Are Your Vitamins Worth the Money?

Have you walked down the vitamin aisle in a health food store lately? Row after row of supplements entice you to buy. But what is in vitamin tablets? Are you just wasting your money?  If vitamins are beneficial, how do you know which are the best ones?

First the bad news. Most vitamins are made by pharmaceutical companies, not natural health companies. As with all pharmaceutical products, you are paying for advertising, not for research or quality. Pfizer makes Centrum, the number one selling multivitamin in the world. And it is number one because Pfizer can afford to market it, not because it is good for your health.[i]

Bayer makes One a Day brand and NBTY makes $2 billion dollars a year making Nature’s Bounty, Vitamin World, Sundown and Puritan’s Pride brands. Americans spend $23 million on vitamins, and that is big business, even if it is only one tenth the money Americans spend on pharmaceutical drugs.

When a brand is advertised as “pharmaceutical grade” stay away. That means it is a synthetic copy of a real vitamin. Does your body know the difference? It is the difference between a mannequin and a live human being. The mannequin may have a similar outward structure as a human, and it can look pretty when you dress it up, but it is not alive. Whole foods and whole food vitamins have “life” in them because they are made from living matter. Synthetic vitamins are as alive as rocks.

The vast majority of vitamin supplements on the market are shadows of real vitamins, made out of carbon substances to mimic the structure of a genuine vitamin. They cannot have the same therapeutic activity or effect in the body. Synthetic vitamins may even have a drug-like effect at high doses, but they can never have the beneficial effect of actual nutrients from food.

The discovery of vitamins occurred when certain constituents of food were isolated as the most “vital” nutrient that prevented or corrected disease states. Vitamin C was discovered when scurvy could be cured with certain foods that were high in C, which is needed by the body to maintain collagen. Eliminate the foods that contain C and scurvy develops. The British Navy ruled the oceans after they discovered that limes could prevent scurvy in the 1700’s, before the Dutch or the French. Hence the slang name “Limey” for English sailors and soldiers.

Synthetic Vitamin C won’t cure scurvy, but foods rich in natural C may, if the diet is not completely deficient in other nutrients. Gingivitis and periodontal disease are both an early sign of scurvy.

Many vitamins are made from coal tar. As a carbon compound, coal tar is broken down and made into a variety of products, from tarmac to synthetic B vitamins. [ii]

This certainly allows a consistency in the manufacturing. But how helpful are coal tar derivatives to your body? Humans have been eating whole foods from plant and animal sources since the beginning of their existence. The lack of certain nutrients brings about disease states-that has been well documented. Providing the missing nutrients can allow the body to heal and repair-also documented. Synthetic vitamins are a poor substitute for the complex molecules that make up real food and botanical herbs. So, synthetic vitamins may be a waste of your money, and may in fact induce further deficiencies if they are not well balanced with each other. No nutrients exist in a vacuum or isolation in Nature, so high-dose isolated vitamins are very un-natural.[iii]

The good news is that you can find whole food nutrients that may help fill the gap in our food. Farming depleted soil conditions and using synthetic pesticides and chemicals has reaped an empty harvest when it comes to nutrition. Food source supplements can help provide the balance you need to get and stay well.

The best source of whole food nutrient supplements is the originator and founder of the very concept of multivitamins, Standard Process.™ In 1929, Dr. Royal Lee, realized that his mother’s failing health might be assisted if she were given some food concentrates. His mother recovered and the word spread until Dr. Lee founded a company called “The Vitamin Company” in Milwaukee, WI. Continuing his research into human nutrition needs, the company grew until today Standard Process has dozens of nutrient-dense supplements to address deficiencies in every organ, gland and system of the body. Available through health care practitioners, this company is the gold standard.

I just returned from the Standard Process 1000-acre organic farm located in Palmyra, WI. I saw Spanish black radish as big as baseballs harvested by the truckload, washed and delivered to the plant to be made into a Spanish black radish supplement. Spanish radish is very effective at full liver detoxification, and packs a very powerful health punch for a humble radish.

