Vitamin Supplements: Friend or Foe?

With all the different brands and types of vitamins available, how do we know which ones work? Which are the best? Which are a waste of money, or worse, even harmful to your health?

The answer is found in the ingredients list … not the label.

There are 3 types of vitamins: synthetic, natural, and food- based. What’s the difference? Let’s take a closer look.

First, let’s look at what vitamins actually are, as they occur in nature. Take Vitamin E for example. In nature, vitamin E exists as a large complex containing active cofactors such as essential fatty acids (EFA’s), vitamin A, vitamin K, some forms of vitamin D, and manganese. Vitamins also naturally contain a protective layer called the anti-oxidant layer. (More about this layer in a moment.) The traditional source of Vitamin E is vegetable oil, BUT the BEST quality Vitamin E actually comes from whole vegetables, especially green lettuce and the pea plant.

What is an Anti-oxidant?

There are many misconceptions about anti-oxidants. While some companies have capitalized on this confusion, and even propagated it, anti-oxidants are not the saving grace of health they would have you think. The function of anti-oxidants is to act as a preservative agent, preventing oxidation of the functional and active components of the vitamin. So to refine out and replicate the preservative part of the vitamin (ascorbic acid, tocopherol, carotene, etc.) and forget about the functional part of the vitamin complex is like eating the banana peel and throwing away the banana. That makes no sense! And doesn't help your health.

Back to the vitamins. What is the difference?

Synthetic and "Natural/Organic" Vitamins

• Synthetic vitamins. These are manufactured in a lab (alpha-tocopherol, ascorbic acid, beta-carotene, etc.) using harsh chemical processes. To make synthetic vitamin E (tocopherol), scientists use chemical processes to separate the tocopherols (the anti-oxidant portion) from the manganese and other active factors, and sell the chemically formed and isolated tocopherols in tablet form.

• "Natural" or "Organic" Vitamins. Some companies label their vitamins as all natural or organic. All this means is that it was extracted from oil...but it’s still not food. It’s an incomplete product since it does NOT contain all the naturally occurring active components and synergists of the original vitamin complex.

The tendency of isolated or synthetic vitamins to cause the same symptoms as a deficiency of that nutrient has been demonstrated repeatedly by research. This is because taking supplements containing only isolated nutrients creates imbalances in the body. Such imbalance may also result in toxicity of that nutrient! Both toxicity and deficiency are the result of upsetting the body's biochemistry by introducing a single nutrient without considering the cofactors necessary for your body to metabolize that nutrient.

The body is designed to utilize food in its whole form. If you eat incomplete “foods”, such as tocopherol or ascorbic acid, all the missing factors are borrowed from the body tissue reserves in order to make the partial food usable. This is why synthetic Vitamin E has been shown to be harmful when taken in very large doses, as well as synthetic Vitamin C and B! Some examples of excessive alpha-tocopherol (synthetic Vitamin E) include bone decalcification and muscle cramps, among many others..

Food-Based Vitamins

• Food-based vitamins are just that. Vitamins made from food! How does this happen? The most efficient way to concentrate vitamins is to harvest the plant, squeeze the juice, and vacuum the plant matter dry. There should be no extreme heat, flash freezing, or chemical process involved. This way you have the whole form of the Vitamin as nature intended - full of essential proteins, associated vitamin complexes, enzymes, mineral synergists and active cofactors.

When taken in this form, your body is able to utilize them fully and they are much more likely to work. With food based supplements, your biochemical balance is maintained, allowing the body to fulfill its needs without creating deficiency. For the same reason, food based vitamin complexes are highly effective at low dosages.

 Some questions to consider when choosing a food-based supplement:

• Does the label list the foods that are concentrated?
• Are the foods organically grown?
• Are low-temperature drying and extraction methods used? (Any methods involving heat or flash freezing will damage cell structure, denature proteins, and destroy enzymes, vitamins, and other heat sensitive components).