You're gliding through a local store with a mission, headed straight toward the health and supplement section. This is your year! You're going to get healthy! You arrive at your destination and zero in on the hundreds of bottles that seem to stretch for miles in every direction. You manage to find the multi-vitamin section, a simple place to start, you think. Then you realize there's 10 different brands with varying prices. Ok... what do you choose? Cheapest? Do you compare labels and ingredients? Do you have any clue what you're looking for?
It's overwhelming, no doubt. I hear it all the time, many choosing to simply bypass for various reasons. Maybe you've heard they're ineffective, maybe the research seems highly inconclusive and inconsistent, your doctor told you they're a waste of money, you eat well enough and assume you are adequately nourished, or maybe you're just SO overwhelmed by it all that you can't even figure out where to begin.
Wouldn't it be incredible if we could simplify HOW to navigate supplements based on just a few key points?
That's my mission today! Let's clearly lay out some important factors to take into consideration.
Do I NEED to Supplement?
Many assume they eat adequate amounts of food to nourish what their body needs. We pay close attention to calories, fat, protein and carbohydrates yet function on the simple assumption that our cells are meeting their nutritional requirements daily. Let's consider a few issues when it comes to modern-day nutrition.
Daily Diet
Up to 90% of North America believes they "eat healthy", but what if our "map" to eating healthy is flawed? We may consider granola bars, muffins, low fat and fat free products, low calorie snack packs of processed goodies and frozen, highly processed entrees to be a healthy choice. We are misled with marketing, titles, product names and checkmarks to believe what we are choosing is healthy. I remember thinking a Fuzzy Peach candy was a healthy choice because it said FAT FREE on the bag! Further, in the big picture of things it is generally suggested that we focus on eating whole foods 80% of the time, allowing wiggle room for sanity and social purposed to enjoy our favourite, less healthy foods. Is 80% good nutrition truly adequate for our growing nutrients needs combined with declining food quality (see below)? Ideally we should be consuming our nutrition from foods. Unfortunately this is not always realistic. To provide adequate nutrition many of us would require a full-time job raising our own meats, growing our own gardens of varied fruits and vegetables, and control over many factors we simple do not have a lot of control over like stress, environmental toxins, food additives and preservatives and a whole host of factors we may not even be aware of that influence our metabolism and nutrient needs on a day to day basis.
Recent studies suggest that up to 80% of Americans are walking around with nutritional deficiencies, a known cause and contributor to a large number of chronic disease.
You could be one of the 20% if your diet is reaching the recommended servings of fruits, vegetables, you minimize processed and toxin-ridden food, eat mostly organic, grow your own and eliminate household toxins. The only way to know for sure is to spend a little extra on blood analysis. Most physicians won't do a full vitamin/mineral panel blood screen to test for deficiencies without any medical indication to do so but it's always worth a try!
Devitalized Soil
Our soil is only 1/6 of the mineral content it was just 50 years ago, due to conventional farming methods which include adding back only 3 of the multiple minerals depleted through growth, increased yields to provide a higher quantity versus quality, increased pesticide and herbicide use, and improper crop rotation. You would have to eat 6x as much of that vegetable to get the same nutrition as you did 50 years ago. Combine that with a greater level of inactivity and you're sure to miss the mark.
Increased Nutrient Needs
Stress, environmental pollutants, household and personal care chemicals, toxins, pesticides, herbicides, moderate to heavy exercise including weight lifting and running, alcohol and smoking all increase nutrient needs within the body. Stress, for example, produces physiological cascades in the body that require B and C vitamins, among others. Vitamin B is required for cell energy production and carbohydrate and protein metabolism. When these levels are depleted we feel fatigued, run down and less able to cope. We lead higher stress lifestyles than ever before, there's no denying this one!
So you've decided you want to try supplementing, now what?!?!? The information and effectiveness of vitamins seems to change at the blink of an eye and it can be overwhelming figuring out what to look for, how much and why.
First, let's talk about this conflicting information on effectiveness. Much of the talk of dangers of reaching toxic levels, awful side effects like kidney stones, artery calcifications, no positive effects on illness/disease outcomes or prevention, or any other negative association that has come up related to vitamins and minerals has been said of poor quality supplements such as synthetic (man-made) and isoalted (out of balance with nature) nutrients.
I hear a lot of fear-mongering about the dangers and cautions of vitamins so let's put it into perspective. In a 20 year review of all the literature there was 2.5 million deaths from properly prescribed drugs and other health care errors. In that exact same 20 year period, there were only TWO deaths that were "possibly" attributed to vitamins, both of which were extremely high, unrealistic doses. If you've ever watched the documentary Food Matters then you've heard this statistic! I find it a bit ironic, myself, that we are so afraid of vitamins yet so readily pop as aspirin for a headache, without so much as a second thought related to side effects.
So how to we distinguish poor quality from high quality?
HOW THEY'RE MADE
This is ALWAYS first and foremost. Vitamins are made one of THREE ways.
1) Synthetic. Man-made, fake, nothing natural about them. Every study I have seen showing any negative or ineffective effects of vitamins have been on synthetic vitamins!!! EVERY one. Smokers and beta-carotene, synthetic, vitamin D toxicity- Synthetic, calcium buildup in arteries and kidney's- synthetic! The list goes on. All this fear-mongering is on SYNTHETIC vitamins.
