Right now i'm almost perfectly healthy, but would taking vitamins help me or hurt me? Also my grandma is from Mexico and she's in her sixties with a few common health problems a lot of old people have. She always takes these crazy medicines and concoctions to help her arthritis and back problems, but is this really helping her. i once took dry crushed up snake powder to help my acne. I've visited soothsayers and I've taken oregano in boiled coca cola to sooth and heal my sour throat and bronchitis when I was younger. The short answer is yes - they can help, but, as others have suggested, it is important to know where they come from and what they contain.
Many vitamin and mineral products use synthetic ingredients and a significant proportion either include forms which are not readily useable by the body (such as calcium carbonate, which is only about 5% bioavailable) or which do not contain other essential ingredients which are required for proper absorption (e.g. vitamin D with calcium). This means that they can have little or no beneficial effect.
However, not all vitamins and minerals are the same. There are many manufacturers that are responsible and who make considerable efforts to produce highly beneficial products with well-balanced ingredients.
That said, and as suggested above, by far the best way to get nutrients into your system is to eat natural, nutritious food. the problem with this is that it isn't that easy to get (unless you grow it yourself). The vast majority of food consumed in the Western world is lacking in any meaningful nutritional content and/or is filled full of toxic chemicals, either as by-products of the commercial production system or as "additives".
The reason for this is that modern production methods mean that most farmers grow the same crop repeatedly on the same land without revitalizing the land in-between crops. The result of this is that most crops are grown on land that has virtually no meaningful mineral content (as reported to congress in the 1920s, since which it has gotten far worse), so the resultant plans have little chance of having any minerals in them.
The best option of most people is to follow the four cardinal rules of buying food.
Buy Local
Buy seasonal
Buy fresh
Buy organic
and take heed of what should be #5 - avoid ANYTHING that comes in a box, wrapper, can etc (including those "pillow" bags of mixed salad, which are washed in chlorine and packed in nitrogen to make them "last" for up to 2 weeks!).
The rise of the supermarket has gotten most people used to cheap prices (at the cost of the producers) and the illusion of permanent global summertime - it is not natural to eat strawberries in the winter! In the meantime, health gets worse, doctors get richer and everyone needs to supplement just to get the basic vitamins and minerals needed for survival.
Organic may be more expensive, but it is far better for you (at least when it is TRULY organic).
Brian
http://www.natural-health-information-ce... yes the vitamins works, abput the boiled coca cola im not that sure No way! Vitamin and mineral pills are usually nothing but a bunch of chemicals put together with some synthetic binders in a laboratory. If you want something that works, you will have to take a whole food supplement. Garden of Life makes one, but they are all pretty pricey. The best way to get that stuff is through your food, GOOD FOOD or herbal teas and stuff. And there is totally nothing wrong with oregano, but why the coca cola? There is nothing good in that. You need to start learning about herbs and natural stuff. My favorite book I got started on when I was just beginning with natural stuff is The Makers Diet. There is also a book called The Whole Food Companion that is pretty basic about popular foods and herbs. Sounds like you want to do the right thing though. Good for you. Take care! www.myspace.com/allison729 Hi Mike, I want to offer you "my story" and why I wish I had taken supplements earlier in my life. Visit http://www.livingwithrheumatoidarthritis... That's me and a short essay on how I came to learn the portance of taking a supplement everyday.
We need to eat well and supplement to maintain our health and I encourage others not to suffer the way I did to learn my lesson. Vitamins REALLY REALLY help!
I have used them to lose weight (spirulina and guarana)
for depression (st johns wart)
for nerves, (magnesium)
to help me sleep (st johns wart) to help my child sleep (chamomile tea)
to give me energy (spirulina,vitamin B) lots more!
women especially should not live without vitamins Yes, it does. But excess will pass right out of the urine. vitamin and mineral supplements aren't same as concoctions like 'oregano in boiled coca cola' 'dry crushed up snake powder'
vitamins and minerals that you aren't getting in your diet can be supplemented with tablets - but they are never as good as if they were in your food. it is possible to OD on these tablets if they contain Vitamin A.
the other weird stuff can have a huge impact on your body basically they are medications made be ppl who failed med school - i think i'll listen to the nerds on this one - these things have not been tested and approved the same way medications have and there can be huge reactions you mix and match like St John's Wort if you are on any prescription medication don't take this. tell your prescribing doctor (who passed med school) exactly what your taking!!!
