New Information on Supplements Could Save Consumers Buckets of Money

Spending money on supplements can take up a great portion of the budget, costing consumers more than they hope; but new information on supplements could change all that. Judith A. DeCava, CNC, LNC has put forth The Real Truth About Vitamins & Antioxidants which can open the eyes, and possibly close the pocketbook.

DeCava says, “Many supplement makers, food fortifiers, and scientists would like us to believe that our bodies cannot tell the difference between nutrient parts or synthetic chemical versions and nutrients in real food. They insist there is a single chemical structure for a nutrient part that they have labeled as a nutrient. When nutrient parts, separated from food or manufactured in a lab, are dispensed, it amounts to ‘nutritional pharmacology’ with drug-like effects. High doses of nutrition parts have actions that differ from nutrient complexes in foods, actions that can cause adverse effects.”

This makes spending money on supplements questionable.

When isolating a nutrient for a supplement, it may not be used by the body in the intended manner. DeCava says, “Most studies seek to identify ‘active agent’ of food. But that is impossible. Scientists ‘cannot identify all the parts, what they do, and how they do it.’ They just know that food ‘does work’. Active agents function as they do because of the presence of all the other parts making them functional. All nutrients come packaged with innumerable other coworkers that function in an interrelated, balanced, intricate, symbiotic arrangement to ensure optimal use and benefit for the body. This is the best way – Nature’s way – providing nutrition.”

These nutrients are elite powerhouses of information for the body. If they are delivered inappropriately, they are either not going to work, or throw something else off in the body. DeCava says, “Try as they might to duplicate Nature’s way, chemists cannot do so. Human health requires biochemicals that are readily accepted and serviceable for growth, maintenance, repair, energy, and function. The use of drugs or drug-like substances (including isolated, synthetic supplements) where food is called for ‘is the height of scientific unsoundness, to say the least’.”

Many studies have been done on this issue. One perfect example is when multivitamins have been studied. “‘Most randomized clinical trials on multis have yielded disappointing results.’ The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force concluded that there is still ‘not enough evidence to assess the balance of benefits and harms’. Three studies found that a daily multi does not help boost the average person’s health and should not be used for chronic disease prevention. A meta-analysis of 21 trials found that multis have no effect on mortality risk’,” DeCava says.

Let’s take vitamin C as another example. Usually vitamin C is found in fruits, like oranges, in the form of ascorbic acid. There are other nutrients in the orange, like rutin, flavonoids, amino acids, ascorbate oxidate and tyrosinase, that amplify the effectiveness and potency. The same is true for apples.  Interestingly enough, the numbers are mind-blowing. Rui Hai Liu is a PhD researcher who studied this and found, “100 grams of fresh apples (about half a cup) had an antioxidant vitamin C- like activity equivalent to 1,500 milligrams of ascorbic acid. However, when the 100 grams of apple were chemically analyzed, they found only 5.7 milligrams of actual ascorbic acid – far below the 1.500 milligrams of antioxidant vitamin C – like activity. This activity was 263 times as potent as the same amount of the isolated chemical,” DeCava said.

{We are taking a leap of faith and have added a donate button instead of using advertisers. Advertisements have been removed from this page to make your reading uninterrupted. If you learn something here, please donate so we can keep offering these posts. This post contains affiliate links, which sometimes pay for this site. This post may contain an affiliate link for the same reason}.

Another study showed something similar regarding isolated compounds such as taking a specific vitamin. DeCava said, “‘Rats fed a diet totally lacking in the vitamin B complex survives for ‘a surprising length of time,’ while a deficiency of just one B vitamin, thiamine (B1), can be fatal in a few weeks.’ Taking synthetic or isolated vitamins can easily lead to a deficiency of one or more factors native to the food complex and disrupt normal biochemistry.”

She shows how studies have proven to go so far as saying, “A synthetic vitamin can only be used for a drug effect: it can mask or cover over symptoms but does not alleviate the cause of the illness, disease, insult, or injury.”

Yet, some still insist that the body doesn’t know the difference between food or a synthetic supplement, even though “Let food be thy medicine” is still one of the most powerful statements known today and Hippocrates died in 370 BC. Eating the most nutrient dense foods can show to be the most supportive medicine out there, as opposed to spending money on supplements.

*Nourishing Plot is written by Becky Plotner, ND, traditional naturopath, CGP, D.PSc. who sees clients in Rossville, Georgia. She is a Board Certified Naturopathic Doctor, through The American Naturopathic Medical Association and works as a Certified GAPS Practitioner who sees clients in her office, Skype and phone. She has been published in Wise Traditions, spoken at two Weston A. Price Conferences, Certified GAPS Practitioner Trainings, has been on many radio shows, television shows and writes for Nourishing Plot. She serves on the GAPS Board of Directors and has recently been named “The GAPS Expert” by Dr. Natasha and will serve teaching other Certified GAPS Practitioners proper use of the GAPS protocol. Since her son was delivered from the effects of autism (Asperger’s syndrome), ADHD, bipolar disorder/manic depression, hypoglycemia and dyslexia, through food, she continued her education specializing in Leaky Gut and parasitology through Duke University, finishing with distinction. She is a Chapter Leader for The Weston A. Price Foundation. becky.nourishingplot@hotmail.com

“GAPS™ and Gut and Psychology Syndrome™ are the trademark and copyright of Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. The right of Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Patent and Designs Act 1988.