The Truth About Supplements

 

The Truth About Supplements

I was on-line the other day, and I received an alert about what the American Medical Association, the Pharmaceutical Industry and the FDA are trying to do to regulate the ability of you, the public, to be able to purchase vitamins and supplements.  For the record, their plan is to make you feel it is un-safe for you to be able to buy vitamins or supplements without a doctor's prescription.  They are positioning all of this under the guise that things need to be pharmaceutical grade, otherwise you could get hurt.  And they need to be governmentally regulated, otherwise you can get hurt.  This is nothing new, as these 3 have been lobbying at the state level for years to get this pushed through, and so far to no avail. Yet, this doesn't stop them from pushing for it, even if it means doing it one supplement at a time.  It should be the consumers right to purchase anything they want if it will enhance their health without hurting others.  But this is not meant to be a debate on differences in philosophies.  This is an effort to make you aware of the truth, and how your right to take nutritional supplements is being undermined by the Big 3.

Notice the fact that there has been several circumstances of problems with manufacturing in the food industry over the past few months.  And you heard about them for weeks.  And it struck fear into many people as a result.  We had the "spinach" problem.  We had the pet food problem.  And most recently, there was a story released on MSNBC about "Arthritis supplements often come up short."   As it was an on-line article, (go to www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18027830/ )they had a survey link associated with it that asked if the article changed your opinion about taking supplements.  There was initially a simple "Yes" and "No" response you could click on, indicating your level of fear about unregulated supplements.  When I took the survey, I clicked "No," and the results indicated that the respondents were about 70/30, also saying "No."  This was with about 1800 respondents according to the results.  I then had a marketing meeting and wanted to use the information to demonstrate a point of how the media positions articles to create change in our society.  So after my meeting, I went back to share the story with my Marketing Expert, and wouldn't you know, they changed the survey questions by adding a third asking if the article allowed you to form an opinion.  When I voted "No" again (meaning the article didn't change my opinion about taking supplements), the results were now 70/30 the other way, indicating that people were now afraid to take supplements, and that they should be only available through prescription and that the industry should be FDA regulated.  And the number of people who responded was now 2500.  Not sure how the percentages turned completely around with only 700 more responses.  Were the results manipulated to create a desired effect?  I'll let you be the judge on that.  I find this completely ironic considering the legislation for regulating how one should be able to get their vitamins and supplements is supposed to be put to a vote at the end of April.  If an independent survey conducted by MSNBC shows that Americans are now afraid to take supplements if they are not pharmaceutical grade or only available by prescription, what do you think that will do to influence the law-makers?

Pharmaceutical Grade vs. Nature Made: Is There A Difference?

So first and foremost, I want to discuss the difference between Pharmaceutical Grade vs. Nature made.  Man, once again, is trying to improve upon nature.  Man is trying to control nature.  Both of these goals are worthy of trying, but until you fully understand what you are doing, it won't happen.  When man's equipment is used to evaluate the chemical structure of a substance, it demonstrates all the ingredients based on the programming of that machine.  This creates a problem.  What if the machine isn't calibrated to interpret everything that is there?  The results will be incomplete.  Now, what if man then understands what is in a substance from nature, but doesn't have the technology to duplicate the substance?  Sure, the specific ingredients are there, but what if the ratios are off?  Will it be the same?  Of course not.  And then when we get into manufacturing the "equivalent" substance, in order to patent it, it has to be a unique product, not available through natural means, as one cannot patent nature. 

Take aspirin for instance.  Aspirin is the same product as White Willow Bark, an herb that exists in nature.  White Willow Bark cannot be patented, as anyone can walk out into the woods and get some for themselves.  So the company that manufactures Aspirin, in order to make it "their" product, had to alter the formula slightly.  They "enhanced" it by adding their own unique ingredient to make it patentable.  They added what is called a "methyl group" to what was White Willow Bark.  This made it unique and different from the product of nature.  And it helped to stop inflammation and pain.  Good for them.  But what it also caused was stomach irritation, something White Willow Bark does not.  It seems the "methyl group" is what causes the stomach irritation.  But so what.  If it stops inflammation and pain, and the manufacturer can sell it as a unique and patented substance, then the consumers will buy it, as no one will know to go find the old folk medicine remedy, White Willow Bark. 