one multivitamin a day will have no negative effects (everything is in safe doses) Opinions are like behinds... everybody's got one, and it's only really important to just them! Mine is that yes, they help. My grandmother was an herbalist, and I can remember as a child seeing the herbs she would dry hanging in her barn rafters. I take ginger, garlic, cranberry, green tea, ginseng, ginko biloba, soy... and I definitely know the difference in myself if I miss taking them. It may take a while for you to notice the health benefits and changes, but it WILL happen, and it CAN make you feel... just better. Not magically so, or happier, or anything that really depends on your MINDSET as opposed to your physical well being... just better. I give lemon tea with ginger, whiskey and honey for colds and congestion. I have brought the fever out of infections with grated white potatoes or grated sugar beets. All of these things can be read about in an informative book that I use a great deal called "Healing Herbs, the Ultimate Guide to the Curative Powers of Natures Medicines" by Michael Castleman. You might look for it and decide for yourself! Check out the book "Stop Aging Now" by Jean Carper. You will run to the store to buy your supplements! Vitamins have kept me alive and safe. I've been a bachelor for 50+ years, so my dietary and eating habits have been extremely lacking. If not for using excellent vitamins, then I'd be much sicker and unhealthy than as healthy as I am now.
Vitamins and minerals naturally occur in foods. Any doctor who dismisses taking vitamins is a fraud and a quack. That doesn't mean you HAVE to take vitamins. My parents are in their 80's, and they've been eating extremely varied and good diets their whole lives.
It's true cheaper vitamins are laboratory made to mimic the natural actions of the natural vitamin. So I would suggest you go to a good local health food store for your vitamins. Don't bother with one-a-day vitamins like Centrum or others at Walmart. I DO however buy individual vitamins like calcium at Walmart. I just make sure the different brands are of the better variety.
It is indeed best to get "whole foods" vitamins. They will indeed be the best for your body to use. But they are also incredibly expensive and usually as big a a "horse capsule", meaning they're very big to swallow, and you usually need 2, 3, 4 or more of them to get the full potency of what's in the label.
But you pay for what you get. "Whole foods" vitamins are most expensive, but they're also the best. If a big honkin' pill or tablet is too big, then try getting them in capsules which are easier to swallow and digest easier, too.
You also don't have to use the whole label amount. I buy a brand called NOW, which says to take 4 capsules for the whole amount of the label. But I take a couple in morning and couple at night. You can mix and match your amount based upon your needs. If you feel your eating habits are very good, then take only one of the 4 pills daily. Stretches them out and you're still getting an excellent variety of nutrients.
I completely disagree about it being "unnatural to eat strawberries in winter." Man is designed to eat foods when he can get them. Yes, summer or warm weather is when strawberries usually grow, but if you live in Florida or California, then fruits and veggies can grow in all year round. It's just stupid that kind of an idea.
I also disagree about "just pissing them down the drain." I"d much rather take a pill that costs $1 each, and make that expensive piss, to make sure I'm getting a full range of excellent vitamins, than suffer any possible difficulties of not getting them.
Besides, vitamin C which is the most pissed-out vitamin, has beneficial effect as it's being passed out. Oxalic acid is formed from urine as it passes out, kind of like a wax or crystal that forms as it dries. As you piss out the extra vitamin C, it actually dissolves the oxalic acid, thereby keeping "the plumbing" cleaned out. See....nature has an excellent way of balancing itself.
Admittedly, the human body is extremely efficient, getting enough nutrition from very simple things to be able to live and even grow upon. But stress of today's living can use up much of our normal food supplies of vitamins. And science and medicines have shown how important vitamins are to the body---mental as well as physical--- to maintain good health and also to heal yourself when ill.
Again, you need to find balance. You can't fix a broken leg with shots of B vitamins. But when you get ill, you're body does need extra nutrition, especially a full set of vitamins to help it overcome the illness. I personally would stay way from such examples as you've given that you're grandma has taken. It sounds more like a highly specialized thing, as opposed to general nutrition. So while it sounds kinda weird, there might be real application to it. But I would suggest that your body doesn't really need crushed snake powder to be healthy. However, some of her arthritis problems might have been improved by her other supplements.
Weird sounding stuff I would stay away from. You don't need soothsayers to get good calcium or protein to grow on. Just a good visit to a reputable store for honest products. |
