The Deception About Nutritional Supplements

“When the customer is educated, they will never go back to the synthetic products they once believed in.”

Being a small family owned company and producing therapeutic health products that work is a very tough go; we are up against giants who sell 10,000 to 1 in comparison to Life Choice. This is represented in other platforms as well. For example, one of the magazines, which is delivered to most health food stores in Canada, runs ads for $6-9,000 per page with one company taking 12 pages—how can anyone compete with that? Competition is the spice of business when selling the same item, but what if the item is different yet not obvious? Then education is the only pathway for clarity.

Several studies have exposed the poor quality of goods being sold in the name of health. Rather than the industry demand that the supply side or manufacturers raise the quality standards, they go along with the agenda because they are getting free fills. Some suppliers give the products on consignment and the customer pays when the products are sold. Those selling high quality cannot offer the same especially when paying anywhere from 200 to 800% more for pure raw materials. For example, the raw materials for vitamin B1 used in multi-vitamins—the synthetic version is derived from coal tar or fossil fuel, the natural is derived from organic spirulina. The synthetic requires conversion within the body, the bioavailability is 30%, the body recognizes it as a foreign toxin and expels the remaining 70%. Have you noticed after taking a multi-vitamin or b-complex that your urine turns yellow? That’s your synthetic vitamins being expelled.  Natural B1 is derived from organic spirulina, the body recognizes it as food and the bioavailability to the cells is 95%—the difference between a toxin and food, your urine does not change colour. The same rings true with everything else: synthetic vitamins are not designed for human consumption and improved health. They are designed to be easily manufactured for creating profit from waste products and sold as a usable commodity. They offer greater shelf life, lower costs and, since not understood by the public, very high profits.

More than 95% of the vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that you can buy at health food stores and close to 100% of those sold in other stores are now made by the same few pharmaceutical and chemical companies—we have touched upon this fact in some previous newsletter before regarding Nestlé, Proctor & Gamble and others.

Synthetic vs. Natural

For the producers of pharmaceutical preparations, synthetic vitamins offer many advantages: the chemical process allows production to be faster, inexpensive, and more lucrative. Moreover, these artificial preparations are considerably more chemically stable, thus offering the possibility of longer storage.

“The fact is that most mineral and vitamin brands on the market are synthetic, i.e. made from oxide minerals and other chemical substances. These products contain harmful substances, for example: preservatives, fillers, binders, coal tar, bitumen, gelatin, waste products etc. Consequently, these products cannot be digested by the human body and therefore cannot be assimilated. Moreover, they do not have a synergism due to being industrial-made and thus cannot find their way out of the body and thus get lodged in the tissues of the body causing disease or enhancing present diseases.”[1]

Ingredients that actually originate from natural foods (vegetables, germs, herbs, fruits, fermented amino acids etc.) are extremely rare. The reason is that both plants from organic farming and their extraction process are relatively complex, and therefore costly. In this case, the extraction of the carrier plants is made with the aid of a biological solution of nutrients from other plants. These ingredients are in the active form. They are bioavailable and do not need metabolic transformations to be used by the body’s cells.

This is why we use the highest grade raw materials, and when it comes to quality, we leave our competition in the dust. Our #1 issue is creating awareness to the public; it is organic growth, slow and steady by comparing product quality and synergistic delivery in our formulations. When the customer is educated, they will never go back to the synthetic products they once believed in.

Why Does the Source of the Vitamins Matter?

Today, experts raise doubts about whether the synthetic form of vitamins, as found in supplements, is as effective as their natural analogues, for the following reasons:

  • Many vitamin supplements are formulated using precursors of vitamins, which need several metabolic transformations in the body to be active.
  • Synthetic is not bioidentical for cellular absorption; they first need to be converted once ingested through the use of enzymes which are already in low supply in most individuals.
  • Synthetic vitamins lack the transporters and co-factors associated with naturally-occurring vitamins because they have been isolated. Some experts even argue that vitamins in general are not isolated substances but, in fact, a synergistic complex of nutrients.
  • The worst case is that many vitamin precursors are artificial substances totally non-existent in nature. That is why, in some cases, taking an artificially isolated molecule (or vitamin) can be ineffective, and harmful to the body.
  • Synthetic vitamins are also poor in necessary oligo minerals (trace minerals) and must use the body’s own mineral reserves instead, which may lead to dangerous mineral deficiencies.

 

What Indicates that a Vitamin Is Synthetic?[2]

  • “dl” in the prefix
  • words that end with “ate” or “ide” in the list of ingredients
  • the vitamin is listed as the vitamin itself, such as “vitamin D”
  • label stating the product is “natural” but not “100% natural”
  • it has a high or unnatural potency

In 2014, Psychology Today stated that “prescription drugs are far more deadly than street drugs”[3], as they kill more Americans each year than all illegal drugs combined. Natural alternatives would be the best solution, as they could address these issues without creating drug-like dependency. But even these can be problematic as quality standards in the industry have plummeted. Although Health Canada licenses natural products, no sourcing or manufacturing parameters are given. Manufacturers are quick to produce the product, and may never be questioned about where the product comes from, or what scientific studies are used to back their exaggerated claims of “miraculous, fast relief.” In this sense, NPN licensing creates empty hope for those who are suffering and seeking natural relief.

This is why sourcing is so important. Many raw material suppliers have no qualms in throwing together some cheap, questionably sourced raw material for a little business. The resulting products can be manufactured quickly and sold to hopeful customers for next to nothing. When the customer begins taking the product, though, the results (or lack of them) will quickly reveal whether that person has chosen well, or become another victim of a shortcut product.

Please take a moment to reflect upon the origin of the natural health industry; that was the time when the word “natural” had a completely different understanding than it has today. Health stores smelled different and looked different—they were meant to, because of their vigilance to stand apart from all things deemed unnatural. Remember, this was before GMO was even an issue.  Evolution gives way to change, but sometimes the change is a far cry from its origin. Choices were made with direction and planning, the choices reshaped our industry, what used to be natural has become synthetic and it was done in the name of health. Especially in the mega doses so often recommended.

Life Choice products are completely unique in the marketplace and for solid reasons: they are real food supplements. Our Next Generation Super Multivitamin Complex is a completely vegetarian, non-GMO, organic plant-based vitamin complex derived from spirulina, shiitake mushrooms, acerola berries, palm fruit, legumes, in a base of spinach, ginger, turmeric, blue berries. It has the purest natural form of Vitamin E derived from sustainable palm fruit rich in tocotrienols, appealing to both vegetarians and vegans.

The plant based vitamins are in their active state for cellular absorption without the necessity of first converting within the body as synthetic B’s. Next Generation Super Multivitamin Complex is your best protection against elevated levels of the amino acid homocysteine—in excess it can increase your risk of mood disorders, poor mental performance, and mental illness such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Additional Reading:

Video:

References:

[1] Nikolić, Goran et al. 2015.

[2] Myers, Cheryl Grace. n.a.

[3] Bonn, Scott A. Ph.D. 2014.