To conclude, man can not duplicate nature, and then make money off it.  Except for possibly the manufacturing of water.  But that doesn't stop the semi-educated from taking advantage of the un-educated.  And time and time again, when one consumes a man-made product that is patented, they ultimately will develop imbalances from the altered chemical make-up that allows for the patent.  Vitamins and supplements are no different.  Consume supplements that are Pharmaceutical Grade and you will be getting chemically altered "natural" ingredients that will then create various health imbalances as a natural outcome. What you buy at the various "health food stores," vitamin stores, or supplement stores are all patented products.  A majority of them are all made from the same 6 or 7 ingredient manufacturers who supply the base ingredients to all the companies.  Which simply translates to the majority of vitamins and supplements are not natural and will be full of altered chemical ingredients.  And by consuming these products, it will create a non-healthy response within the body, causing you to become unhealthy.  "But my supplements make me feel energized.  I can feel the difference almost immediately when I take them vs. if I don't take them.  I know mine work."  That may be true as far as "feeling a difference."  But appreciate that the only way you will feel an increase in well being in such a short period of time is through a chemical response, not a natural response. 

A chemical response is like a drug.  It creates immediate results.  But immediate results is not how nature works. Everything in nature takes time to change.  Your body is no different.  Things take time to grow and change.  And if your body has changed for the worse, it happened over time due to poor input. 

What Can One Do?

Believe it or not, there is a natural solution to all your nutritional deficiencies due to consuming refined, processed and artificial food stuff.  Yes, it will involve taking supplements.  And appreciate that as the food we eat becomes more deficient, due to manufacturing processes that denature and destroy the intended nutritional value from nature, we will all develop nutritional deficiency diseases.  All of us will eventually succumb to this.  Unless you take supplements.  And then the question begs, where does one find whole food nutritional supplements that can be taken without a prescription and meets government regulations?  That would be through a company called Standard Process.  Standard Process has been in the whole food supplement business for over 80 years.  The founder, Dr. Royal Lee, D.D.S. began the company in 1929 after researching the cause for cavities.  His research found that all cavities are due to deficiencies in the nutrition of the person based upon the consumption of poor quality, refined foods that alter the oral pH of the person and results in weakened tooth (bone) matrix.  He even developed a cure for these cavities.  But since it didn't involve drilling and filling, the ADA didn't embrace it, and the battle began to help educate people about eating whole foods and taking whole food supplements.  The government would rather have you use fluoride, a toxic halide that competes with your ability to absorb iodine, rather than use quality nutrition to maintain the health and integrity of your teeth. 

It Begins With Organic Vegetables

Standard Process uses whole foods as the basis for all their supplements, and has been since 1929.  They grow all their vegetables on organic farmland where the soil integrity is closely monitored and maintained, as it was originally.  They use crop rotation practices making sure they never grow the same crop more than once on the same piece of land, until the soil has returned to the same level it was before the initial growing.  Once the vegetables are fully mature, they are picked and put through a giant juicer within 2 hours of harvesting, and then the juice is transferred to their main processing plant for producing their whole food concentrates.  The pulp of the vegetables that remains after the juicing process gets put right back out into the field they got the crop from.  This helps to maintain the soil in its original form.  The juice then gets put through a special patented vacuum dryer that turns the juice into a powder without involving any heat above 77 degrees.  This helps to remove the water while maintaining the integrity of all the nutrients, co-factors, enzymes and minerals.  What you are left with is a whole food powder that can then be combined with other whole food powders to compose a whole food supplement.  And you will find these in either capsule or tablet.

