Myth: If one has a healthy diet, one does not need any supplementation.
|
|
Fact: If a large group of people were to follow the exact same dietary lifestyle & exercise program, a certain
|
number would still suffer from high or low blood pressure, high or low blood sugar, or high or low stomach acid,
|
while the rest may develop arthritis, cardiovascular disease, cancer, mental illness, or other medical conditions.
|
Most nutrition-related conditions in the Western world are not caused by nutritional deficiencies such as
|
scurvy, pellagra, beriberi, or rickets, but nutritional imbalances, which are responsible for many common
|
medical problems, while metabolic disorders can cause nutritional deficiencies following the malabsorption of
|
certain nutrients.
|
|
Age-related hormonal imbalances, and diminishing renal capacity also affect nutritional requirements in the
|
body. Without adequate androgenic (DHEA) support, minerals such as zinc or potassium will frequently become
|
depleted even when maintaining the same - and previously adequate dietary intake.
|
Failure to compensate for these deficiencies contributes to the risk of developing blood sugar, blood pressure,
|
weight, and/or a variety of hormone imbalance-related organic problems, including cancer. Neither a "healthy"
|
diet, nor standard multi-vitamin / mineral formulations will be helpful in these cases since the nutrients from
|
these sources are not customized to match a patient's specific requirements, so abnormal mineral levels or
|
ratios remain the same.
|
|
One's genetic background has an even greater impact to promote, or help resist the development of a wide
|
range of medical conditions. As a result, only individualized supplementation, based on someone's cellular
|
chemistry and genetic background has the best potential to resolve these medical disorders nutritionally, while
|
specific dietary changes alone may be helpful in less serious medical conditions.
|
|
Myth: After menopause, every female needs to supplement extra calcium.
|
|
Fact: There is no magic age when either females or males suddenly need to adjust their calcium intake. In
|
contrast to a number of other nutrients whose requirements tend to change with advancing age, requirements
|
for calcium are dependent on multiple genetic, metabolic, and lifestyle factors, none of which are age or
|
gender-related. Only with pregnant or lactating females it may be justified to increase their calcium intake by
|
about 400 mg per day to cover additional needs for the baby.
|
|
However, even then it is far better to assess individual requirements since that amount would be totally
|
inadequate when there is a history of the mother being chronically calcium deficient, which increases the risk
|
of birth defects in the baby, while at the same time there are plenty of pregnant women whose calcium levels
|
are perfectly adequate, or even on the high side, without extra supplementation.
|
|
This is no different than what applies to the general population, where some individuals (regardless of age
|
or gender) suffer from chronic calcium deficiency and require rather large amounts of extra calcium to meet
|
requirements, while the opposite applies to many other individuals who suffer from chronic calcium overload.
|
So the "one-size-fits-all" recommendations used by most practitioners for post-menopausal women not only
|
perpetuate the dilemma for those with calcium assimilation problems, but they also add to the woes of those
|
who retain too much calcium.
|
|
A younger body is generally much more forgiving when dealing with high calcium levels, however with every
|
decade, excessive calcium intake, or excessive storage from a lack of calcium co-factors, will take an
|
increasingly irreversible toll by calcifying an individual's organs, joints, and/or cardiovascular system, in addition
|
to causing a negative impact on stomach acid levels, mood, energy, and general mineral balance.
|
|
Myth: One may liberally supplement mega-doses of water-soluble vitamins since they - unlike fat-soluble
|
vitamins - are not stored in the body, so they cannot cause any harm.
|
|
Fact: Despite being water-soluble, Vitamin B6 can cause permanent, irreversible nerve damage when
|
improperly used, while an excessive intake of Vitamin C has the potential of eventually causing copper or
|
calcium deficiencies in prone individuals. Many nutrients do not have to be stored in the body in high amounts
|
to be able to cause, or contribute to disease. While being metabolized, even water-soluble nutrients interact
|
with other nutritional elements either as synergists or antagonists, and thus are capable of creating abnormal
|
mineral ratios or imbalances when overdosed on, which over time will establish a more favorable environment
|
to develop medical problems.
|
|
Claim: Some researchers concluded that nutritional supplements either did not help, or worsened certain
|
diseases.
|
|
Fact: This is no less surprising than randomly choosing a drug, randomly treating any medical disorder, and
|
then claiming that it did not help, or worsened the disease. One obviously needs to match the right nutrients
|
- and the right amounts to a patient's specific requirements if one intends to go beyond deficiency-preventive
|
measures and attempt to rectify more difficult-to-treat medical situations!
|
|
In contrast to Drug Research, which tends to focus on single, concentrated ingredients, Nutritional Research
|
yields much better results when using complexed nutrients. So instead of taking plain ascorbic acid, Vitamin C
|
needs to be complexed with adequate amounts of flavonoids such as rutin and hesperidin, to duplicate more
|
food-like benefits.
|
The same applies to supplementing Mixed Carotenoids, which include alpha-carotene, lycopene, zeaxanthin,
|
cryptoxanthin, and lutein - instead of taking (synthetic) beta-carotene alone. Equally superior is supplementing
|
a Vitamin E Complex in the form of alpha, beta, gamma, delta tocopherols, and alpha, beta, gamma, delta
|
tocotrienols, rather than taking large, single amounts of dl-alpha tocopheryl alone.
|
|
Instead of presenting - or developing new concepts in Clinical Nutrition, some "researchers" are wasting
|
everyone's time with negative, or misleading headlines, trying to impress the public with what is frequently
|
rehashed old news. Real experts on nutrition are well aware that common vitamin pills, particularly the non-
|
complexed or synthetic variety are no panacea for everything that ails society, and they would not make any
|
claims to that effect. Resolving more complex medical conditions nutritionally requires equally more technically
|
advanced resources that utilize a patient's cellular chemistry to establish precise, person-specific requirements
|
- not population averages.
|
|
|
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
|
Copyright © 2000-2010 Dr. Ronald Roth D.Acu. Cellular Nutrition
|
|