So, look for whole food supplements for your family’s health. These supplements will be more expensive than synthetics, and will be manufactured by the smaller companies who care about real quality. Potency is not about the hundreds of milligrams printed on the label. If the vitamin has high doses, it is surely synthetic. Potency is about whether your body can actually use the ingredients in the supplement to build health at the cellular level. Carrots contain over 200 phytonutrients. We don’t know how all those phytonutrients impact our health. But we do know that humans get sick and die without certain nutrients from food. How many of our modern “diseases” are really deficiencies? If you are buying synthetic vitamins you may be paying a lot of money for advertising, and getting only broken promises and a handful of coal tar in return.[iv] So, don’t be fooled by quantity, when you want the best possible quality.

People need real food. And they may need real food concentrates to fill the gaps that food should provide, but doesn’t. At Well Body Clinic, we use only the finest real food supplements and herbal medicine in the world. Its what we take ourselves and what we wish the whole world could have. If you have questions about your personal health program, or your family’s, email us or book a free 15-minute consultation. If your current vitamins aren’t making a difference, maybe it is because your body needs more than tarmac to get well. Our programs are laser precise and tailored just for you. The human body was designed to heal. If you know that, you deserve the real supplements.

[i] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/06/us-pfizer-centrum-idUSBRE86414620120706

[ii] http://www.ehow.com/how-does_5022191_synthetic-vitamins-made.html

[iii] http://leechiropracticaz.com/wellness-articles/is-your-vitamin-poisoning-you/2253/

[iv] http://www.alive.com/articles/view/18318/the_advantages_of_whole_food_nutritional_supplements

Tips To Have a Healthier Halloween

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. Crisp cool days and the wind blowing through the trees at night, the branches making spooky shapes in the evening sky. Dressing up in costumes, staying out late on week nights, plus mounds of candy!  I just hoped the weather would stay warm enough so my mom would not make me wear a coat over my Princess costume.

 We ate as much candy as we could on the way back because the minute we arrived home our loot would be inspected and confiscated.

With my own kids, I did not come up with any clever ways to talk them out of the candy frenzy, and I could not deny them the fun I had planning a costume and going Trick or Treating. But I did try to decrease the effects of the sugar.

First I made sure they ate a good meal before they went out. Protein and good fat will slow down the absorption of sugar. I also gave them extra vitamins and minerals. Minerals are lost when sugar is metabolized because the sugar lowers the ph (acidity level) of the stomach, preventing absorption. So, extra calcium, magnesium and trace minerals are important during holiday feasting. The reason that cavities form is not just the acid or bacteria in the mouth, but the body will pull minerals out of the teeth when sugar is eaten.

We carry a yummy chewable B vitamin called Inositol that will help balance blood sugar when taken after eating sweets, and other natural B vitamins will also help. Cataplex GTF helps the sugar to go into the cells instead of circulating in the blood. It may assist with weight loss since that means the sugar is utilized instead of being turned to fat.

The ultimate weapon against sugar is Gymnema, an Ayurvedic herb from India, literally known as the “sugar destroyer”. It will help the pancreas increase insulin production. It has a peculiar characteristic. If you put Gymnema on your tongue, in either tablet or liquid form, it will bind with the sweet receptors on your tongue and you will not be able to taste anything sweet for a few hours afterwards. It really works, and I can give you a demonstration in the office. I can combine Gymnema with chocolate stevia to make a spray that will stop even the most ardent candy eater in their tracks. Now, I am not saying you should do this to kids before they go Trick or Treating and spoil their fun. I just want to point out the power of herbal medicine.

So, if you know you won’t be able to keep your hands off your kids candy, there is help from the herbal world. Just call and we can make a sweet-stopping spray for you. It’s a pretty neat Trick for avoiding too many Treats.

Hope you and your family have a safe and Happy Halloween.

There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly-lit front porch. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com

Warmly;

Anne

Signs and Symptoms that Your Stress is Caused by Exhausted Adrenals

When you are more tired than you should be, feeling overwhelmed or sick too often, does your partner tell you it is just stress? And you kind of know that is true, but you aren’t sure what to do about it.

