Are your vitamins helping or hurting you?

What kind of vitamins should you take?

On April 9th 2008, CBS’s Early Show reported that in 2007 there were 192 million dietary supplement users and $23.6 Billion was spent on supplements. The question was raised however, “Are they always safe”?

We may think that since vitamins are in the foods that we eat, then not only are they safe, but they’re necessary and healthy. This may not be as true as you may think. In fact, supplement use should be approached as carefully as any other health habit. For example, should you pay an untrained individual for a session of massage therapy? Would you even think about having someone other than a Doctor of Chiropractic adjust the joints of your spine? How about handing a dental drill to someone who never spent a day in dental school and asking them to fix your molar? I hope not! The same holds true for dietary supplements.

Are all vitamins created equal?

Certainly not! Most of us have, at one time or another, walked into a health food store and seen the aisles and aisles of bottles containing both familiar sounding vitamins as well as formulas you’ve never heard of before in your life. Not knowing what to do, we must resort to asking the person behind the counter for advice who, 9 times out of 10, have never been trained in nutrition and knows no more than what the labels tell them. In fact it is very difficult for the average individual to determine not only which supplement to take, but from which company to buy them from! Well, with a little bit of knowledge, you too can make the good decisions for you and your family when it comes to vitamin usage. The first thing to understand… there ARE different types of supplements. The two major categories of dietary supplements are 1) isolated nutrient fragments and 2) whole food supplements.

Isolated nutrient fragments

The majority of supplements you see on the health food store counters are isolated nutrient formulas. These formulas can be broken down into two sub categories 1) synthetic and 2) “natural”.

Synthetic isolated nutrient formulas are prepared in a laboratory. Scientists research the molecular structure of certain vitamins and nutrients and attempt to duplicate them in a laboratory setting. The benefit of this is that they can mass produce them at a fraction of the cost and sell a higher amount with a higher profit level. Unfortunately for us, our bodies do not recognize these artificial substitutes as the real nutrient and does not break down or absorb these fabricated fakes. So, the bottom line is a lower cost bottle of vitamins getting flushed down the toilet resulting in a waste of our time and money.

“Natural” isolated nutrient formulas are only slightly better. You see, these type of nutrients are also produced in a laboratory. The scientists who make these variations of nutrients start out with natural substances. However, instead of duplicating the molecular structure of vitamins, they utilize a series of steps and chemical reactions to extract the desired particles from their “natural” starting product. These so called nutrients are then included, in predetermined quantities, into the capsule, tablet or pill. I use the word “natural” in quotations because many times the natural product used in these formulations are substances which we may not want ingested into our bodies. For example, many “natural” B complex vitamins are extracted form coal tar derivatives. Is coal tar natural? Yes, but not healthy!

Another important thing to understand about isolated nutrient formulations is that the nutrients extracted are not complete. Instead, only fragments of the desired nutrients are extracted and included. Allow me to explain.

If you look at your vitamin bottle’s label you will see a list of ingredients that sound like they must be healthy like Niacin, Folic Acid, Thiamine and Ascorbic Acid.

Let’s look at Ascorbic Acid. Ascorbic acid is what is included in your vitamin bottle as Vitamin C. Now let’s be very clear about this… Ascorbic Acid is not Vitamin C. Ascorbic acid is only part of the vitamin C complex. In fact, it is only the outer shell covering of the Vitamin C complex. Let’s put that into perspective. We know that eating an apple is healthy, skin and all. However, would you ever consider removing the skin from the apple and eating the skin only while throwing away the rest of the fruit? Of course not! In the same sense, taking ascorbic acid is like doing just that. It’s like eating an eggshell and throwing away the egg!

Another example would be Vitamin E. If you look on your vitamin label, you may see alpha-tocopherol listed as Vitamin E. Take a look at the diagram below.

You will notice in the diagram, that alpha-tocopherol is included in the complex of Vitamin E. However, it is not the only thing that is inside the Vitamin. There are 3 other tocopherols, selenium, as well as other co-factors necessary to make up Vitamin E. If we take only alpha-tocopherol, we are not getting the entire vitamin, only a fragment. Vitamin fragments are not complete and are therefore unstable. That means, they are looking to hook up with their counterparts… even if these counterparts exist in your body. Taking vitamin fragments can actually cause a “leaching” effect on your body.

Again, our bodies are not designed to use nutrient fragments which are removed and separated in a laboratory. The best nutrient extracting lab in the world is the human body. It is designed to consume whole foods and extract the nutrients it needs, in their complete form, and use them to it’s benefit. Which leads us to the second type of supplementation.

