dangerous supplements?

A recent investigation by University of Leeds (England), published in BMC Medicine, revealed that the majority of over-the-counter herbal supplements did not contain any of the key information required for safe use.  Furthermore, only 13% of the nutritional supplements looked at contained an information sheet.  And of these, only three contained an acceptable amount of safety information on said sheet.  The study’s lead author, Dr Theo Raynor, stated that, “Herbal medicines should, ideally, be purchased where trained staff are available, so that consumers can have any questions answered. This information should be available from pharmacists. People should also always tell their doctor about herbal medicines they are taking, so they receive the best possible care.“
 
I would go one better than that.  Know about the companies who manufacture the nutritional products that you or your family are taking.  We use mostly Standard Process / Medi Herb products here in our clinic for many different reasons.  They are, after all, the oldest nutritional supplement company in the United States, having been around for 4/5 of the past century.   Their products also happen to be made with food.  In other words, their products come from plant or animal sources.  The herbal products from Medi Herb are the best in the industry.  Period.  There is an abundance of information on each and every product in their line.  How important is all of this as far as your health is concerned?  If you are still taking Synthetic Vitamins (always labeled “Natural“), you could be doing more harm to your body than good.  For more information on this specific topic, please read our WHOLE FOOD NUTRITION PAGE.

By the way, one part of the above quote really concerns me — the part about “pharmacists” being called upon to disseminate nutritional information.  While I would love to see more pharmacists who are up on what herbs can do, it begs the question of who will be allowed to carry and sell Nutritional Supplements.  What do most medical professionals (pharmacists included) know about this subject?  Truthfully; darn little.   And despite the fact that the AMA has repeatedly tried to make herbal supplements, vitamins, minerals, and other Nutritional Supplements ‘prescription only’ their efforts have thus far failed.

When you see studies saying things like, “Vitamin C not shown to help common cold“, “Vitamin D supplements show no benefit“, or “Multivitamins proven to be a waste of money,” there’s good reason for this.  For one thing, almost all of these medical studies are done with Synthetic Nutrition.  Synthetic Nutritional Supplements are cheap to manufacture, cheap to transport, and cheap to store.  But they are not the same as Whole Food Nutrition — not by a long shot.  Any time that you take an isolated vitamin; a synthetic, crystallized fraction of a nutritional complex; you end up with something that acts more like a drug than a nutritional supplement.  Think about it for a moment.  When you eat organically raised natural foods (or take Whole Food Supplements), you get entire nutritional complexes as opposed to isolated chemical compounds.  All of the synergistic nutritional elements are found in their perfect amounts, and in their natural states.  Click on the previous link to explore this concept in more depth.