Developing Your Personal Nutrient Plan :: Holistic Healing

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Developing Your Personal Nutrient Plan
by author Parris M. Kidd, PhD

Clinical and biochemical research has proven that to thrive in the modern world, we need dietary supplements. Decades ago, the first vitamin researchers thought that vitamins were only needed by the body in small quantities and that the absence of an obvious deficiency state meant everything was okay. So, for example, if our teeth weren’t falling out, we didn’t need to add vitamin C to our diet. Since then, researchers at all academic centres–many starting out as skeptics–have reached a consensus that taking nutrient concentrates over and beyond what we get from our foods helps us to: (1) maintain good health, especially because modern foods are not as nutritious as they once were; (2) lower our risk of developing disease; (3) slow progression of an established disease; and (4) improve quality of life for the elderly and likely help prolong lifespan. A whole new paradigm has emerged by which we all understand that supplementing our daily diet with clinically proven nutrients (sometimes called nutraceuticals) is a kind of nutritional insurance policy.

Each of us would do well to become more educated about our body and then develop a personalized vitamin-mineral program to suit. At the minimum, we must find (a) an excellent multivitamin/mineral supplement, (b) a potent essential fatty acid supplement, and (c) extra antioxidant vitamins. After that we can scout for supplements to give targeted support for whichever of our organ systems are weak. This approach is scientifically sensible, financially affordable and distinct from the “magic bullet” and other faddish approaches sometimes popularized by people wanting to make a quick buck.

The Multivitamin/Mineral: Cornerstone of a Personal Program

The first step in your personal vitamin program is ensuring that you receive generous daily allowances of those nutrients proven essential to the body’s everyday needs. The product you choose should provide vitamins A, all the Bs, C, D, E and K; folate, biotin, and choline. It should have the essential minerals magnesium, calcium, zinc, copper, selenium, silicon, iodine, manganese, molybdenum, boron and chromium. The potencies of these should be at least 100 per cent of the daily values (DVs). The DVs seen on dietary supplement product labels are the old RDAs (recommended dietary allowances) recalculated on the basis of each 2,000-calorie intake of food per day. Unfortunately, our foods (even when organic) fail to supply sufficient amounts of these essential nutrients to stave off the higher risk of disease and the intensified stress of modern living.

Bad news: popular "one-a-day" products don’t measure up to these minimum proven requirements. It’s simply impossible to pack enough into just one capsule. Generally, three to six “one-a-day” capsules are needed. Liquid products can be useful but taste can be a challenge. Least useful are tablets, which often don’t dissolve properly after they’re swallowed and so fail to make their nutrients available.

Concerning pricing, generally you get what you pay for. Most of the cheapest products omit some essentials (silicon, for example) or are grossly inadequate in others (vitamin B₁₂, commonly). It’s important to carefully read the ingredients label. Many products carry additives that are not essential to their action and have unpleasant side-effects.

Some people complain that they can’t take vitamins. But reputable vitamin raw materials are identical to the substances as they exist in the body. These people are often reacting to substances such as sucrose (sugar) added for taste, to synthetic dyes or other artificial colourants, to weird coating agents, or to other miscellaneous agents of unproven safety such as magnesium aluminum silicate or titanium dioxide. Clean, pure, quality supplements don’t have these additives, which are not needed for the product to be taken, absorbed and give benefit.

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Dr. Parris Kidd is an internationally recognized nutrition educator who has written and lectured since 1984 on every category of dietary supplement for practically every health application. In his 1990 book, Living with the AIDS Virus, he advocated antioxidants, phospholipids and other nutrients for HIV/AIDS management. Many of his groundbreaking articles and in-depth scientific reviews of integrated medicine are available online.

Source: alive #250, August 2003

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