Whole Food Supplements

Whole food supplements start with foods grown in nutrient rich soils and carefully cultivated to preserve the integrity of the food. Then, instead of extracting the nutrients from the foods, the food is compacted and concentrated into the supplement itself. So, when taking a whole food vitamin, your body will not only recognize it as food (because that’s what it is) but it will also extract the complete nutrient properly and absorb it completely for it’s benefit. Whole food supplements are the most effective way to supplement a healthy diet because it complements the body’s design.

The April 9th CBS news program suggested that taking some supplements improperly may cause some damage to your health. I would like to agree… when taking isolated nutrient formulas that is. However, when taking whole food vitamins, your body will only extract the nutrients that it needs and not cause damage. You see, you can never get too much nutrition from eating good food and that’s what whole food supplements do for you.

For more information about whole food nutrition, visit our nutrition page and listen to the audio content available there.

Do Flies Cause Garbage?

What Causes Garbage?

This may sound like a silly question, but if we approach the issue of refuse in the same way we approach the problem of disease we may ask the same question.

You see, when we look at disease in our society today, we seem to approach it from the germ theory. What is the germ theory? Simply stated… “Germs cause disease”. For a more detailed explanation, refer to the post “Do Germs Really Cause Disease?“. This approach has us examine the result to determine the cause. In other words, when someone falls ill we look to see if there are any germs (bacteria, virus’, etc.) present. If there are, then that pathogen must have caused the illness.

Streptococcus bacteria are present with strep throat, Rhino virus are present with colds, and countless other germs are present with their namesake diseases. Therefore, if the germ is present with the illness, then the illness must have been caused by the germ. Right? Not so fast. Let’s go back to the garbage pile.

If we tirelessly examine a garbage pile, we will continue to find one thing in common… flies. Therefore, by the same logic, if flies are always present around garbage piles, then the garbage must be a result of the flies!

I know, at this point you may be saying “that’s silly”, we make garbage and the flies are just a result of the pile. That’s right! And the same deductive reasoning should be applied with health. Take a look at the following video created by Dr. Joseph Mercola and see if it just “makes sense”.

The Fence or the Ambulance?

The Fence or The Ambulance
Joseph Malines

‘Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed,
Though to walk near its crest was so pleasant:
But over its terrible edge there had slipped
A duke and many a peasant;
So the people said something would have to be done.
But their projects did not at all tally:
Some said, “Put a fence around the edge of the cliff”
Some, “An ambulance down in the valley.”

But the cry for the ambulance carried the day.
For it spread to the neighboring city:
A fence may be useful or not, it is true,
But each heart became brimful of pity
For those who had slipped o’er that dangerous cliff,
And the dwellers in highway and alley
Gave pounds or gave pence, not to put up a fence,
But an ambulance down in the valley.

“For the cliff is alright if your careful,” they said,”
and if folks even slip or are dropping,
it isn’t the slipping that hurts them so much
as the shock down below-when they’re stopping,”
So day after day when these mishaps occurred,
Quick forth would the rescuers sally
To pick up the victims who fell off the cliff,
With their ambulance down in the valley.

Then an old man remarked, “it’s a marvel to me
that people give far more attention
to repairing results than to stopping the cause,
when they’d much better aim at prevention.
Let us stop at its source all this mischief, cried he.
“Come neighbors and freinds, let us rally :
If the cliff we will fence, we might almost dispense
with the ambulance down in the valley.”

“Oh, he’s a fanatic.” the others rejoined:
“dispense with the ambulance Never!
He’d dispense with all charities, too, if he could:
no, no! We’ll support them forever.
Aren’t we picking up folks just as fast as they fall?
And shall this man dictate to us? Shall he?
Why would people of sense stop to put up a fence?
While their ambulance works in the valley?

“But a sensible few who are practical too,
Will not bear with such nonsense much longer
They believe that prevention is better than cure
And their party will soon be the stronger
Encourage them, then with your purse, voice and pen
And (while other philanthropists dally)
They will scorn all pretense, and put up a stout fence
On the cliff that hangs over the valley.

Do Germs Really Cause Disease?

“Illnesses hover constantly above us, their seeds blown by the wind, but they do not set in the terrain unless the terrain is ready to receive them.”
Claude Bernard

Claude Bernard was a 19th century French physiologist and contemporary of French chemist Louis Pasteur. The two famous doctors argued throughout their lives as to what really was the cause of disease, the soil or the seed. Pasteur insisted it was the seed (germ) while Bernard claimed it was the soil (the body). On Pasteur’s death bed, it is said that he admitted that Bernard was right; he said, ” it is the soil, not the seed.”