Since Dr. Lee spent his life pursuing the passions of physiology, agriculture, manufacturing and organotherapy, among others, he researched and developed all the formulations used in their products still to this day.  He has said "One of the biggest tragedies of human civilization is the precedents of chemical therapy over nutrition.  It's a substitution of artificial therapy over natural, of poisons over food, in which we are feeding people poisons in trying to correct the reactions of starvation."I agree with that statement and want to be able to offer you a chance to avoid what is being done to you under the guise of "protecting you."  Nutritional deficiencies due to the over refining and standardizing our foods and supplements, along with the artificial chemical ingredients has lead to all of the deficiency diseases we suffer from today.  The only real reason the body ages is because it doesn't have the necessary ingredients to repair and rebuild the cells of the body.  And if we continue to feed it incomplete food-stuff, we will continue to suffer from Heart Disease, Cancer, High Cholesterol, High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, among others.  Dr. Lee knew this and predicted it back in the 1930's.  He spent a fortune of his own money to educate others and promote the importance of whole foods and staying away from over refined and processed foods.  And he was persecuted for his efforts.  But that didn't stop him from continuing on with what he believed.  Unfortunately, the powers that be which regulate the food industry, namely the FDA have continued to turn their back on what was the original Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.  For more information about this, go to www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/history1.html  It basically said you could not adulterate food in any way if it would cause harm to the people consuming it.  But big business won out when the law was re-written in 1938 in the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.  It began allowing foods to be adulterated for the purpose of preserving food while being transported to the stores, and it's been all down hill since.

Man has spent the last 100 years trying to get a handle on sickness based on the germ theory which says that germs in our environment cause us to get sick.  Man has spent that same 100 years trying to come up with a magic bullet that will cure all disease and allow us never to age.  And with all the research and all the time and money used, we are no closer to that solution based on looking for that magic bullet.  Manufacturers have analyzed various compounds found in food and have tried to determine which component creates the healing response.  And when they think they have found it, they figure if a little seems to work, then a whole bunch must be better.  An example would be any synthetic supplement that has greater than 1000 % of the RDA for a specific vitamin.  Heck, anything nature produces seems to come up quite short of that percentage.  And that is the reason why Standard Process is so important for your overall health.  Their whole food concentrates come with everything that nature would want you to have, in the specific ratios necessary to promote normal function.  Something Dr. Lee also used to say was "Which part of the watch tells time?"  The answer was no one part tells time, but the complex of components is what allows for the watch to work.  The same is true for supplements.  No one ingredient creates the healing response.  It is the sum total of all the components, as found in nature, that allows for function to take place.  They function as a Complex.  And only Standard Process has been manufacturing whole food concentrates for 80 plus years. 

So if you are looking to improve your health, and have any of the various nutritional deficiency diseases mentioned, or if you want to prevent these from developing in you or your loved ones, you'll want to make sure to find a health care practitioner who sells Standard Process, and can accurately evaluate you for your specific needs.  Dr. Lee believed that in order to make a recommendation for a specific nutrient, you must be able to understand the need for such a nutrient and have the knowledge to properly make that recommendation.  As a result, Standard Process only distributes their product through qualified Health Care Practitioners, and you can not buy them at your local health food stores.  If you need help finding a practitioner close to you, please call the office and I will be happy to make a referral to someone local to your area.  The office phone number is (845)561-BACK (2225).  Simply ask for myself, and I will be happy to find someone for you.  Otherwise, you can get them through the Office, after properly evaluating your specific needs. 

Dr. Huntoon has a single mission:

To support as many people as possible in their quest for health and enable them to improve and maintain their health to the highest level possible, while educating them about the benefits of Chiropractic, Natural Healthcare and Holistic Living, so they in turn can teach others to support us having a healthy community.

Your Choice

• Continue doing the same thing and nothing changes or it may get worse

OR

• Try something different and get a different result that makes you happier and healthier.