The answer to the question is simple. We have so depleted our soils, contaminated our water, polluted our food & air, degraded our food supply and thus created much of the disease that now plagues us. By choosing to eat the right foods and nutritional supplements, and by making simple changes in your life style, you can prevent and even reverse far more disease than any doctor, any hospital, any drug, & any combination of medical treatment known to man. That's both the good news & the easy bit. Not so easy is how to do it. The supplementation industry is now estimated to be worth US$30 billion a year so you can bet your life that there are a lot of snake oil salesmen out there, some of them bearing household names. But that's another story to come.
But what about all those common sense folk including many doctors who say it is all bunk? That you can get all the nutrition you need from eating the right food and that vitamin supplementation is a waste of money & no more than expensive urine? That all claims for supplementation are unproven and that there is no research to show it does any good? What about those stories in the media debunking supplementation and reporting surveys showing that vitamins can actually be bad for you or even kill you?
If you hear any of this sort of stuff from a professional quarter, head for the door! You are not going to get the advise you need & it either stems from downright ignorance and a closed mind, or financial self-interest, or a combination of the two. There is however a grain of truth to some of this, around which the misinformation or big lie is put out. So let's take a look at these arguments.
Food: Yes, the right diet is essential for good health and to prevent disease. No, it is not enough in itself. It may have been true once upon a time, but not any more. Even if you ate the optimum diet possible, the soil in which our crops grow has been depleted. Here's why; the most common fertilisers used comprise the three main minerals, nitrogen, phosphorus & potassium necessary for life, they are cheap and grow fine-looking crops with abundant yields. So far so good. But, your body is not a vegetable and must have at least a dozen other minerals (selenium, chromium, calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, iodine, molybdenum, zinc, cobalt, boron & vanadium) all essential to life. Each succeeding crop grown with these fertilisers depletes the soil of these other essential minerals still further. They are no longer in your food and because your body cannot make them you become deficient. As a result we are all being fed nutrient-poor hybrid strains of grains, fruit & vegetables, and this as often as not includes the organically grown. Next, our food is subjected to enormous quantities of pesticides, many of which are known carcinogens.
In America alone almost 3.0 billion lbs are spread every year. That's more than 10 lbs for every American man, woman and child! There is a 50:50 chance that any food you eat today is contaminated by toxic chemicals. And if that is not enough, the nutrient value of our food is further depleted by storage, freezing and other processing methods. No wonder then, that more than half of all people in the developed world are deficient in minerals, vitamins and enzymes. Don't imagine either that in the so-called 'Third World' things will be any better. Quite apart from any malnutrition or shortage of food, they use even greater quantities of unregulated pesticides. We send them the stuff we've banned.
The Expensive Urine Theory: It is true, that apart from vitamins A and D, the body will excrete the vitamins it does not need. The point is that, for the most part, your body retains the right quantity of what it does need. And that is just vitamins, what about minerals, enzymes which we need and are retained? To claim that all supplementation is a waste of time & money because it is excreted is about as stupid a statement as I've ever heard.
The other grain of truth is bio-availability. If the supplement you take is wrongly formulated, contains low-grade or wrongly combined ingredients or if it includes excipients & other substances that interfere with absorption, then it will pass through you without any beneficial effect. As already noted, the supplementation industry is worth a lot of money and there many unscrupulous manufacturers out there so you need to become an educated consumer or rely on someone you trust who knows.
Research: it is absolute bunkum to say there is no research to show that supplementation does not promote good health, prevent various chronic and degenerative diseases (most significantly cancer & heart disease), not to mention longevity. There are literally 1000's of properly conducted surveys to show this.Even such bastions of the medical establishment as the American Medical Assoc. (AMA) now concede this to be so. Even the US government allows that it is so, and has created a department for complementary & alternative medicine.
On occasion a particular piece of research will hit the headlines to say that Vitamin C or E is harmful to you. On each occasion this research has been shown to be fundamentally flawed for one reason or another. The money for such surveys has invariably come from the major pharmaceutical companies via medical or research organisations funded by these companies. The stories are carried in the mainstream mass media who enjoy huge advertisement revenues from the industry majors and who see little news interest in carrying reasoned rebuttal.
And lastly the claim, "Supplements can harm you": Yes, anything taken to excess is likely to be bad for you. To extend that to say that " supplements are bad for you" is patently absurd. As I say, you need to become an educated consumer. What supplementation do you need? Too little does no good & too much may be a waste of money or, in a few cases, actually be harmful. You need to find out.
But let's get real here. Wrongly used supplements have led directly to some 7 deaths in the US over the past 11 years. Over the same period more than 1.5 million Americans have been killed by properly prescribed pharmaceuticals in US hospitals alone, according to the AMA. That is a horrific statistic, probably the 4th biggest cause of death per annum in the country and 30 times more Americans killed than in the Vietnam War. So when you read in the headlines that some kid somewhere seeking a "natural high" has OD'd on ephedra or ma huang , or someone expired from liver damage caused by too much or wrongly administered niacin, just bear the numbers in mind and don't be fooled.
If they can't scare you off supplements the vested interests in the pharmaceutical and medical establishments will seek to co-opt the process by regulation. They will say: " you could harm yourself; you might be ripped off by the unscrupulous; you don't know what you're doing - we know best, let us decide for you". The net effect of this will be that most herbs, vitamins and other supplements in any effective therapeutic dose will have to be obtained by prescription. You will have to consult a doctor & buy through a pharmacy. Supplements will cost 3 times as much as they do now. It's already happening. Meantime they are racing against time and each other to chemically synthesise effective and cheap herbal and other remedies, which they can patent and sell to us at extortionate prices as drugs. What they are really saying is, "we don't like to see anyone else ripping you off, except us".
Sure, there are some real bandits peddling supplements and nostrums of all stripes. Some of them with brandnames you will see on the shelves of supermarkets and health food stores all over the world. Caveat Emptor! It's up to you to inform yourself and not be cheated. It's not too hard to do, just a little research is all. Far better some of us are cheated than prices triple and many can no longer afford the supplements they need.
So the answer to my question "Why Supplement......?" boils down to just this; if you have a lousy lifestyle and an equally lousy diet to go with it - don't bother, save your money for what you enjoy. Supplementation won't do much for you. If you have a lousy lifestyle but your diet is OK, there's some hope. But, to the extent that you do treat your body right, so will nutritional supplementation shower you with ever-increasing benefits. It is the law of increasing returns. As the Bible says: "For unto him that hath, shall be given and from him that hath not shall it be taken away........." . And so, alas, it tends to be.
Paracelsus
Comments or queries are welcomed.
ParacelsusAsia@yahoo.com
