Any return visitors to nutritional-supplement-truths.com will see that there is a large scale site reconstruction going on.

Everything is being completely revamped with a new format, design, color scheme, interactive pages, new content and some revision of existing content. It’s all being jazzed up!

I’m doing ALL of this myself and since my HTML and CSS knowledge is somewhat limited it’s taking far longer than expected to get all those changes displaying in your browser exactly the way I want.

Anyway for those that saw the old site I’m sure you’ll agree that the new design is far better and easier to move through.

The reason I’m mentioning this is to let you know that because of all this additional work my blog will only be updated 1 to 2 times a week for the coming months (or until it’s all finished).

So I hope you will bear with me and continue to read the juicy supplement and health truths that I have in store for you.

Today’s entry explains the word “natural” as applied to nutritional supplements

and my second entry later this week will look at a related subject – Whole Food supplements and what they really give you.

Here we go!

Natural Vitamin Supplements

What Does That Word ‘Natural’ Really Mean?

The term ‘natural’ has become a super buzz word in the supplement industry of late. Unfortunately it’s causing a lot of consumer confusion and so-called ‘expert’ argument to say the least.

And recently I considered (for a short 5 min period) of entering into the ma lee when I came across a nice keyword that a web page could be based around. From memory I think the exact keyword was “natural vitamin supplements“.

My initial thought was to write a page around this keyword and then link it to the supplement my family and I personally use. After all, as you’ll understand in a minute, it can be argued that my supplement (Total Balance) has no non- natural ingredients whatsoever!

Therefore it must be a ‘natural vitamin supplement’.

Technically I could argue that Total Balance is ‘natural’ but therein lies the problem because of the very definition of the word ‘natural’.

The more I thought about it the more I realized that this whole topic of ‘natural vitamin supplements‘ is an absolute can of worms. So I decided the best course of action would be to steer well clear of it as a web page and instead address it here in my blog.

The reason I say ‘an absolute can of worms’ is because the term ‘natural’ has a multitude of meanings, all of which are VERY SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT.

The problem is that there is no one definition that is the ‘right’ or ‘correct’ version. We can’t stick something in a test tube, analyze it and say “Yes,” this is natural or “No”, this is not natural.

The thing to remember is that this whole fixation on ‘natural’ comes from clever marketing that presents natural’ as good and ‘synthetic’ as bad.

Thus many consumers have been bombarded into believing this. In the last couple of years manufacturers of ‘natural’ or whole food supplements have really been turning their marketing dials up full load.

Now, there are 2 main aspects to consider when looking at the term ‘natural’.

Firstly, when does something become ‘not natural’?

If a scientist was to make up a small amount of DNA in a test tube from precursors and enzymes (a common process today), is this ‘natural’? In terms of the structure and properties of DNA it is no different to the DNA found in every cell in our bodies.

The only difference is that the DNA in our cells is closely coupled to a raft of other materials (RNA, proteins, cofactors, enzymes etc) that allow it to do its various jobs. If a scientist put the manufactured DNA into your body it would be absorbed and used just as if it were ‘natural’.

In a similar vein I think everyone would agree that isoflavones present in a plant are ‘natural’. But what happens when those isoflavones are concentrated by extraction? Are they still ‘natural’?

How about if we performed a series of concentration steps and wind up with a highly concentrated form (say 90%) of the isoflavones. Are these still ‘natural’? If so, what if we chemically synthesized an identical material that contains 90% isoflavones?

What is the difference between the 90% stuff from the plants and the synthesized material? The two materials are, for all intents and purposes identical.

So why would one be ‘natural’ and the other not?

Can you see what I mean?

The second aspect is that there are lots of things which are ‘natural’ but which are actually bad for you.

For example red kidney beans need soaking before cooking to get rid of a powerful neurotoxin that is present as a normal part of their growth and development.

Many plants produce cyanide as a pesticide.

Ginkgo Biloba extract contains ginkgolic acids that are poisonous.

Yet all these are ‘natural’!

So ‘natural’ is not always best!

That’s why you need to be careful before running off to buy natural health supplements based on that gut feeling you get after reading a supplement company’s nifty marketing presentation.

They’re telling you what you want to hear based on what they and others have led you to believe.

A visitor to nutritional-supplement-truths.com asked me recently to comment on a whole food multivitamin supplement for sale at a very well known supplement site.

This is a ‘doctor’ formulated supplement and for those of you who have read through my site, you know my opinion of doctor formulated supplements!

In his marketing spiel this doctor boldly attempts to scare his readers away from any synthetic vitamin and minerals (isolates) in supplements by stating that our bodies will only absorb a small percentage of an isolate form of vitamins and minerals and utilize even less. He goes on to say that our bodies absorb much more of the whole food form.

But the truth of the matter is that we don’t actually know this for sure!

We assume it is the case, and we want it to be the case, but we simply do not know!!

I asked a friend in the supplement industry to add some backup on this for me by checking the scientific literature (he has access to a lot more than I do) and he came back to say he COULDN’T FIND A SINGLE STUDY that has looked at the absorption/utilization of ‘synthetic’ materials in the human body versus ‘natural’ materials.

Not a single one!

So you see this is an example of the kind of statement that people want to believe and so they do believe it, but there is no scientific evidence one way or the other.

In situations like this I recommend adhering to a very basic tenet: “If it isn’t documented, it’s a myth”.

Whoever writes the web-page copy for this doctor’s site is very good. They make this particular multivitamin sound like the next best thing in supplements and something that you must have.

However, a closer look at the label reveals the following:

1) Over 75% of the total ingredient load is simply vitamin C, one of the cheapest materials in the supplement industry. That’s shocking!

2) They cannot be “whole food sourced” because calcium ascorbate and niacinamide ascorbate (among others) DO NOT OCCUR NATURALLY !

3) The amino acid chelates of the minerals also do not occur naturally!

—————————————————————————————

The bottom line is that these whole food ingredients are no better in terms of their ‘natural’ function than many other ingredients on the market.

So please keep in mind that there is a lot of supplement information out there that has no actual basis – or, even worse, is just plain wrong. In other words, deliberate lies and misrepresentation of the truth.

Unfortunately we humans have a tendency that if we want to believe something and it is repeated often enough then it becomes ‘true’, even though there may not be a scrap of evidence in support of the idea.

It’s the old story that if you throw enough mud for long enough some will stick.

 

 

Like this post?
Publish It On Your Own Blog

 

Good Health Always!

 

 

Rate this:

2.5

Tags: Food, gingko biloba, health, multivitamin, multivitamin supplements, Natural, natural health supplements, natural vitamin supplements, nutritional supplements, supplement, Supplements, total balance, Vitamin, vitamins and minerals, whole food

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 10th, 2008 at 7:38 am and is filed under Articles. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.