Dietary Supplements (for optimal health)

[Eliza Thomason]

@Eliza Thomason
There is quite a lot of research about how taking multivitamin pills (that contain most of the essential vitamins) actually increases your chance of early death, so I think I'd be satisfied with simply taking a cod liver oil supplement and perhaps a Vitamin D3 & K2 supplement. If I was to take other supplements, it would probably be specific things like Boron, Choline, and MSM.

I don't really understand why it seems that there doesn't seem to be such a thing as eating too much fruit and veg, while taking multivitamin pills can be harmful.

One thing I've been interested in recently is fruit/veg powders, e.g. spinach, beetroot, garlic, that sort of thing: essentially, fruit and veg that has had the water taken out of it. It's important to get ones that have been prepared in a way that retains the nutrients. I'm not sure yet if I will buy any however.

Who pays for the research? Pharmaceutical companies a lot of times. That's just one factor to consider.

Another thing to consider is the bioavailability of the multivitamin you are taking. You pay a bit more for plant based ingredients that are bioavailable, or the processing are supplementary ingredients required for the particular supplement needed to make it bioavailable, and one can find the bioavailability of a product if one looks. So far what I see on drug store shelves doesn't address bioavailability. The money goes into television advertising, and shiny foil labels, not quality ingredients. I see them using the cheapest, not the best ingredients, in order to get the most profit, since the drug stores have a captive audience, as the average person won't look beyond their local drug store. Especially so many "studies" implying that all vitamins are useless (or bad!). Which cannot be true.

But what is the validity of the studies, anyway? That can be looked up, with a little bit of effort, but the vast majority of people will accept the results they are told to accept without checking further to see if the study has any worthwhile validity. I expect the people in the multivitamin studies you mentioned took ONE multivitamin every day for years as if it was a magic pill that should account for everything they might have missed in their diet and/or lifestyle.

My Naturopath says EVERYONE needs to take a multimineral supplement because our soil is so depleted from factory farming that one can't thrive even if one ate only things labeled "organic". And I want to thrive, not just survive. And I think it is possible to thrive, because whenever I have sought natural alternatives for a problem that was supposed to be a "forever" sort of medical problem, I fixed it without pharmaceuticals or over the counters but with vitamins and supplements, and reversals came quickly.

One vitamin cure-all many times is magnesium. Lots of people are deficient, and lots of people get medical care, surgery, or on a lifetime of prescriptions for the very common actual core problem of magnesium deficiency. And it's an easy fix. Like it can work in a day or two.

If you have an ailment, it's a good idea to google the ailment and "natural alternatives" or "supplements", and see what is working for others.

I started my interest in vitamins and supplements before my son was born, when teaching. It was a job that took a LOT of energy and I wanted to still have energy when I got home. Several teachers in my building had begun to go to the same health practitioner who used applied kinesiology to determine what their particular body needed at that particular time, and I realized they ALL looked more alert, relaxed and focused now. Also the one in the school who looked the most old and tired now looked alert and happy. So I went, and it solved my energy problem quickly and thoroughly. I had no intention at that time of changing my lifestyle, or avoiding medical care, but it worked powerfully, and I have sought and found natural alternatives for every need since.

Now I am teaching again and have found that in the years between these two parts of my career they have not just increased the pay but they have piled on the teacher work load and responsibilities to such a degree that I would have never thought it possible. Everyone would have quit! But increase the pay, and constantly and incrementally increase the work load, and people will find a way. And I don't want to be a quitter. I am determined to do well. The new supplements I started this September really did the job. But now I want to also try red light therapy, which some say is even more beneficial that supplements. (When used properly). I am thinking of looking into Written's "Energy Blueprint", as itsounds like solid research, but I hate his super hawking ways).

Fruit and veg - I think you can truly do too much. Lierre Keith's Vegetarian Myth book is a solid case in point. (Here is a short video with her speaking of her experience and learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNON5iNf07o. Also I recently (can't remember where) read some very convincing research that too much veg is bad - basically, too much fiber is a big problem. Better to peel the potatoes and fruit like our parents and great grandparents did! They knew something. And oatmeal and whole grains wreck havoc in the intestinal tract. Also the fruitarian fad exposes problems of too much fruit.