The seed (germ factors) or the soil (the body, host factors) argument was as prevalent then as it is now again today. Today many medical authors are agreeing that, although germs are certainly a factor involved in the diseases of man, the germ involved in the diseases of man, the germ alone is not the cause of disease.

Dr. B. J. Palmer, the developer of chiropractic, stated: “If the ‘germ theory of disease’ were correct, there’d be no one living to believe it.”

Think about it for a moment, and you will see the common sense in Dr. Palmer’s statement.

Contemporary medical author Dennis T. Jaffe, Ph.D. makes the observation in his book” Healing from Within”:1“Of course, disease-producing micro-organisms are always present, but usually they can be fought off successfully. However, some individuals never get sick, while other’s pick up every cold in the neighborhood. So although the germ may be one of the essential and contributing causes, it alone is not sufficient to produce illness.”

Another accomplished and noted medical writer Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D., goes one step further, he contends that germs are not causes at all, but merely agents of disease. In his popular book “Health and Healing,” he states:2“Germs are agents of disease. …Agents of disease are not causes of disease…agents of disease do not cause us to get sick. They are merely potential vectors of illness waiting for chances to do their mischief. Given a chance, they will do it. Chances come along because of the natural fluctuations of our cycles of relative health.

Agents of disease are all around us, not only in the form of viruses, bacteria, and parasites, but as a multitude of potential irritants, such as carcinogenic chemicals, allergens, insects, toxic plants, and so forth. A person solidly equilibrated in a phase of relative health can often interact with these agents and not get sick. Since internal factors determine the nature of our relationships with them, the true causes of disease are internal.”

He goes on to suggest a philosophy that closely parallels chiropractic thinking. Referring to the cause of disease coming from inside, not outside, he states:“This principle suggests other ways of thinking about prevention and treatment than those predominant in conventional medicine. Rather than warring on disease agents with the hope (vain, I suspect) of eliminating them, we ought to worry more about strengthening resistance to them and learning to live in balance with them more of the time.”

Dr. D.D. Palmer, the founder of chiropractic, made a similar statement in his 1910 text:3 “The Science of chiropractic has modified our views concerning life, death, health, and disease. We no longer believe that disease is an entity, something foreign to the body, which may enter from without, and with which we have to grasp, struggle, fight and conquer, or submit and succumb to its ravages. Disease is a disturbed condition, not a thing of enmity. Disease is an abnormal performance of certain functions: the abnormal activity has its causes.”
And where does this all leave us? Some medical doctors and most Chiropractors agree that the germ, though being part of the disease syndrome, is not the direct cause of disease. First a person must be susceptible to the germ. Germs will always be with us and our concern should be to strengthen our resistance to them.

As Dr. D.D. Palmer stated, “Disease is abnormal performance of certain functions: the abnormal activity has its causes.” Chiropractic has sought to find these causes which often are due to nerve interference along the spine caused by a spinal misalignment, called subluxation. Subluxations can impair normal nerve transmission which then causes abnormal body function, lowering the body’s resistance and making the body susceptible to disease.

After adjusting 1,000 infants with infections of the ears, eyes, nose and throat, Dr. Gutmann of Germany reported his observations and conclusions. His report indicates that problems in the upper cervical vertebral joints (subluxations) are involved in lowering the infants resistance to infections. He stated that when infants exhibit these infectious problems they “should be examined and, if required, specifically adjusted…the success of the adjustment over shadows every other type of treatment.” This indicates that chiropractic care improves immunity, promotes healing and helps fight infections. D.D. Palmer’s 1910 prediction is now coming true.3″In the near future Chiropractic will be as much valued for its preventative qualities as it now is for adjusting and relieving the cause of ailments.”

Chiropractic Science holds that regular chiropractic care helps prevent disease and maintains the body in a high state of health. That is why millions of people choose to receive regular monthly chiropractic care.

The cause of disease is within you. It is the lack of your body’s ability to ward off disease. Increase this ability through the natural drugless method of chiropractic care.

As Dr. Robert A. Aldrich, M.D. Professor of Preventative Medicine, University of Colorado states:1 ” … The maintenance of health should take precedence over the treatment of disease…” To this statement, Chiropractors heartily concur. For a happier, healthier life include regular chiropractic care in your health maintenance program.

1. HEALING FROM WITHIN, by Dennis T. Jaffe, Ph.D., Random House Inc., Alfred A. Knope, Inc., New York, NY
2. HEALTH AND HEALING by Andrew Weil, M.D., Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston.
3. THE SCIENCE, ART AND PHILOSOPHY OF CHIROPRACTIC, D.D. Palmer, D.C., Ph. C.. Palmer College of Chiropractic, Davenport, Iowa