All vitamins are not created equal

There has been a lot of focus lately on vitamins, supplements and natural therapies.  You can’t turn the tv on without seeing ads for one vitamin company or another, and the vitamin section at the supermarket seems to get bigger every month.

With everyone saying their vitamins are the ‘best’ – how do you make a choice?  Who do you believe?  And perhaps more importantly, how do you know what to take?  Do we even really need them?  Surely, with a healthy diet, we get all the vitamins we need.  Well, no.  That is not generally true.  Firstly, what most people lack, more than vitamins, is minerals – particularly zinc and magnesium.  These days, however, even with a healthy diet, you will likely find yourself deficient.  There are a few reasons for this:

1. Over-farming, chemicals and pollution. If the minerals are not present in the soil, they cannot be passed into our food.  So when food is grown in depleted soils, it will in turn, be depleted of minerals.
2. Many vitamins – like B and C – deplete very quickly once food is harvested. Since most of us are eating food that is grown a long way away, and stored in supermarket cold storage for longer and longer periods of time, the vitamins in our foods are not present in the same quantities as when they were first picked.  An argument for eating locally-sourced, but that is a conversation for another blog.
3. Chemicals – cleaning products, personal care products, pollution, not to mention alcohol and refined sugars all put a strain on our bodies.
4. Stress – low activity/high stress lifestyles create toxicity caused by stress hormones.

Something else to consider is that the Recommended Daily Allowance is just the minimum you require in order to avoid illness.  If you wish to maintain optimal health much higher levels are needed.

If we accept that it is likely that almost all of us require some form of additional supplementation to our diet, how do we go about choosing the right ones?

Not all vitamins and supplements offer the same quality and effectiveness.  There are three key aspects that are important in the production of effective supplements:

1. Quality Ingredients – rubbish in, rubbish out is true of the production of vitamins. The quality and strength of the ingredients is really important in producing good quality supplements.  This includes not only ensuring the ingredients and raw materials are fresh, but are sourced as locally to ensure they maintain their active constituents, and that they are free from pesticides and other pollutants such as heavy metals.
2. Quality production – this is important not only during production, but in post production quality control. Production techniques that minimise the use of heat, compaction and moisture will help ensure that ingredients maintain their integrity.
3. Strength – good quality supplements should have a good concentration of whatever it is you are taking them for. It is not cost efficient to buy cheap fish oil capsules if you need to take 8 a day to get the required dosage.  Not to mention the how unpleasant that would be!

Finally, it is important to get the right advice.  The range and combinations at the supermarket are at best confusing, and know what it is that YOU need is sometimes difficult.  This is where the Megagenics range of vitamins and supplements can help.

Metagenics is a range of practitioner-only vitamins and supplements.  The benefit of buying through a practitioner is that you can get qualified professional advice as to which supplements, and in what combination to take to best achieve your optimum health.  Not only are practitioners trained, but they are also able to access additional information provided by Metagenics, as well as access to the Metagenics Technical Support team of over 20 Doctors, Naturopaths and Research Scientists.

Metagenics products are produced under the highest standards, using cutting edge technology to ensure the continued efficacy of active ingredients, and the quality of the finished product.

If you think your diet may be lacking in vitamins or minerals, call our Baulkham Hills Clinic on 9639 7337 to discuss what Metagenics can do to assist you in maintaining optimum health.