Facts About Vitamins and Supplements

REPRINTED FROM BEYOND HEALTH® News by Raymond Francis Millions of Americans take vitamin supplements on a daily basis. Does it improve their health? No! Large-scale epidemiological studies have been unable to find health benefits in vitamin takers. Confused? There is a simple explanation. Most vitamin products are ineffective and even the best-selling brands contain toxins. The few decent brands are not taken by many people, while the harm done by top selling, toxic brands more than offset the good effects of the better brands, making it difficult to measure benefits. After seeking help from 36 medical doctors and almost dying from their treatments, I took control of my own health. As I was struggling to restore my health, I knew I needed vitamins, but I had to learn the hard way about the differences between vitamin brands. I was chemically sensitive and contaminants in all of the brands I tried made me sick. The Perque brand was the first supplement I was able to tolerate, and only after taking Perque did my health improve. As a chemist, I began to wonder why one brand was so superior and the others so awful. Later I found out. Perques are safer because they are extraordinarily pure. They are more effective because they are bio-engineered; using the world's most advanced technology, to deliver nutrients at the cellular level. This combination gives Perque extraordinary biological activity at the cellular level. It was their purity that allowed me to tolerate them and their superior bioactivity that was instrumental in restoring my health. The problems with vitamin supplements are legion. First of all, almost half (43%) of all vitamin brands are completely useless because they do not dissolve soon enough to be assimilated. This problem is so widespread, the FDA is talking about issuing regulations regarding the time it takes a vitamin pill to dissolve. Next, up to half of many formulations consists of fillers. These fillers can introduce toxins and allergens, interfere with solubility and/or absorption, and reduce the biological activity at the cellular level. Some manufacturers make a habit of purchasing, at tremendous discounts, outdated raw materials that have lost their potency. The most expensive vitamin pill in the world is one that doesn't work. Those cheap vitamins are more expensive than people think! Even among brands that dissolve soon enough, most of them provide only the RDA of the nutrients they contain. Yet, thousands of studies have shown that it takes much more than the RDA to show beneficial effects. Many brands try to fool the customer into thinking they are getting a bargain by including too many ingredients, thereby having far too little of each to do any good. Often they try to hide this fact by listing ingredients in micrograms rather than milligrams. This makes the numbers look bigger when they are actually smaller. It takes 1000 micrograms to equal one milligram. Cheap raw materials, such as calcium carbonate, are often used as ingredients. Unfortunately, calcium carbonate does a poor job of supplying the body with biologically active calcium. Often, manufacturers try to fool the customer by including, along with the carbonate, a more biologically active form of calcium such as calcium citrate. The problem is they don't tell you how much of each, and the more expensive citrate may be only one percent while the cheap carbonate is 99 percent. Then there is the question of synthetic versus naturally derived vitamins. Natural ingredients are more expensive and that is why most vitamin brands use synthetics. But synthetics are substantially less biologically active and can even have negative effects. The molecules of these synthetics often differ in shape from the natural molecules. The shape is important in how they react. For example, synthetic vitamin E and beta carotene are well known to be less biologically active than their natural forms. Taking synthetic beta-carotene can even cause a deficiency of other carotenes. In addition to the problems posed by synthetics, other considerations include the age and purity of the raw materials and how they are shipped, stored, handled, compounded, and packaged. All these can have a big effect on the quality of the finished product. Unfortunately, because of the many subtleties and complexities, it is almost impossible for the consumer to make an informed judgement about the quality of a vitamin supplement. There are, however, some clues anyone can look for such as the chemistry of the minerals. If you find carbonates, oxides, sulfates, phosphates, and chelates, you are most likely looking at an inferior formula. Put it down and save your money. A multivitamin containing iron, iodine, or copper is not well designed because these can cause loss of antioxidant nutrients in the formula. A formula that lists beta carotene, without listing the source, is most likely the inferior synthetic variety. Vitamin E with a "dl" in front of it is the less desirable synthetic version. For those who care about their health, the best solution is to purchase from a trusted source like Beyond Health. Beyond Health is a health solutions resource; it does the research for you and selects only the best of the best. Raymond Francis is an M.I.T.-trained scientist and an internationally recognized leader in the emerging field of optimal health maintenance. Reprinted with permission from: Beyond Health® News email: [email protected] Copyright 2005, Beyond Health