Re: fruit/veg powders - I went through a couple jars of Miracle Greens at one point, starting each day with the proscribed amount mixed in juice. I think that is the sort of thing you mentioned. It did noticeably increase my feeling of well-being at the time, and if you feel those things have been missing from your diet you might feel the same good results, too.

[Socionics Is A Cult]

Who pays for the research? Pharmaceutical companies a lot of times. That's just one factor to consider.

Another thing to consider is the bioavailability of the multivitamin you are taking. You pay a bit more for plant based ingredients that are bioavailable, or the processing are supplementary ingredients required for the particular supplement needed to make it bioavailable, and one can find the bioavailability of a product if one looks. So far what I see on drug store shelves doesn't address bioavailability. The money goes into television advertising, and shiny foil labels, not quality ingredients. I see them using the cheapest, not the best ingredients, in order to get the most profit, since the drug stores have a captive audience, as the average person won't look beyond their local drug store. Especially so many "studies" implying that all vitamins are useless (or bad!). Which cannot be true.

But what is the validity of the studies, anyway? That can be looked up, with a little bit of effort, but the vast majority of people will accept the results they are told to accept without checking further to see if the study has any worthwhile validity. I expect the people in the multivitamin studies you mentioned took ONE multivitamin every day for years as if it was a magic pill that should account for everything they might have missed in their diet and/or lifestyle.

My Naturopath says EVERYONE needs to take a multimineral supplement because our soil is so depleted from factory farming that one can't thrive even if one ate only things labeled "organic". And I want to thrive, not just survive. And I think it is possible to thrive, because whenever I have sought natural alternatives for a problem that was supposed to be a "forever" sort of medical problem, I fixed it without pharmaceuticals or over the counters but with vitamins and supplements, and reversals came quickly.

One vitamin cure-all many times is magnesium. Lots of people are deficient, and lots of people get medical care, surgery, or on a lifetime of prescriptions for the very common actual core problem of magnesium deficiency. And it's an easy fix. Like it can work in a day or two.

If you have an ailment, it's a good idea to google the ailment and "natural alternatives" or "supplements", and see what is working for others.

I started my interest in vitamins and supplements before my son was born, when teaching. It was a job that took a LOT of energy and I wanted to still have energy when I got home. Several teachers in my building had begun to go to the same health practitioner who used applied kinesiology to determine what their particular body needed at that particular time, and I realized they ALL looked more alert, relaxed and focused now. Also the one in the school who looked the most old and tired now looked alert and happy. So I went, and it solved my energy problem quickly and thoroughly. I had no intention at that time of changing my lifestyle, or avoiding medical care, but it worked powerfully, and I have sought and found natural alternatives for every need since.

Now I am teaching again and have found that in the years between these two parts of my career they have not just increased the pay but they have piled on the teacher work load and responsibilities to such a degree that I would have never thought it possible. Everyone would have quit! But increase the pay, and constantly and incrementally increase the work load, and people will find a way. And I don't want to be a quitter. I am determined to do well. The new supplements I started this September really did the job. But now I want to also try red light therapy, which some say is even more beneficial that supplements. (When used properly). I am thinking of looking into Written's "Energy Blueprint", as itsounds like solid research, but I hate his super hawking ways).

Fruit and veg - I think you can truly do too much. Lierre Keith's Vegetarian Myth book is a solid case in point. (Here is a short video with her speaking of her experience and learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNON5iNf07o. Also I recently (can't remember where) read some very convincing research that too much veg is bad - basically, too much fiber is a big problem. Better to peel the potatoes and fruit like our parents and great grandparents did! They knew something. And oatmeal and whole grains wreck havoc in the intestinal tract. Also the fruitarian fad exposes problems of too much fruit.

Re: fruit/veg powders - I went through a couple jars of Miracle Greens at one point, starting each day with the proscribed amount mixed in juice. I think that is the sort of thing you mentioned. It did noticeably increase my feeling of well-being at the time, and if you feel those things have been missing from your diet you might feel the same good results, too.

