Nutritional Supplements

Nutritional Supplements Nutritional supplements include vitamins, trace mineral phytonutrients and other plant and animal extracts packaged in an easily accessible and convenient form. They can be regarded as nature’s pharmacy.

Let us look at the history of nutritional supplements, which for some conventional medicine practitioners are regarded as unnecessary or frankly dangerous. The medicine men of early cultures were Physician, pharmacist and priest rolled into  one individual and used a combination of plants, animals, minerals, and faith to treat and cure disease. With time knowledge grew, healers became more proficient in their disciplines and more specialized. They attained more adept knowledge in their specialties leading to a progressive reduction in their ability to treat the whole individual. Penicillin was discovered in early 20th century, not in a lab but from a natural source, mold. Soon a surge in manufactured medicine overshadowed natural and herbal products. These natural products were however no less effective but “new and improved” cannot be applied to them. By 1960 use of designed and manufactured drugs controlled the prescription market in the US. Many clinicians in Europe however continued to use homeopathy and herbal medicine but not in the US until recently.

Yes we do need nutritional supplement unless, you are independently wealthy, live at the top of some pristine hill with it’s own  river with ,well stocked wild fish, have your own organic garden, where every plant food source is grown, vegetables, fruits, nuts, where you rotate your your plants and leave the ground fallow for 7yrs after each harvest, breed your own grass fed, no antibiotic or hormone laden cows, and raise free range poultry fed organic grains, able and happy to eat organ meet from these sources, and drink naturally pure water.

Unfortunately, for the vast majority of us, our food sources are nutrient deficient because of over farming, and fertilizers and insecticides that may be toxic to humans are used to push production, vegetables and fruits are harvested before they are ready and shipped thousands of miles from source to market thus depleting the almost non existent nutrients in these items. Excessive refinement of these products means that instead of providing nutrients the body uses it store of nutrients to metabolize the empty calories. This is the case with diets high in refined carbohydrates as found in white bread, doughnut to name a few.

Yes we do need nutritional supplements. An analysis of the best scientific studies on the health benefits of supplements done over a period of 10 years, by the Council of Responsible Nutrition revealed that consistently taking nutritional supplements for a long period of time provides the strongest health benefit for people in all ages. It reduced Neural tube birth defects by 70%, reduced  health care expenditure, by delaying the onset of cardiovascular disease, stroke and hip fracture, by $89 billion. and reduced sick days in the elderly by 50%.
MODE OF ACTION OF NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS.

Some nutritional supplements interact with receptors and activate their gene regulatory networks others affect cell signaling or act asantioxidants in redox reactions , cofactors in biochemical reactions or are conjugated to toxic molecules in the detoxification process.
Caution: beware of the quality of your nutritional supplements because cheap can be very expensive.