body’s store of the extra nutrient is used up, the
isolated nutrient you’re taking doesn’t work as well
anymore. Worse yet, a deficiency in these extra
nutrients can be created in your body.
And, because most nutrients are
isolated from the foods they normally come in – using
a wide array of potentially nasty solvents and other
chemicals – taking high amounts of these products can
also expose you to these potentially toxic chemicals,
if care is not taken to remove them. With the burden
we are already facing from the high number of
chemicals in our environment, why would anyone want to
add more?
Most of the minerals available for
sale are what scientists call mineral salts. This is a
simple term that often means a form of minerals from
rocks. Most of these supplements are made from rock,
mined from the ground, crushed into powder, and
pressed into tablets. This form can in no way be
considered bio-available. Like the synthetic chemical
vitamins, these rock form minerals are not recognized
by the body and do not have the proper food elements
needed to transport them into the body and cells.
Because isolated vitamins and
mineral salts are not bound in a food matrix, they are
poorly absorbed and bioavailability is retarded. The
absorption factor for most chemical isolates is in the
area of 5% and very rarely exceeds 20%. This may be
the reason many scientists and doctors have suggested
that taking large amounts of supplements is only
useful for producing expensive urine.
What Are Whole Food
Supplements?
Whole food supplements
are what their name suggests: Supplements made from
concentrated whole foods. The vitamins found within
these supplements are not isolated. They are highly
complex structures that combine a variety of enzymes,
coenzymes, antioxidants, trace elements, activators
and many other unknown or undiscovered factors all
working together synergistically, to enable this
vitamin complex to do its job in your body.
Nutrients from within this complex
cannot be taken apart or isolated from the whole, and
then be expected to do the same job in the body as the
whole complex is designed to do.
The perfect analogy of this
difference can be seen in an automobile. An automobile
is a wonderfully designed, complex machine that needs
all of its parts to be present and in place to
function properly. Wheels are certainly an important
part of the whole, but you could never isolate them
from the rest of the car, call them a car or expect
them to function like a car. They need the engine,
body and everything else.
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