You could say that everything is stress because that is the only thing that causes anything to go wrong in the body. It is how the stress hits us, and how the body responds, that makes the difference and creates the symptoms. If you are in perfect health, with very little demand of any kind on the body, you will have plenty of energy and feel fine. Except that you might be bored, and that can also produce stress!

But in today’s world hardly anyone is in perfect health. We have a very compromised food supply, so that even the organic vegetables don’t have the nutrition they had 50-75 years ago. We have staggering amounts of environmental toxins that over-burden our detoxification organs. We have to process too much information, and we sit in traffic too long trying to get somewhere we need to be, which takes up too much time, leaving us feeling that life is moving too fast.

The ability of the body to adapt to all that we experience in life is moderated, to a great extent, by those little glands on top of our kidneys called adrenals. The walnut sized adrenals produce four different hormones, but these have a powerful influence on the body. The adrenals get depleted when they run out of the materials needed to make hormones.

Because of our high-stress lives, the adrenals over produce cortisol. The circulating cortisol signals the body to eat more, to stay alert at night rather than sleep, and to store fat. Or you may be so sluggish that you can’t stay awake when you want to. And you are hungry, gaining weight, but you don’t seem to get the benefit of your food even when you eat well.

Let’s look at how the body views stress.  If you are standing at the top of a black diamond (very difficult) ski run, and you are an excellent skier, you are pumped and excited about the run. Your body gets primed because you know you are going to ski fast, and your knees are going to be pumping to keep you gliding over the bumps, and your heart is going to be working over-time to keep the blood circulating to your muscles. That is all physical stress on the body, as well as the emotional stress of the anticipation and exhilaration.

If you are a novice skier and you ended up at the top of the black diamond run by mistake, you look down the steep bumps with fear or even terror. You wonder if you will make it down in one piece, or if the ski patrol will have to bring you down on a stretcher. Your mouth goes dry, your arms and legs get stiff, and your heart pounds with anxiety. You may also be a bit embarrassed that you are going to have to slide and scrape down the hill, instead of gliding gracefully like the pros. (I can personally testify to this!)

Our bodies don’t really know the difference between the two experiences. Both create a demand that exceeds the norm, and that produces extra stress.

Here are the symptoms of weak and exhausted adrenals:

Gains weight easily or can’t lose weight. When severe, can’t gain weight.

Thin and wispy hair, dry, falls out easily, may become straighter or straw-like

Exhausted or easily fatigued

Chronic fatigue

Wakes between 3-4 pm and cannot return to sleep

Gets sick easily and stays weak afterwards

Racing heart or palpitations

Panic and anxiety

Asthma or allergies, seasonal or food

Pain and inflammation

Dizziness, or gets dizzy when standing suddenly

Constipation, diarrhea, IBS or other bowel disorders

Auto-immune disease such as Lupus, Hashimoto’s, Celiac

Hot flashes

Mental sluggishness

Headaches

Sparse hair on legs and arms

Dry skin

Eyes sunken

Poor circulation

Swollen ankles

Craves salt

High blood pressure

Pallor-very pale skin that is not natural looking

Frequent urination, especially at night

“Double jointed” or lax ligaments

Can’t hold Chiropractic adjustments

Vitiligo or white patches on skin

You may be asking yourself why your medical doctor does not recognize these symptoms and have you tested. Pharmaceutical does not have any answers for adrenal issues, except psychiatric medication when the anxiety and panic are a problem. They have inhalers and allergy medication, and sleep drugs.

These drugs may treat the symptoms, but they do not heal and repair the adrenal glands themselves. So, millions of people are trying to operate their bodies with depleted adrenals and suffering the effects, or they are suffering the side-effects of drugs that never get to the underlying issue.

Once you understand that all of life is basically an adrenal challenge, you can plan to keep your adrenals up to the job. That means getting enough sleep, avoiding sugar, eating whole foods regularly and avoiding processed chemical foods. The adrenals need and store large quantities of Vitamin C, so they need fresh fruits and vegetables to operate well. And there are many adrenal supplements, both herbal and nutritional, that can restore burnt out adrenals quickly. If you have any kind of physical, emotional or psychological stress, you may need supplements and lifestyle changes to keep your adrenals strong.

