Inquiring minds want to know which nutritional supplements are best and how to choose the right product. To answer these questions, I’ve asked a nutrition specialist, Beth Schupanitz of Inspiring Health Solutions, to shed some light on the subject.
What to look for in Nutritional Supplements.
There are hundreds, if not thousands of different brands of supplements on the market today. This creates a ton of confusion about which to choose. I am going to cut through some of this confusion today by answering your most pressing questions.
Here are several of the questions I am frequently asked:
Do I need FDA approved vitamins/supplements?
There are really no supplements that are FDA Approved. The FDA
only regulates Pharmaceutical drugs, Vet supplies, and Medical devices. They do not regulate supplements or food. If there is an FDA approval on a vitamin it will typically be manufactured in a lab and not necessarily made from natural substances. There are just a few that are FDA approved. Most of these are prenatal vitamins. Prenatals are something that the drug manufacturers cannot argue the need for, so they decided they would sell their own, instead of giving up that market share.
Who do I trust to recommend supplements for me?
Some people think that trusting your medical doctor is a good person to trust their advice on nutritional supplements. Although they have your best interest at heart, they may not have the best knowledge and information to provide.
This is similar to asking a doctor or pharmacist about supplements or even a healthy diet. Most, if not all doctors today, have just one 4 hour class in nutrition and it is an elective. If your medical doctor has some good knowledge on supplements they sought out that education outside of their professional schooling. Many don’t have the time or interest to focus on nutrition or supplementation. They are educated on acute care and how to mitigate symptoms, not how to help the body heal itself. The pharmaceutical companies want it that way. There is absolutely a place and time for Doctors and medicine, just not as a first line of defense.
So, who do you trust??
When I started taking nutrition over 25 years ago, I found someone that had been using them many years longer than I had, then learned from the Oriental Medicine Doctor they learned from. After I got my certification in nutrition, I continued to read and study under several doctors of chiropractic or naturopathy, many of which I still refer to today when I have questions.
During the last 16 years, I have had the privilege to witness many, many people reclaiming their health and their lives through using supplements and making dietary changes. Many people reversed diseases that doctors had sworn were chronic, lifelong ailments, terminal cases of stage 4 cancer, debilitating strokes, MS, other autoimmune diseases and more. By law I cannot say that they were cured or that the supplements that these individuals took was what helped them, but ironically they had seen progress and much improvement when they added in nutritional supplementation.
Does organic really matter?
Absolutely! The supplements may have a good amount of nutrients, but if those nutrients are from sources that are genetically modified or laden with herbicides and pesticides, you won’t want to be consuming them. Organic is really one of the only bench marks that help us to know if it is a quality product or not. Although the organic mark is important, knowing the company’s commitment to quality is even more so.
The company that I use for my family and me is Symmetry. One of the things I really value about them is their commitment to quality. They have a motto, “In God we trust, everyone else we test.” They test every ingredient for purity and potency. In fact, they refuse an average of 2 shipments of raw materials a week that are not good enough for their products, but go into someone else’s.
Quality is a key when it comes to the ingredients used in supplement.
What is standardization?
Standardization is important in choosing supplements, because this means that every single serving/dose is exactly the same. Many, many companies do not do this, because it is an extremely expensive process. This is one of the things that I must have in a product line. It ensures that every time I take a supplement, I am getting the exact same amount of active ingredient in each serving. This way you are not getting varying doses, such as a mega dose one day and virtually nothing the next.
“What about absorbability? I’ve heard you pee out most of what you take?”
This can be true when you are purchasing a lot of the typical vitamins on the shelves of big box grocery stores. It can also be true even if you are buying from places like the popular vitamin stores. Why?
Many are held together with binding agents that do not break down in the body easily. As a result, you do “pee out” much more than you would like, because you are not absorbing the nutrients.
Look for a product line that has only natural food based binders like alfalfa, instead of carnauba wax. This is another reason I like and use Symmetry’s products. They only use food based binders that break down in 20 minutes in water compared to some supplements that don’t break down after days of sitting in water.
Symmetry also has an absorption technology called Deltazorb in each of their supplements that enables you to absorb up to 160% more than if it wasn’t in there.
Now that you have a bit more knowledge, use it to make sure you get the best products for you and your family. If you have questions or would like to schedule an assessment to make sure you are taking products that are providing you with exactly what your body needs, send an email to beth@inspiringhealthsolutions.com.
If you would like more information on the supplements that I use. www.healthwellnesslongevity.com
Beth specializes in life long weight loss, balanced eating to control blood sugars, and support to lower cholesterol, through customized meal planning, supplementation, exercise protocols and stress management. Beth is becoming known for being the “Sugar Mama.” She conducts a wildly successful “7 Day Sugar Cleanse”which really helps jump-start people’s path to ridding themselves of sugar cravings. www.inspiringhealthsolutions.com – www.easysugarcleanse.com – 612 804-6675.
What are your thoughts on this information and subject of nutritional supplements? Was this post helpful?
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