So, how do you know what are synthetics? Biggest clue are those sold at Walmart, drug stores, GNC (prenatal and children's vitamins included). You'll also see "dl-" in front of ingredient names. Synthetics are also often full of fillers and additives. You get what you pay for here, people. Unless you're comparing two synthetic brands at Walmart, then the more expensive one is the exact same as the cheap one. Why? Because there are only a few HUGE companies that manufacture allllllll of these different vitamins in your stores.
2)Isolated- IsolateVitamins taken from real things/food but the desired vitamin is isolated (often with heat which is cheapest and kills active enzymes). Sounds good? Think about this one... there are MANY vitamins out there that are NOT safe if taken in large doses alone. When taken the way it's meant to in nature, with cofactors, other vitamins that balance WITH the desired nutrient (essentially helps the body avoid toxicity as well as improves bioavailablility) the body is better able to cope and put those nutrients to work where they're needed. Vitamin E for example can be VERY dangerous when taken alone in high doses but do you ever get warnings about eating too many nuts for fear of vitamin E poisoning? Didn't think so.
These are often found in health food stores. The bottle will read, "derived from", "naturally sourced from" or something to that effect.
3) Whole Food- Essentially taking a whole food and breaking it down into pill form. This is what supplements are supposed to be! If you do not have any specific nutritional limitations on the food you eat then you can be rest assured taking these food supplements will be just like increasing your intake of any food containing those nutrients.
Whole food vitamins cost more, they are not as easy to find but these are worth the extra effort to find. I have never seen a study with negative outcomes from a whole food supplement.
QUALITY ISSUES
There are definitely some rampant quality issues everyone should be aware of when looking for a supplement company or brand.
1) Bioavailability
Very simply put this means that our bodies are complex and designed in a way to absorb and utilize nutrients from food through digestion. Not all nutrients are absorbed at the same time from the same place or provide equal benefit in doing so. For example, Folic Acid actually provides a far greater benefit when released and absorbed very quickly in the stomach. Omega supplements will avoid a fishy burp when released in the duodenum versus the stomach and probiotics will provide a dramatically greater effect when released in the colon where it is needed versus being released in the stomach where the highly acid environment will kill off all but traces of the live, active cultures before nearing the colon.
This issue is common when it comes to effectiveness of supplements and actually feeling a difference. It is one thing to say it is a bioavailable product but is there any clinical research that proves it is? This would be the best, most concrete way of backing up the claim with solid evidence, as many natural companies will simply list bioavailable on the label.
2) Stability
If you look closely at a bottle you will likely find somewhere that says, "at time of manufacture" when pertaining to the amount of ingredient within. This means that the company has not done any testing to ensure or guarantee that what you are paying for on the label is actually in the bottle. Again, this is a large issue with probiotics as they are highly sensitive to their environment. If it is not very well encapsulated in a scientific way then they often need to be refrigerated.
In many clinical tests analyzing labels claims brands have very often failed to meet their own claims when tested. Calcum, green tea extract, most herbs, probiotics, garlic and allicin of all different quality types and levels have come back containing as little as ZERO active ingredient while many groups have between 10-60%. If you want more information on this issue you can sign up with ConsumerLabs.com and check out their libraries of testing done on your most popular store brand names and how they measure up with label claims. It's a fantastic resource!
3) Contamination
Believe it or not, this is a real issue. Industry standards require testing of only raw materials (which still remains flawed with its grey areas) with the trust that contamination will not happen in processing, therefore finished products are not required to be tested. Additionally, industry standards require testing of only 50 contaminants. I have only seen one company that tests for over 350 in every single batch of every finished product produced in its facility.
A perfect example of this was the study done by the FDA in 2008 on hundreds of women's and children' vitamins, including prenatals. The study found that over 324 brands of vitamins were contaminated with lead! The study was posted online as a "buyer beware" and those supplements were not taken off the market or required to fix the problem. Daily lead recommendations have been set by Health Canada to not exceed 1.5mcg per day. Across North America recommendations are now being lowered to ZERO after new research shows clear links to lead levels in the blood of children and developmental challenges and lowered IQ scores. Here's the link to the FDA study http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodborneIllnessContaminants/Metals/ucm115941.htm
InnerLight Supergreens was found to contain over 19mcg of lead when tested by Consumer Labs. Metagenics Rice Protein was found to contain nearly 6mcg of lead per serving when tested by Consumer Labs.
4) Heat Processing
Heat processing to extract vitamins and nutrients is the cheapest, quickest route. Heat kills active, live enzymes present in natural living food. This won't apply to synthetic vitamins but applies to isolated and whole food vitamins. Have you ever heard that sprouting provides health benefits? This is the same idea that raw food enthusiasts relate to. Though I do not believe it is necessary, or plausible, for most to consume a strictly raw diet it is important to note that when taking a food supplement, you will find a greater number of benefits with cold processing versus heat processing for this simplified reason.
It is worth doing some research to find what feels right for you. Use this guide when researching online, ask questions, send the company and email, look for the evidence and research. Invest in basic whole food supplements to keep cost down and focus on making better food choices every day. If you live a high stress lifestyle it might be worth investing in some combined B+C vitamins, especially if you're lacking energy and are already eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, lean meats, whole grains and healthy fats.
Cheers,
Chelsea
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