“Adrenal glands produce hormones such as estrogen, progesterone, steroids, cortisol, and cortisone, and chemicals such as adrenalin (epinephrine), norepinephrine, and dopamine. When the glands produce more or less hormones than required by the body, disease conditions may occur.” Medline Plus[i]

At Well Body Clinic, we find the exact adrenal support that is right for your body. And we can address the other symptoms, such as anxiety, allergies, sleep, hair and skin issues, with a complete natural medicine approach. You don’t have to be sick and tired and, worse, wondering what is wrong with you. Functional medicine means finding out what part of your body needs support to function correctly, and removing any barriers that are preventing you from feeling good and being well. For real. Long term.

Call us to book your adrenal consultation. It usually only takes a few days to start noticing the difference in your symptoms. Life is a challenge, and you can make sure that your adrenals are helping you to keep up.

[i] http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/imagepages/8719.htm

Should You Get a Flu Shot?

Perhaps you have noticed that, in the last couple of years, flu shots are being marketed so aggressively that you can practically get a flu shot at along with your favorite coffee drink.

Is this to protect you from the bad old flu? Or is this a way for the pharmaceutical companies, who are beholden to their stock holders to ever increase profits, to make more money. Take a look at the math. There are about 20 million childhood vaccines sold. There are 300 million flu vaccines sold.

So, does the flu vaccine protect you against flu? Influenza infection causes muscle aches, headache, congestion, fever and coughing. The side effects of the flu vaccine are muscle aches, headache, congestion, fever and coughing. Hmmm. Plus the flu vaccination puts you at risk for shingles and Guillain-Barre syndrome. [i]

Does the flu vaccine save lives? The National Vital Statistics System, which tracks actual causes of death, estimates that there are only 500 deaths from flu per year. By comparison, almost 3000 people die from ulcers.

The CDC (Center for Disease Control) estimates, based on computer models, that, in 2006-2007. flu deaths ranged from 3,000 to 49,000. [ii] Their website states is difficult to say how many people actually die of flu because other illnesses have similar symptoms, and often those who die are already aged and ill. Also, many deaths are actually from pneumonia. Well, does that mean that flu leads to pneumonia? No, as it turns out influenza is only one of 30 different causes of pneumonia, according to The American Lung Association, and not the most common one.

The CDC distributes flu vaccines. A few years ago few people were availing themselves of flu shots, so what was the CDC to do?  Apparently lacking oversight by any regulatory agency, the CDC turned to PR and marketing to get the job done and sell the American people on flu vaccines. [iii] The CDC does not monitor either the effectiveness of the inoculation campaign, nor the risks of continued vaccination year after year, even in infants and children.[iv]

An important risk to getting a flu shot is the fact that many of the shots contain mercury in the form of thimerosal, added as a preservative.[v] Mercury is a potent poison and needs to be cleared from the body before it accumulates to toxic levels. If you decide to get a flu shot, is advisable to ask about the presence of thimerosal and opt for a formula without it.[vi] Thimerosal was used in the infamous DPT (Diphtheria, Pertussis and Tetanus) vaccination formula that started the controversy about childhood vaccines and autism. That formula was later changed. Interestingly an MD, who spent thirty years researching vaccine safety and was instrumental in getting the DPT formula changed, is against flu shots. Dr. Mark Geier says that there are no long term studies on the safety of getting repeated flu shots year after year, that the flu vaccines cause Guillain-Barre, and that flu shots are ineffective against flu virus because the formula must be changed every new flu season.[vii]

So, what can you do to protect yourself and your family? We are exposed to viruses frequently, but we don’t always get sick. Some people never get the flu at all and others seem to catch it often. The difference is in the response from the immune system when threatened.

