The Case for Nutritional Supplements Part 2

The nutritional supplement market is a multi-billion dollar industry.  With that kind of market size, there are obviously many people who feel that taking supplements is necessary for their health.  They are correct as it is not possible to get all of your daily nutrients from food.  In my previous post, I described why a recent report claiming that nutritional supplements were unnecessary and detrimental to your health was scientific fraud.  This blog entry will describe why nutritional supplements are necessary to maintain good health on a daily basis.

How did this happen?  What is the cause for our problems?  Unfortunately there is more than one cause.

Modern Farming Methods – Because of modern farming methods, we are growing crops at a faster rate, but we are losing nutrients in them.  Senate Document 264 from 1936 gives the results of  a scientific study that had been commissioned by Congress that showed that nutrients have been depleted from our topsoil and that “… 99 percent of the American people are deficient in … minerals, and … a marked deficiency in any one of the more important minerals actually results in disease.”  This was almost 80 years ago, and this situation is still experienced today.    Both macro- and micronutrient levels have decreased, and this has led to an increase in certain kinds of illnesses.

A National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey from 2002 showed that 93% of Americans were deficient in Vitamin E, and 56% of us were deficient in Magnesium.  In the richest most well-fed country in the world the majority of our population is deficient in essential vitamins and minerals.  The United States is well fed but under nourished.

Man made molecules – Have you ever read a food label and wondered what those long chemical names were or what they did?  With the advent of “food in a box”, came the usage of many different preservatives, dyes, and chemicals to keep the food shelf stable and looking good.  Fast food has these same preservatives in them to keep the food looking fresh as evidenced by the video below.  If this Happy Meal didn’t degrade after 6 months, what is it doing in your body?

Trans fats are another example of this.  They were created by adding hydrogen to liquid oils to make them solid.  Unfortunately, we don’t have the enzymes in our body to break them down, so they can build up in our bodies, leading to negative health effects.  See my previous blog post concerning trans fats.

My rule of thumb is to stay away from man-made molecules or molecules that are new to nature.  If you can’t pronounce it, and you don’t know what it does, you don’t want it.

So, we have decreased nutrients in our food, and chemicals that don’t contribute to nutrition.  Unfortunately, these are not the only reasons why we can’t get all of our nutrients from our food.  Stay tuned for my next blog post.

To Your Health!

Dr. Harvey