For millions supplementing their diet has been the difference between life and death. So, why are studies showing that vitamins increase mortality?
Researchers and practitioners who study the effect of vitamins worry, just as doctors and pharmacists do, about toxicity from an overdose of their vitamins. And in my opinion they should! That is because the research is focused on synthetic or fractionated vitamins, not WHOLE-FOOD vitamins. Synthetic vitamins are NOT foods, and they do not have a nutritional or rebalancing effect on the body. Rather, they have a pharmacological or drug-like effect on the body. They often produce fast and dramatic results, just as drugs do. They also produce imbalances in the body that create deficiency in the exact same vitamin being given!
Synthetic vitamins may not only be ineffective, but they can actually be harmful. This would explain why many studies demonstrate little or no benefit from dietary supplementation. Anytime you see a study claiming that supplements make no difference, or worse yet cause problems, dig deeper and see if the researchers used natural, whole food concentrates or synthetic supplements.
Let me use a simple analogy. Imagine you have a watch. You take all the pieces apart and analyze each of them. Confident you’ve identified the materials and function of each of the components; you reproduce them and put each in its own container. Or maybe you mix them up in a big bottle. Would you expect your concoction to tell time? This analogy helps to explain why studies of synthetic supplements often fail to show positive results and many times show negative ones. By throwing a few pieces of a vitamin complex into the body, we are conducting “inherently unbalanced biochemistry,” as professor of medicine Dr. Victor Herbert put it.
When you ingest fractions of vitamins, the body will use its stores to mobilize the natural, whole form of the vitamins. Using the fractured synthetic puts the body in imbalance.
So then do you need to supplement? The answer is yes, with whole food supplements.
Most diets are devoid of whole nutritional foods that contain natural forms of vitamins and minerals. In fact, most people are eating foods that are processed to the degree that most of the nutrition is destroyed. Procedures such as high-temperature heating and chemical treatment destroy many of the vitamin content in food that makes it beneficial! Most of us are eating the food equivalents of synthetic vitamins. Real foods contain thousands of different molecules and compounds, only some of which have been recognized a necessary nutrients. Many food components have functions other than nutritional. Many more have not yet been discovered. How could we have a notion that some isolated chemical ‘nutrients’ can substitute for whole food packages? What makes foods and whole-food supplements “whole”?
Prior to putting in hours of study, I was an avid supporter of a good multivitamin and mega-dosing with vitamins like C and D. I had no clue how wrong I was. Now when patients ask me, “Which B vitamin should I take?” “What about vitamin A or D toxicity?” I tell them that these are questions to worry about only if you’re taking synthetic supplements and my first suggestion is to switch to quality, whole-food-based supplements.
When you provide your body with the vitamins and minerals it needs from whole food sources, it not only recognizes them but is able to digest them and put them to use. They will never create the imbalance and drug like effects that synthetic vitamins and minerals will. In giving your body what it needs, you will begin healing from the inside out.
Can your body really utilize chemical “vitamins” in isolated forms?
When I ask most people if they take vitamins, they answer with a resounding “Yes”! Upon further question, I find that most are taking a man made, synthetic pill with nothing more than a chemically made fraction of the whole vitamins as they are found in the foods that contain them.
Take Ascorbic Acid for example. For those of you who don’t know, Ascorbic Acid is the chemical name used for vitamin C as it is sold in stores. The problem is, ascorbic acid is only a small part of the vitamin C molecule. One description I commonly read is that if you compare vitamin C to an egg, ascorbic acid allegedly only represents the protective outer shell. The natural vitamin C complex (as found in raw fruits and vegetables) contains additional components; vitamins J, K, P, and an enzyme known as tyrosinase
It is the additional components that give Vitamin C the ability to cure scurvy. Ascorbic Acid alone will not do it.
If you take mega doses of ascorbic acid, what it will do is mobilize all of the other components that you have stored up already. In a short time, you will use up your Whole vitamin C stores, causing a deficiency the usable form of vitamin C. Other popular vitamins like vitamin E (alpha tocopherol) are exactly the same. When synthesized in the lab, they only make a fraction of the real whole food vitamin, causing your stores to be robbed to make it functional.
No wonder that the Archives of Internal Medicine (October 17, 2011) reports that multiple vitamins may increase your risk of death.
So make sure the supplements you are taking and giving to your kids are from whole food sources. This will give your body what it needs in a usable form to supplement your diet and empower you to express life more fully! If you are unsure, please bring your vitamins in for Dr. Dubrul to look over.