Viruses are not “alive,” in the same sense as bacteria or other organisms. They invade our cells and use the cellular material to replicate themselves. Then the cell bursts open, releasing many more viruses. That is the reason flu tends to come on so quickly. And most often, the flu will run its course and the virus will mutate until it is no longer a threat to the host. If there is a lingering cough, that is probably because a bacterial infection set in, or there is an underlying weakness in the tissue of the bronchia or lungs.

At any stage along the way natural medicine, including nutritional, herbal and homeopathic medicines, can handle the symptoms and shorten duration far better than pharmaceutical drugs. The time to go for drugs is if a bacterial infection threatens to develop into something severe like pneumonia.

To prevent the flu from catching you, there are several things I recommend.

1.     Avoid sugar as much as possible. The cells in our bodies that are doing the job they are supposed to, the eye, liver, heart and skin cells to name a few, don’t need sugar and are greatly impaired by sugar. Sugar causes inflammation, it robs the body of vital nutrients, and it feeds fungus, parasites, bacteria and cancer. Really.

2.     Get plenty of rest. Human bodies are used to resting more in winter months when it is cold and this is probably pretty deeply programmed. Sufficient sleep allows repair to take place, and it allows our adrenals to get a break. Adrenals help the body to respond to stress and are big players in the immune system.

3.     Take mineral supplements, including good quality calcium. Consider quality, not high quantity. The cheapest calcium supplements may not be easily absorbed and utilized. The body needs minerals, as the building blocks of the body. Most of us are not getting enough minerals because the soil in which our vegetables and fruits are grown is very depleted. You can get calcium from leafy greens as well as dairy products. You may not be getting enough magnesium, zinc or iodine, as well as trace minerals. Supplementation may be needed.

4.     Be sure you can absorb your minerals, by having a high degree of stomach acid. Don’t drink high-ph water or take acid blocking medication unless you have an ulcer. If we were supposed to drink alkaline water, the fresh water on the planet would be alkaline. It isn’t. The ph of the blood must remain neutral, from 7.0-7.2. We cannot outsmart Nature. I will go over this more in another blog, but the old remedy for heading off a cold or flu is to drink apple cider vinegar diluted in water, with a little honey (local is best) or stevia. Or take Betaine HCL tablets to increase your stomach ph and help you digest protein.

5.     Salt and potassium are vital minerals. Make your own sports drink with fresh organic lemon juice, honey or stevia, mixed with water to taste. Add a pinch of sea salt or Himalayan salt.

6.     Zinc and iodine are two more minerals that are helpful to the immune system. Iodine is held in the thyroid gland and, when the blood passes by on its route all around the body, the iodine kills pathogens. So, even the thyroid is involved in the defense of our bodies.

7.     Take immune boosters when you don’t have the flu or a cold. Keep your immune system strong and don’t wait until you feel something coming on.

8.     Be happy. It has been shown that happy people have stronger immune systems.[viii] How you can make yourself happy will be the subject of a future blog. Meanwhile collect jokes, see funny movies and spend time around other happy people. They will be the ones who are not passing around the flu

If you feel you are susceptible to the flu, colds, winter or spring allergies, or bronchial infections, now is the time to treat your immune system.  We can identify the area of your body that is the weakest link and strengthen that. And we can help you keep your kids healthy, both for their sake and for yours. Stock up on homeopathic and herbal remedies so they will be there if you need them, and find out what supplements you should be taking to have your healthiest winter ever.

Mention this blog and get a $15 discount on an immune system assessment if you book before the end of October. And remember that Halloween sweets may trick your immune system, so ask about our blood sugar balancing Inositol supplement that kids love to take. Good tasting and chewable, our Inositol helps kids of any age avoid the sugar blues. It will minimize those sugar crashes and cravings that bring out the goblin in all of us.

[i] http://www.healthline.com/health/flu-shot-side-effects#severeallergicreactions7

[ii] http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.htm

[iii] http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/death-by-influenza_b_4661442.html

[iv] http://cpi.probeinternational.org/2004/10/24/vaccine-fevers/

[v] http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/thimerosal.htm

[vi] http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1175560-overview

[vii] http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/the-flu-vaccine-war-healthcare-workers-fight-back/

[viii] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-happiness-boosts-the-immune-system/