OVER 40 SUPPLEMENTS

“To supplement or not to supplement?”

That is the question.

It would of course be ideal to be able to obtain all the nutrition we need right from our foods, especially considering we are putting such a focus on WHOLE foods.

Foods that are pre-packaged, often contain refined flours, sugars, additives, preservatives, flavor-enhancers, colors, oils, etc.  These pre-packaged food are often essentially whole foods that have been stripped of nutritional value, filling our stomachs but not giving us what our bodies need to survive and thrive.

Think about that.

We eat, but do not receive the needed nutrition.

Perhaps most of the western world is starving, ironically from eating, and they don’t even know it?

Perhaps the agricultural technologies of our day are such that soils are being depleted of needed nutrients (ever study what is in soil?  A worthy research project), whereby the plants cannot take up the nutrients/minerals they need to grow into the nutritional powerhouses they used to?

Hence the need to eat more and more food to try to obtain that desperately needed nutrition?  And in that process are we taking in more and more sugars, or foods that convert to sugars (flours, pastas, grains, breads, etc) in an effort to find that nutrition, but that in turn leads to our highest ever obesity levels?

It is a viable theory in my book.

It DOES solve at least part of the riddle to many people’s weight/fat issues.  But also does not answer everyone’s over-weight issues.

What this line of thought definitely does do, is force us to analyze our foods and their nutritional content, and determine if we are indeed getting what we need to survive and thrive, or not.

The “USRDA %” Daily Values

The Daily Values we all see listed on our food ingredient levels are understood to be bare-bones survival levels of nutrients.  Keep that in mind when you read the food labels.   I have a video as part of this program that will demonstrate how I read labels with an entire page devoted to the details.  

To continue, if we look at the USRDA for Vitamin C alone, for a 44 year old male, it is a mere 90mg at the time of this writing.  These values can and do change over time, both based on new research and/or supposed needs of the aging body.  But if one does any research at all on vitamin C, what it does and how it works in the body, and the fact that it is water-soluble, essentially having it used up and exiting the body quickly since us humans cannot make our own (many animals can make their own C), we’re talking about taking in just enough vitamin C to prevent symptoms of outright scurvy it seems.  Extremely low “Recommended Allowances.”

And indeed, some researchers speculate that some illness and disease symptoms people are having, may be related to lack of adequate vitamin C in some cases.  It’s not too far a stretch when we note how some people eat, despite the fact that vitamin C is relatively abundant in many foods (abundant enough to fulfill survival needs).  Vitamin D deficiencies are an even better example, and will be covered more below.

Some foods in nature such as camu provide WAY beyond survival amounts of vitamin C, even in very small servings of the food.

So this brings another point we must pay attention to:

The source and quality/state of the vitamin itself.

Continuing to use vitamin C as an example, the concensus is that the naturally occurring vitamin C available to us in camu, amla, or other fruits and vegetables is going to be the source the body will recognize and best understand and utilize.  Although the amount of vitamin C may not be huge in a food, the absorption should be such that the benefits derived from that form of C will be greatly enhanced, since it’s in its natural form. 

The reason for this could relate to other components within the food that work synergistically to help the body best make use of the vitamin; like pytochemicals and other potential micronutrients that naturally aid in the body’s ability to uptake the vitamins from the foods.  I personally believe it goes even deeper, into parts of the food that science has not yet quite discovered, but that could hold great importance to our well-being.

In contrast, one can go to the health store and buy a few different kinds of vitamin C that are made in a lab.  Forms such as ascorbic acid, sodium ascorbate and calcium ascorbate.  Many times these kinds of vitamins are added to pre-packaged foods, and will claim through the amounts added that they are satisfying the daily need of that vitamin…when in fact, the very form of that vitamin may not only not be utilized by the body as effectively, but it may EVEN be…(yikes)…detrimental.

With vitamin C for example, most studies done with using it medicinally will reference the use of ascorbic acid or sodium ascorbate.  Both are readily available at your health food store.  However, it’s important to consider the differences in using these forms of C for your own supplemental or medicinal purposes.  The former, ascorbic acid, is not a strong acid but is strong enough that one needs to be conscious of tooth enamel concerns when taking it as a powder in water, the way most studies utilize it.  And it is considered to be the most effective form of C for medicinal use.

Sodium ascorbate on the other hand, as the name suggests, uses sodium to buffer the C from its ascorbic acid state, thereby giving us a dose of sodium each time we take it but with less acidity.  Those with hypertension, etc issues then of course need to be very conscious of their intake of this form of C.

Then we have the calcium ascorbate, again a buffered C, this time using calcium as the buffering mineral.  In the recent past, supplemental calcium was considered to be a good thing.

But most alternative researchers now know this is not necessarily so, some speculating it can be quite detrimental (and I agree).  Due to magnesium imbalances (magnesium and calcium are intimately intertwined) and the controversial nanobacterial and other pathogenic concerns whereby the bug, such as bacteria, uses calcium to protect itself from the immune system and antibiotics, adding calcium to the body in forms that are not naturally occurring (such as from leafy greens), can be problematic.  I share this concern a great deal, and am in good company, Dr. Thomas Levy, an expert on vitamin C, being another.

“Enriched With” Labeling

So whenever I see foods that are “enriched,” I note the FORM of vitamins and minerals they are adding to the product to earn that label.  They could be of very low quality and cheap, to maintain profit margins.  Then note the daily value percentages they are claiming to offer through this enrichment, and what kinds of vitamins and minerals are being used to accomplish that labeling.  If the quality of the vitamin is low, and not highly bioavailable to the body, the percentage of the daily value the label claims to be meeting may not be all that accurate.

Of late, my biggest concern has been the continued adding of calcium, all forms of which I’m against without exception.  In general, seeing the word “Enriched” on any food label is for me a warning sign, due to the low quality of the enrichment referenced above.  But worse, because too many food producers are still stuck in the dark ages about adding supplemental calcium (which just astounds me, while body-wide organ and joint calcification continues to skyrocket for the population, which may or may not be due to this “enrichment”).  I feel we should be getting our calcium specifically only from diet, and I feel the same about vitamin C, preferring to keep supplemental C for therapeutic use only (I would consider it for cancer, for instance).  With the vitamins coming to us from our whole food preferably organic-or-better diet, our body can then decide what to use, and what to discard, with its own innate intelligence.

Vitamin D is another that most of us have been hearing a lot more about, and is a great example of wide-spread deficiency, and one of the several exceptions to my whole-food-for-nutrition rules.  Despite the greater media coverage of this fat-soluble vitamin, it still isn’t being discussed nearly as much as it should be, especially since huge portions of the western world live in areas where the sun gives only so much opportunity to help us produce vitamin D in our bodies.

Since most of us are either indoors working often, or are not walking around outside naked much, it is being found that gargantuan portions of humanity are living in near-vitamin D deficiency chronically, since the body’s most natural means of making vitamin D is via sun exposure.  This can impact people in a multitude of ways, including bone degeneration, low energy and weight gain, hormonal issues, depression, sometimes severely so.  

I was one such person who was low in vitamin D for much of my life, and did not know it.  What doctors choose to do instead of testing for D levels and supplementing (since it can be hard to get vitamin D naturally from the diet) is to plop people on anti-depressants.

And I will refrain…for now…on discussing that very unpleasant topic, since I’m in a pretty good mood today.

(Thanks to being outside in the sun for almost 45 minutes bare-nekkid).

😉

Vitamin D is yet another great example of quality and source; it has been determined (search Dr. Holick for more info) that the Vitamin D3 supplement is superior to that of D2.  Note how often D2 is used to enrich foods, claiming it is giving us a certain percentage of that daily allowance of D.  Is it really reaching that daily allowance, if research now shows that D2 is such an inferior form of D to begin with? 

Again, another example of the “enriched” issue I reference above.

(If you’re beginning to feel like the food industry is kinda’ clueless when it comes to health and nutrition, you wouldn’t be alone in that thought.  I’ll try to refrain from speculating about how much they actually do know…but while choosing instead to maintain the status quo…)

For decades now, multi-vitamins have been available on the market, and have been almost universally of very poor quality.  The only thing that matters when it comes to vitamins and minerals is how well the body recognizes them, and is able to make use of them.  From there, if the body IS able to make use of the vitamin, HOW is it really doing so?  Is it at the expense of other micronutrients it is “robbing” from one part of the body in order to make the supplement work in another part of the body?

I therefore try to get most of my nutrition from my food, or else from food-based supplements, the latter of which I have found benefit from.  But I also definitely have exceptions to this I’ll expand on below, and use these exceptions due to the safety and results I have experienced.  I will take specific isolated nutrients on a regular basis, often times cycling them for many days on, and several days off.  I have found that being past 40, with a good understanding of what my body seems to want and need most based on circumstances, that this is the most productive way to go about obtaining the nutrition that I need for optimal energy, health and performance.

My vitamin intake is largely from vegetable and green sources, such as leafy greens either chewed or put in smoothies that I “chew” or from green juicing.

My mineral intake is also from those sources as well as whole fruits. 

