Posts Tagged ‘Supplements’
June 17th, 2010 | 
Author: For thousands of years, ginseng has been revered in the Orient as an almost magical natural supplement with amazing benefits for those who use it regularly. It is said that ginseng will boost the immune system, enhance vitality, increase physical endurance, increase mental alertness, and treat illnesses like colds, fevers, headaches, and vomiting. It is even believed to be an aphrodisiac.
Let’s face it, if ginseng actually had the properties to give all the benefits it is believed to give, people would be taking it with every meal. The fact is however, the benefits of ginseng fall a far sight short of its claims.
Commercially, ginseng is taken as tea, in capsules, in liquid form from viles, or even by eating the root itself. Usually it is taken in doses of around 5 grams at a time. Ginseng is most commonly grown in Asia, particularly in China, Korea, and Japan, although it can also be found in wooded areas from Quebec to Missouri.
Ginsenosides, which is the active substance in the root, has been shown to increase endurance and decrease fatigue in mice when given to them in large amounts. One study where large amounts were given to humans noted a small improvement in the endurance levels of those who took it. Also, “Chinese herbal medicine”, published by the US National Institute of Health, claims the use of ginseng can raise unusually low blood pressure and can help prevent shock after heart attacks.
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Have you ever waltzed into your friendly neighborhood Nutrition Store or frantically surfed the worldwide web searching for that elusive miracle pill, deluding yourself into believing that maybe, just maybe, it would somehow magically transform your so-called body into the next Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie? Or perhaps you want pecks like Arnold. Or the energy to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Or heck, maybe you’d simply settle for enough energy to pry your sleepy little self out of that comfy bed as your annoying alarm clock goes berserk Monday morning, like a runaway freight train on steroids. If so, then you’ve probably encountered a severe mega-dose of chronic overwhelm. Yikes! We are continually bombarded with a never-ending avalanche of pills and potions. Plus, you’d almost need the bank account of Bill Gates or Donald Trump to afford the buffed-up body you’d “really” like to have. Meanwhile, Madison Avenue persistently insists that you won’t be able to live with yourself until you finally succumb to today’s latest nutritional fad.
So what’s the solution?
If you’ve read this far, you are probably convinced that supplementing your diet with vitamins is critically important. You probably already know how depleted our topsoil is. Chances are, you’re also cognoscente of the highly processed state of the foodless foods we consume on a regular basis. Taber’s Medical Dictionary concludes that vitamins are indispensable for the maintenance of good health. Likewise, The Journal of American Medical Association concluded that everyone should take a multi-vitamin everyday.
So it’s not a question of whether or not we should take vitamins. Rather, the question we ought to be asking is, “With so many brands of vitamins on the market, which one is the smartest choice?”
Great question.
However, before we can even begin to answer that question, we have to answer a series of other sub-questions, such as:
1. Are cheap, synthetic vitamins just as good as all-natural vitamins?
2. Which vitamins and minerals do my body need?
3. What dosage should I take?
Let’s narrow the playing field by addressing those questions one at a time.
Are cheap, synthetic vitamins just as good as all-natural vitamins?
First, let’s compare synthetic vitamins with all-natural vitamins. I just completed an article entitled “Vitamin Wars: Natural VS Synthetic.” Putting everything into a nutshell, synthetic vitamins simply cannot measure up to nature’s finest. Over 3,800 different compounds have been identified in foods as having nutritional significance. However, in a laboratory, twenty nutrients are about all that modern science can reproduce and put into a vitamin product.
But even more of a concern than the ineffectiveness of these synthetic vitamins is the harm that they can cause. One of many examples is a recent study on Vitamin C as synthetic ascorbic acid. It was found to thicken the walls of the arteries.
On the other hand, all-natural vitamins made from whole-food sources have many positive benefits that synthetic vitamins just can’t duplicate in a lab. Whole-food vitamins derive their nutrients directly from fruits and vegetables. Unlike synthetic vitamins, whole-food vitamins do not rob precious nutrients from the body. Rather, they supply the individual cells with the nutrients they need to flourish. For greatest gains in terms of health, take only whole food vitamins. When evaluating a vitamin supplement, simply read the label. Rather than multi-syllable, unpronounceable chemical names, you should find the names of foods listed as the vitamin sources. What a concept! This is your way of knowing that you are getting the best possible absorption and retention of your vitamins.
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Why bother taking vitamins at all? Our forefathers survived just fine without multi vitamin packs, why can’t we? The answer to that question is easy, go look in your cupboards. Our forefathers ate a lot better than we do. High processed, homogenized, pasteurized, canned and prepackaged fast food means less chance of natural occurring vitamins surviving for any length of time.
While some of us pick our own fruit and grow our own vegetables, most of the country chooses to rely on packaged, store bought fruits and veggies. These aren’t as healthy as they look, either. The longer the apples and tomatoes are off the vine, the faster they begin to lose their nutritional value, losing vitamins during processing and shipping.
Your body needs vitamins to boost your immune system, ward off colds and other viruses, and even keep you even tempered, so to speak. Did you know with a vitamin deficiency that you are less likely to clot when you cut yourself? Vitamins play a much bigger part then we think, and the average diet does not include all the vitamins necessary to keep the body in top shape.
A good multi-vitamin is your best choice, but here again you can be misled into believing that 100% of the USDA recommended dosage is good enough. They mean 100% total, not 100% of each vitamin necessary. Think about it, they can’t possibly pack the right amount of every kind of vitamin that you need into one pill a day, and most multi vitamins sold in your local grocery store are cut with fillers and preservatives. Nope, you’ll have to visit your local food co op and get some natural, all inclusive vitamin supplements. Along with eating well, these supplements contain everything you need for balanced vitamin intake, with none of the fillers and preservatives that I, for one, resent paying for.
So let’s talk B vitamins as an example. You need several different kinds of B vitamins alone. B6 and B12 are just two, but the most commonly talked about. Vitamin B6 promotes the development of red blood cells, and 12 helps promote energy and fights Alzheimer’s disease. You need these and other vitamins to be in the purest form possible in order to be the most beneficial. Let’s skip back for a moment, the history of vitamins, if you will. Vitamins began being “discovered” by scientists and surgeons around 1914, and the word “vitamin ” comes from the word “vital” as in vital energy for life, but as far back as the 1600’s sailors knew to eat citrus fruits to prevent scurvy. It wasn’t until later that they knew it as vitamin C.
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When most people hear the word “anemia,” they immediately think of iron. But a shortage of Vitamin B6 can also cause a type of anemia because this vitamin is vital to the healthy generation of hemoglobin in the blood of a normal, healthy person. You may also associate Vitamin B6 with sugar diabetes, and that’s because one of the important functions of this vitamin is to regulate the amount of sugar in the blood.
Vitamin B6 is also known as pyridoxine. You may not have heard of many people who were found to have a serious Vitamin B6 deficiency, and there’s a good reason for that. B6 is so readily available in so many foods that it’s a fairly simple matter to get your daily recommended allowances of this vitamin.
Some of the common sources of B6 include tuna, roast beef, tomato juice, trout, pork loin and peanut butter. Naturally, cereals that are fortified with vitamins are excellent sources and many provide 100 percent of the body’s need for cereal. Three raw bananas also provide a full day’s supply of the necessary Vitamin B6. A medium baked potato (including the potato skin) provides about one-third of the daily requirement. Evaluating the foods rich in this vitamin reveals that many people are already meeting the daily requirements for B6.
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