Is your multi making you sick?

If multivitamins are so good for us, why do so many make us feel sick?

For years, nutritional experts like Phyllis Balch, author of the best selling Prescription for Nutritional Healing, have been preaching the importance of the added nutrition a daily multi-vitamin provides.  In fact, after years of nay saying, even the American Medical Association now agrees that the average American should take a multi-vitamin.

So if everyone agrees a multi-vitamin is so good for us…why do so many feel sick to their stomach when they take them? Doesn’t it seem strange that something as seemingly beneficial as a multi-vitamin can make you feel worse than if you hadn’t taken it? How about absorption—how well can your body use something that makes you feel sick?

As strange as it sounds, the fact remains: every day many Americans start their day with a cup of coffee, a multi-vitamin and shortly after that… an   upset   stomach and nausea. Making matters  worse, we now know that most multi-vitamins   use nutrients   that   are not in a form easily utilized by the body. It doesn’t matter if it’s Centrum, One-A-Day or just about any other brand, if you’re not careful, your   multi-vitamin could leave you with an upset stomach and very little benefit to show for it.

Why does this happen? The answer is simple—a regular multi-vitamin is not food and once again it seems we have “shortchanged” the wisdom of Mother Nature.  Within whole foods, vitamins and minerals are delivered as part of a complex mixture of synergistic plant chemicals, enzymes, cofactors and macronutrients. It is only within the last few decades that the form of nutrients found in most conventional nutritional supplements have been introduced to the body. Basically in terms of our history, these compounds are relatively foreign to the body, and their overall effect is still largely unknown. On the other hand, nutrients from living organisms and whole foods have been nourishing humans throughout our history.

So what are these mystery forms used by the makers of Centrum and other conventional brands? They’re called USP (United States Pharmacopoeia) vitamins and minerals. According to nutritional experts, these supplements bear little resemblance to the nutrients obtained from whole foods. Instead, the production of USPs follows a pharmaceutical industry inspired approach to nutrition, which is to isolate and reduce a nutrient to its most simple form. USPs are synthesized and delivered as single molecules without any of the synergistic nutrients and cofactors. You can see this on your multi-vitamin when you see the phrase “Vitamin C (as ascorbic acid).” Vitamin C is NOT simply ascorbic acid, but the United States Pharmacopoeia essentially says it is! Isolating nutrients and delivering them in this unnatural way changes the body’s response to them and according to research reduces the body’s ability to utilize them.

For example, scientists have found it difficult to pinpoint why eating foods rich in vitamin E offers cardiovascular protection, but supplementing with the isolated USP form (called d-alpha tocopherol) does not always show the same consistent protective role.

Fortunately, there is a solution for individuals who want the benefits of a multi-vitamin but prefer the known safety and superior effectiveness of vitamins and minerals from living sources.  They are called whole food vitamins. Through a patented processes, isolated USP vitamins are completely bio-transformed into living whole-food complexes that are delivered with millions of synergistic cofactors. The process is like turning milk into yogurt, or grapes into red wine. In fact, according to recent research conducted at the University of Scranton, whole food nutrients are more readily absorbed and are significantly more biologically active than their isolated USP counterparts. In other words, pound for pound (or in this case milligram for milligram) whole food nutrients are heads and shoulders above the competition.

The bottom line—I highly recommend whole food vitamins.  A couple very good brands to choose from include New Chapter and our Vital Choice brand.  (Editor’s note – That’s right – I’m proud to announce that as of April 2009, we now offer an organic whole food multivitamin for men and women in our very own line!  As you may have guessed I’m quite excited about this.)   In addition to just about everyone here at Vital Choice, I have used whole food multi-vitamins for years.  I feel good knowing that I’m taking a product proven to offer better nutrient utilization than any other regular multi-vitamin available.  And because these nutrients are essentially food, you can take them on an empty stomach without worrying about decreasing the effectiveness or getting an upset stomach.

Please note – These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional.