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I was just reading a few of your posts re: people taking isolated vitamins.
I have been taking a B-Complex vitamin tablet, magnesium & calcium tablet, Vitamin C, folic acid, lecithin, etc.
I thought this was the way to take vitamins since the health food stores all sell them in this form.
But you are saying that they should not be taken this way...that someone should only take vitamins in a WHOLE FOOD supplement form?
I want to get this straight...are you saying that it is not a good idea to walk into a store, such as GNC, and buy bottles of mag/calcium, B-Complex, Vitamin C, etc., and take them in that form? Exactly what is a WHOLE FOOD form? Also, is that true then also for amino acids and other supplements...that they shouldn't be taken unless in a whole food form? (By whole food form do you mean that someone should get their vitamins from EATING them via foods rather than taking them from a bottle?) IF so, wouldn't it be impossible for many people to get the amount they need without a supplement...for example, if you needed a significant amount of B-12, vitamin C, mag/calcium, etc., wouldn't you take a supplement in order to obtain the needed nutrient (in addition to eating healthy)? Thanks!
In Reply to: Helping You....need your help posted by Mike on December 01, 2002 at 02:29:08:
My feelings are, unless you KNOW what you need, you should stick MOSTLY to whole food supplements. Whole food supplements are basically foods that have been concentrated into powder which can be mixed with water. For example, it could take up to 30 pounds of vegetables to produce one bottle of a food supplement. This means that the nutrients in the supplement will be more than you could get from food, thus solving that problem. The body picks and chooses what nutrients it needs because the nutrients have all of their natural co-factors. The body is designed to recognize these co-factors which makes it easier for the body to handle them. When the body is handed a synthetic vitamin with no co-factors, it is treated like a drug in the body and has profound effects on every function of your body. So, in a sense, taking isolated nutrients is like taking drugs. Now, of course, most isolated supplements will not cause the kind of damage that drugs will cause but they can upset your body chemistry if you take the wrong amounts and in the wrong combinations for your particular body.
Isolated supplements - vitamin c, folic acid, amino acids,...these supplements definitely have a place in our lives. However, these should be used on a short-term basis for the following reasons:
1. To fix a deficiency or excess of a particular nutrient
2. To affect a particular biochemical pathway in the body that can have profound effects on many bodily functions
3. To counteract the effects of stress, catching the flu or getting a cold, or in alleviatin specific symptoms while the cause is being dealt with.
For example, if you have trouble sleeping or suffer from osteoporosis, you would want to take extra calcium/magnesium but the balance, the form, and timing would depend on your body chemistry and how you metabolize nutrients. This is called Biochemical individuality and can be tested through a process called Metabolic Typing.
So, feel free to take your isolated nutrients but remember, do you really know how much your body needs or what form to take? If you are going to work with a nutritionist or nutritionally-oriented physician, he/she can test you in order to discover what isolated nutrients would be helpful for your particular situation. I hope that clears things up
-HY
In Reply to: Re: Helping You....need your help posted by Helping You on December 01, 2002 at 13:05:12:
(nmi)
In Reply to: Re: Helping You....need your help posted by Helping You on December 01, 2002 at 13:05:12:
I appreciate your comments, HY, and agree with what you say, in theory, but the clincher is finding a nutritionally-oriented physician or even just a plain nutritionist (the few I've consulted with turned out to be dietitions didn't know a heck of a lot) and the doctors are, if possible, even worse - most don't even have a clue what alpha lipoic acid is, much less anything else that is non-drug.
Can a person get metabolic typing done on their own, without having to go through a doctor?
Many thanks.
In Reply to: Re: Helping You....need your help posted by DianeAC on December 01, 2002 at 18:38:35:
The very point you are bringing up is EXACTLY why I recommend whole food supplements to people. It's difficult to find someone that knows how to properly test for imbalances, deficiencies, excesses, ect.
Metabolic typing is best done through the help of a few different tests: questionaire, oral temperature, saliva pH test, urine pH test, blood type, glucose tolerance test, and a hair analysis. This gives a more complete picture and can accurately determine metabolic type. Most "home" methods for determining metabolic type only include a questionaire. This can give some clues but certainly not the complete picture. Complete metabolic testing is available at www.crohns.net and from healthexcell.com
-HY
In Reply to: Re: Helping You....need your help posted by Helping You on December 01, 2002 at 18:43:32:
Hi,
Great questions and answers.
I tried www.crohns.net and couldn't find anything about metabolic typing, but hey, I'm not a wiz at the internet.
I also tried healthexcell.com and got an error message. Did anybody have better luck?
It seems that there should be supplements considered "adaptogens" -- like siberian ginseng, for example. It is supposed to balance the hormonal system regardless of what the imbalance is. Hard to go wrong.
I guess that is what the whole foods supplements do, right? I appreciate HY's perspective and agree totally. But if you're really needing a lot of just one thing as a kind of remedial cure for a particular problem, probably you wouldn't be able to get enough from the whole foods supplements?
I wish there was a way to make knowing what to take, how much and for how long, safe, natural, and simple.
Best wishes,
Happygal
In Reply to: Re: Helping You....need your help posted by Happygal on December 01, 2002 at 20:18:38:
In Reply to: That's http://www.healthexcel.com/ posted by Roy on December 01, 2002 at 21:16:14:
Thanks, Roy.
The website and dietary approach looks very interesting. How does it differ from what Bob McFerran wrote about or is it the same?
I'll try to get the book via Interlibrary loan. It's $36 at Amazon!
Best wishes,
Happygal
In Reply to: Re: That's http://www.healthexcel.com/ posted by Happygal on December 01, 2002 at 21:49:29:
Hi Happygal. (butting in...) I did this program 4 years ago. It's an ambitious compilation of the best of the gamut of metabolic typing theorists from Roger Williams, MD and on forward to William Donald Kelley, Rudolf Wiley, Dr. Abravanel, Adamo's ER4YT and others. (does not encompass Ayurvedic or TCM however).
Food recommendations fall along the same continuum as defined by Robert McFerran (Hunter/Gatherer at one extreme, Agriculturalist at the other) but the terminology is different, and the way of arriving there is different also (quite a bit more complex). Where you appear on that continuum correlates, bottom line, with the tendency of your venous blood pH to be acid or alkaline (hundredths of a degree above or below the tight homeostasis at 7.46 that the body tries to maintain). BUT with Healthexcel there's an additional wrinkle to this - certain food elements which alkalize the blood in one metabolic type acidify it in another! Therefore we can throw our "alkalizing foods" and "acidifying foods" lists out the window - since this property depends on the metabolic type. I'm underqualified to evaluate that aspect objectively but they seem to have quite a bit of empirical evidence to back it up. (It is discussed in some depth on the website.) There's another metabolic typing theorist working in collaboration with Healthexcel, Dr. Harold Kristal whose work uses the same/similar theory. Hmm. I see that his site has expanded quite a bit.
How did I do with it? Quite well for 5 months but I claim extenuating circumstances - not proper testing beyond that, due to stresses I allowed to get the better of me where I basically "dropped out" of healthy living for a couple of years.(hard to explain) and came crawling back. So I guess I'm not the ultimate testimonial or anything, but just felt like sharing some things about it FYI. I followed the food program and found it quite suitable for me. It was an improvement on "The Zone" which I had been following before that with limited success, but which was still better than the screwed up vegetarian diet I had been doing previous to THAT. Anyway, Healthexcel provided extensive supplement recommendations too, but I did not follow them except in a very basic way, because of cost. They told me if you have to choose, definitely do the FOOD recommendations as your #1 priority, and add the supplements as you are able. (There is a basic, intermediate, and comprehensive supplement program.) Every few months they re-test to see where you are since often the supplement recommendations must be revised as you come more into balance. There is also a food sensitivity/elimination test and program (ALCAT) which I did not follow for long - much too complicated (IMO). They also have a variety of cleanses, lots of literature. Very educational. (To me, the book oversimplifies what they actually have to offer, but you can still get a lot out of it.)
Gosh, this was probably too much information. Just taking advantage of some rare verbal lucidity! Hope it helps.
In Reply to: Re: That's http://www.healthexcel.com/ posted by Jan S. on December 02, 2002 at 04:43:01:
Hi Jan S.,
Thanks for sharing your experience with the diet. It sounds like their whole system is complicated (and expensive) but that there is some truth to it. I will see if I can get a look at the book.
Somewhere in the archives it says that as we practice serious wellness, we can change metabolic types. Gee, who can afford to keep doing testing to figure this stuff out?
Best wishes,
Happygal
In Reply to: Re: That's http://www.healthexcel.com/ posted by Happygal on December 02, 2002 at 05:21:24:
Hi Happygal,
You're welcome. Things like this appeal to me (perhaps not entirely rational, but....)
I REALLY need to get down to basics with wellness however, the way you are (thank YOU for sharing what you do!), turn the computer off & stop being such an information pack-rat. (can't help it sometimes!)
Nonetheless I think there is a lot to this. Whether they've got it all down though; surely not. And there is little in the way of objective evaluation (studies) available; you cannot get that from them! (as of when I last tried) My counselor was 10 years in complete remission from cancer which she credits to the program, so that says a thing or two, but then this is not an objective criterion either.
There's something about "readiness" in healing too. You see a person get their full weight behind selling a certain food program/supplement program which *just so happened* to be there when that person came along with their burning desire to get well. Lucky health programs to have such powerful advocates working for them!
So, there are many angles to this.
Well, to sleep perchance to dream.
In Reply to: Helping You....need your help posted by Mike on December 01, 2002 at 02:29:08:
NMI
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