The Truth about Supplements - by Dan Schulz, natural health practitioner – [email protected]
The overwhelming number of supplements on offer can leave many confused consumers feeling like they need a biochemist on standby just to make it through breakfast!
If that's you then you'll be glad to know, there's really only 2 kinds of supplements to choose from; those that are natural and those that are not.
The hard part is knowing the difference. Marketers will do anything to convince you their product is either "natural" or is so high-tech it’s somehow "better" than natural. The truth is the majority of supplements don't contain any real nutrients; instead, they mostly comprise cheap synthetic chemicals.
(Editors Note: Dan has too much hair!!)
The need for supplementation is not at question however. As we decrease the variety of plant-foods we eat while increasing exploitation of animal, synthetic or highly processed foods, we strip our diet of essential nutrients while simultaneously exposing our weakened defences to more toxins.
Australian research of 44 common fruits and vegetables reveals up to 60% reduction of essential nutrients when compared with 20 years ago. Supplementing to fill in those nutritional gaps appears a wise move. The question now becomes, “fill in the gaps with what?”
A recent review published in JAMA has put the supplement industry into an uproar. The review of 68 clinical trials involving 232,606 people found that supplementing with antioxidant vitamins and minerals “significantly raised mortality” (people died faster). Now, before throwing your supplements in the bin, it’s worthy to note that ALL of the studies under review used SYNTHETIC supplements.
This mounting evidence combined with ‘pill-fatigue’ among the public, has boosted interest in wholesome ‘super-food’ supplementation to deliver these missing nutrients in their safe, natural, preferred form. Of course, this idea of going ‘natural’ isn’t new. Thomas Edison’s famous quote says it best: “Until Man duplicate’s a blade of grass, Nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge. Remedies from chemicals will never stand in favour compared with the products of Nature…”
According to Australian researchers, the world’s richest source of critical nutrients come from our own back-yard. Exciting discoveries from the Australian Outback place many Bush Foods into the record books. Getting a boost from the bush could become the next Vegemite as news of this emerging research gets out.
So, when thinking about supplementation, take Edison’s advice and stick with the ‘products of Nature’. It appears that getting low-tech nutrition from food isn’t such an old-fashioned idea.
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PLEASE NOTE: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not those of BEYOND STRONG.
