Do I Need Nutritional Supplements?
Most people think they don’t need to take supplements. We can get all we need from our food, they say. Perhaps that used to be the case. Certainly, our ancestors didn’t need nutritional supplements - the food they mostly consumed was fresh, unprocessed, and therefore rich in vitamins, minerals, and micronutrients.
The majority of our foods now are processed, and even when we do consume fresh fruits and vegetables, the same nutrient content that was evident just 50 years ago is not always evident today. Soils have become depleted through constant farming and toxic fertilizers and insecticides are used all too frequently. In many cases fruit is harvested before it has reached its full nutritional value. It is picked before it has fully ripened and is sometimes gassed to ripen and then held in cold storage for many months.
It would seem to me, then, that it is becoming more and more difficult to get the nutrition that our body requires, directly from our food, and it would appear that supplementing our diet would be a wise thing for us all to do.
It seems hard to believe but a study was conducted that showed that to get the same level of nutrition that was once available in one peach, we would need to eat 53 peaches. That’s a lot of peaches!
Let’s face it. Even if we just ate the 8 servings of fruit and vegetables that are now recommended, we would not, in todays’ toxic environment be getting all the nutrition we need from the food we are eating.
It is known now that dietary deficiency and imbalance is a leading cause of ill health in the Western world. Nutrition plays a critical role in the prevention of many diseases like, coronary heart disease, cancer, hypertension, obesity, gingivitis and periodontal diseases, dental caries and non insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.
Clearly, we need to supplement to provide the nutrients we are not getting in our diets. In fact, even the AMA (American Medical Association) reversed their long-standing position and stated in an article in JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association - June 2002) that everyone should be using nutritional supplements.
This list gives seven essentials which will enable us to maintain optimal health; something we are all seeking.
* Vitamins and minerals, essential for the creation of healthy cells
* Glyconutrients for cell-to-cell communication and immune support
* Phytonutrients (plant nutrients) to detoxify the system
* Phytohormones (plant hormones) for glandular function
* Essential fatty acids (EFAs) regulate hormonal function and metabolism
* Essential amino acids, which serve as the building blocks for all proteins
* Antioxidants give protection from oxidative stress
There are so many supplements available today and we do need to be careful about which ones we are taking. Many companies use cheap ingredients and many on the market are made using synthetic vitamins, which are not readily absorbed, or recognized by the body as being food. This is why often it will be suggested that your supplement be taken ‘with food’ with the hope that the body will think it is food.