With essential vitamins and generic products like garlic, I don't expect the research to be predominantly skewed by pharmaceutical companies. Although I suspect that items used in "traditional medicine" may be heavily pushed by researchers with a "home" bias (for example, ginseng by Koreans). I doubt that producers of garlic or magnesium supplements would be able to afford television ads.

If you look at the vitamin content for most fruit/veg powders - e.g. for Vitamin C, you'll find that a single serving will not even equal the Vitamin C you'd get from a single daily dose of fruit or veg - which means they're an expensive way of selling you something that has little nutritional value. I think Green Vibrance was the closest I found to an exception.

Either something is beneficial or it isn't - "natural alternative" doesn't mean anything.

[Eliza Thomason]

With essential vitamins and generic products like garlic, I don't expect the research to be predominantly skewed by pharmaceutical companies. Although I suspect that items used in "traditional medicine" may be heavily pushed by researchers with a "home" bias (for example, ginseng by Koreans). I doubt that producers of garlic or magnesium supplements would be able to afford television ads.

If you look at the vitamin content for most fruit/veg powders - e.g. for Vitamin C, you'll find that a single serving will not even equal the Vitamin C you'd get from a single daily dose of fruit or veg - which means they're an expensive way of selling you something that has little nutritional value. I think Green Vibrance was the closest I found to an exception.

Either something is beneficial or it isn't - "natural alternative" doesn't mean anything.

You are absolutely right about the garlic and the magnesium research not likely being skewed by pharmaceutical companies. I was thinking more like studies that say vitamins are useless. Recently I purchased Magnesium again for a problem (that was quickly cured with it), and to decide what to order I typed in the search engine there "Magnesium" and "bioavailable" and then looked at results with best customer reviews. Then I read reviews and made a decision based what people said about it's bioavailablility [which if they were using it to treat a chronic problem, they had a valuable testimony], it's potency, and price per doses of the same potency.

I say "natural alternative" because I don't know how else to describe what I do. I've tried many things for many problems that seem serious, or were. Like I was diagnosed by our city's most reputable allergist as having adult onset asthma and being in need of daily cortisone inhaler and other things to heavily manage it. I didn't do those things, but researched and found Buteyko Breathing online, and joined a yahoo support group for it, and practiced it, and got over what was being treated as a lifetime problem practically immediately, and fully in a month or two. That was all free of course, as often finding a cheap way to fix a problem is often needful. Also I mentioned working with an herbalist for a period of time.... So how to lump all these various things together, I don't know. I just label it "natural alternatives" for lack of any other better term I can think of.

Your problem with my word "natural alternative" may have to do with the differing way our different types process information. In my opinion, you process info much more like an INTp than and INFj. My type processes large masses of information without pausing too much at details but is still able to come to good conclusions. Other types take in things more linearly and can get stuck at improper use of a word or phrase, while that would be something I would ignore (like, I would say to myself, "I see what they are getting at though i wouldn't use that term", and I would go on taking in lots more info in order to glean what is key for me from it.

It's interesting that you mention garlic, which is actually the very first thing that got me on the path to "natural alternatives". It was an article I read, which I have shared many times, and can scan and post here if you are interested.

Interesting point about the vitamin C. At the time period I used Miracle Greens I did not research it much; it just seemed like a simple solution to my concern that I might not be getting enough nutrients. But even if the C is deficient in these powders, I wonder about the other amounts? I guess you can just find a pic of the ingredients online and find that out. The fruits and vegs in the powder mix would have other minerals, including trace ones, that are needful. [and speaking of that, make sure you take in plenty of sea salt or mined salt vs. the stripped and processed iodized salt. It's an important thing, and a cheap thing to do for your health].

But really, really good for your diet, as mentioned by the very intelligent Lierre Keith who expresses herself so well in that video link above, is animal fats and organ meats. They are 100x more nutrient rich than any plant food! 100x! My naturopath says to just say not to Vegetarian, because animal foods are the MOST bioavailable foods. I'm not fond of liver and kidney, yuk. But I've been feeling I need to get over that and do what's good for me...