Then when it comes to isolated nutrients such as minerals for example, for specific use, new and trusted technologies have been extremely beneficial with tangible results.  Great examples of this are the topical magnesium, nascent iodine, and colloidal silver, isolated minerals that have unquestionably been invaluable allies at times when there was a need that I wasn’t even aware existed until that need was filled.

And that is usually the case with nutrition; I found through trial and error that various macro and micro nutrients, BOTH through diet change and supplementation, brought me repeatedly out of conditions of poorer health and well-being, into states of wellness.

MY LIST

Once we’re over 40, if we are not with certainty getting the nutrition in that we need on a daily basis, everything else becomes an on-going uphill battle.  Aging has enough challenges; why make things any harder if we have very safe and as-close-to-natural-as-possible alternatives that can enhance our lives; at times, GREATLY enhance our lives.

Everyone is different, everyone is going to have different advantages or deficiencies based on their diet and activity levels, and current state of health.  For many who are more active and exercising readily, the need for more nutrition becomes an important part of maintaining our vigor.  There is no question that certain nutrients are used up much faster in those who exercise or engage in other forms of strenuous activity.  Research magnesium alone to discover the relationship between magnesium, muscles and exercise to understand quickly how true this is.

The below covers my favorites.  If I were to explore this for the first time, I would do so slowly and carefully, and would seek guidance from a nutritionist and/or a favorite doctor of my choice:

–Probiotics…these days without the prebiotic additives
–Vitamin D3 (Update for the 2020’s: I do not take more than 800 units in one day if I’m supplementing instead of sun.  I am also using a whole-food multi which gives me a naturally occurring vitamin D)
–Ubiquinol (a reduced form of CoQ10 for those over 25 or 30; a must for statin users)
–Topical Magnesium (Magnesium chloride)
–Colloidal/Cellular/Ionic Silver with Zeolite (The Total Body Detox combo product)
–Nascent Iodine (See picture ad to the right for nascent iodine)
–Zinc, esp for men, but applicable to women
–Raw Whey Protein (Picture to the right of page; proven to both maintain as well as build muscle)
–Alternative Vegetarian/Vegan protein (See picture to right of page)
–Herbal Aloe Force
–camu powder
–maca powder

The above are the supplements I use very regularly, several of which I cycle.  More are being looked into that specifically cater to aging, such as those relating to natural stem cell production, telomere lengthening, etc.  

The below are special-use supplements, just for times when I believe I need them or for injury, recuperation.  Any time I am ill or injured, I know my body needs all the help it can get:

-Glutamine (for injury)
–Leucine (for injury)
–Creatine (for injury; have not used it since the 90’s, but would consider it if I am ever injured again)
–Whole food B spectrum
–Whole food E spectrum with selenium
–Vitamin C in ascorbic acid form
–MSM
–Vitamin B12 (Methyl version)

Remember that various “side effects” can be possible with any supplementation.  The more educated we are, the better.  Although there are a lot of scares on the Internet regarding certain supplements, look for reputable sites or trusted sources to give you their opinion, and take it from there.  Sites often have search engines built into them that allow you to search by subject.  I like to hear the opinions of both government agencies, as well as alternative doctors and practitioners, with emphasis on the latter simply because I’ve had more positive experiences with what I have learned from them over what the establishment on the whole promotes.  There IS value with government sources; but I’ve learned, largely through my study of law, how to discern what the findings are fairly accurately, and anecdotal experience from people I know personally holds even more value to me on the whole.

So I’ve researched every supplement I take, and am also conscious of current conditions that I deal with that may be affected, and act accordingly; in almost every incidence with usually very slow and gradual use of a supplement, the exception being the whole food varieties, whereby we should be able to eat reasonably large amounts having our bodies treat it merely as a food, I’ve had mostly positive experiences.  There have been exceptions, and I learned the hard way to avoid those I had problems with.  Many of those same supplements served other people very well however, and I will even report on those as well (again, the anecdotal experience holding plenty of value).  I’m a very active person in this field of nutrition and alternative options, so I speak with a great many in this arena, and very often.

I always look for what applications and use I have for the supplements I take.  Do I really have use and/or need?  And again, I try to keep them to a minimum.  I have used probably hundreds over the course of my lifetime.  A great many of them are just crap.  But many hold a lot of potential value, depending on the individuals circumstances and need.  And the companies making them nowadays know they have to offer quality, and products that make a difference.  The ones I listed above *tend* to be universally helpful, at least helpful to a lot of people, the majority of the time.  Again, that does NOT mean they will be helpful to you.  But the number of people who tend to benefit is so large…and I have benefitted from them myself so much…that every over-40-er needs to be aware of what’s available.

Much more on this topic to come, with focuses on each kind of supplement.

Love, Happiness, Health and Peace……….Tim

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