Here's the 'sense' of it, in a sentence:  The human body is designed to run on food.  Therefore to have the best possible health, it requires the fuel it was designed to burn.  In other words: food.

To   get the best mileage and performance from a car requires using the proper fuel. The human body is the same except you can't trade it in and get a new one.  That makes it even more important to give it the right fuel, to maximize its performance and its lifetime. So it makes both sense and cents to you to use the right fuel when it comes to supplements. What is that then?

Many people use supplements, thinking these nutritional supplements are enhancing the fuel they consume in meals.  In fact, nearly 52 percent of adult respondents in a 2007 study said they had used some type of supplement in the last 30 days.

To determine whether the cents spent on nutritional supplements actually makes sense requires a closer look. at these dietary supplements.  Here are some interesting facts about these dietary supplements.:

1. Any ingredient in a nutritional supplement that's over the minimum daily requirement is made in a laboratory and is not a whole food. In other words, it was made in a laboratory from some base chemical. Whole food nutrition only comes from foods, and foods do not contain more than the minimum daily requirement.

2. The product you buy from any particular company is not made by that company. Instead it is sourced from another company, a 'contract manufacturer' -often located in another country. Japan, China, Germany all have these 'contract manufacturers'. Since the standards in that country are different (often lower) than those in the US, the source product used by that company can be contaminated (remember the Melamine-tainted baby formula that killed at least six children and caused some 300,000 others to become ill?) One industry insider told me privately that there are only a very few companies in the world that provide these synthetic 'vitamins' to all the various packagers.

3. The source material used in manufacture may be the wrong one or of low quality. The consumer has no way of knowing this  - and neither does the packager - because no third party testing is carried out to ensure quality of source materials.

4.  Many synthetic vitamins start out their lives as base chemicals that are toxic or can cause allergic reactions. This means that even that expensive 'good brand' dietary supplement you paid a lot of money for started out its life as coal tar or nicotine or alloxal, according to the Organic Consumer's Organization,.

5. Most synthetic vitamins contain other additives.  One class of these is called toxic 'flowing agents' such as magnesium stearate or stearic acid.  Another common additive is common sand, which appears on the label with its chemical name, 'silicon dioxide'.  Organic Consumer states the reason for this is that  it's "an expensive filler that makes the bottle weigh more with the hope that the uneducated consumer will equate weight with higher quality)".  In other words, it makes cents for the manufacturer, not sense for the consumer seeking better health.

6. A third category of additives, including those labelled  'pure' and 'natural'  are  "natural" flavors. Organic Consumer reports that this is a common term used to describe "toxic MSG (monosodium glutamate) used to disguise bland taste", methylcellulose, carnauba wax, and or titanium dioxide." 

As you can see, synthetic supplements make cents for their manufacturers and distributors, but they do not make sense for enhancing the performance and longevity of the human body, because they are not the fuel the body is designed to use.

A whole food diet and whole food supplements are what make sense.  And even though they may seem more expensive when considering purchase price only, when factoring in the ineffectiveness and toxicity of synthetics, whole food supplements actually make more cents - for you.

You can access further information at http://www.organicconsumers.org/nutricon/qa.cfm

Pamela Levin, R.N.
11/7/11

Source: http://www.betterhealthbytes.com                                         ↑  Back to Top

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