By George Mandler LDN LicAc
If you look at supplements today it is not much different to prescription drugs. You take this supplement for that ailment. It is a reductionist theory where each part of the body is treated separately. If you have knee pain take this glucosamine, if you have a ‘heart condition’ take these fish oils, if you have a cold take Vitamin C. There is nothing ‘holistic’ or ‘natural’ about it.
Your knee pain may just be a symptom of poor diet or other inflammatory issues in the body and if that’s the case then glucosamine isn’t going to help!! In general fish oils can be a quite helpful for our typical American Diet high in Omega-6 fats, however if they are poor quality and rancid they can do more harm than good. Mega-dosing on Vitamin C may actually worsen a cold by reducing the inflammatory response and thereby inhibiting the first line of immune defense. Also if the Vitamin C is just the ascorbic acid molecule we have more issues since it doesn’t have any of the co-factors and if taken away from food it will actually act as a pro-oxidant increasing free-radical damage. (write me for the reference of a 1994 research article that proves this!)

We shouldn’t be using supplements to treat symptoms as they are advertised in GNC and so called ‘health’ magazines. I feel it is fine to take a general whole food complex supplement to round out the diet, but taking mega-doses of synthetic supplements to ‘treat’ a symptom may just be masking an underlying issue. A skilled practitioner will find the connection between the physical manifestations and prescribe supplements to correct the underlying imbalance. People shouldn’t be playing doctor, nor should workers at GNC or lay people that are in the multi-level marketing business of selling you supplements. (more on this in another article). See a qualified practitioner that works with whole food supplements and has the tools to assess you as an individual.

In Health,
George Mandler LDN LicAc

So many folks come to see me with a long list of supplements they are taking. We go through each supplement one by one to understand the reason why the person is taking it. The majority of cases have questionable reasoning based on ads in health magazines, ‘it is supposed to be good for…’, ‘this if for my heart’, ‘this is for my knee pain’, ‘this is for my cholesterol’ and on and on. Most of the time either the supplement will not do the person any good because it isn’t the right medicine for their condition or the supplement is questionably manufactured so even if it is the ‘right’ medicine it cannot be utilized properly by the body. For example, if a person complains of joint pain, but they also have IBS and eczema and are taking glucosamine for the joint pain then that is an example of the wrong medicine. This person has a lot of inflammation as is evident by the IBS and eczema, therefore the joint pain is probably the result of a faulty gut and poor protein and mineral digestion (as is the eczema). Taking the glucosamine will do little to the joints because the joints are just a symptom of a problem in the gut. The digestion is what needs to be addressed so this person taking capsules of highly concentrated substances will only further weaken digestion!

The other problem is more common - the product isn’t manufactured properly and it cannot be absorbed, or if it does get absorbed it isn’t bioavailable to the body. A typical example are mineral supplements. Most minerals in pills just end up becoming expensive feces. It is hard for the body to absorbed minerals in the majority of pills because they are bound incorrectly. Minerals in pill form need to be correctly chelated in order for them to pass through the intestinal wall and into the bloodstream. How do you know if they are correctly chelated? Unfortunately it is difficult to know just by looking at the bottle because many companies will use the term chelate, even though it isn’t a real chelate. So the bottom line is to know your manufacturer or to check out the company Albion which makes mineral chelates for several manufacturers (www.Albion.com). See if you supplement company is on this list.

Even if your company is on this list though, they still may not be the best supplements for you because they are synthetic isolated compounds. There is plenty of research old and new that point to a synergetic effect between nutrients that are only found in whole foods. Isolated vitamin E, vitamin A, beta-carotene, vitamin C has plenty of research to prove its detrimental effects. But used in a whole form these vitamins also have its proper co-factors for metabolism as well as other synergetic nutrients. Unfortunately our food supply is not nutritious as it was 60 ears ago (write me if you want the reference for this research) and because of our stressful lifestyle our requirements have increased. There are several whole food supplement companies out there to help us regain some of this lost nutrition and deal with our increased demands. If you want to take a good ‘multi’ I would suggest getting a whole food supplement source through your healthcare professional and the two that I use are Standard Process and Right Foods. I’ve yet to see any products on the shelves of Whole Foods or GNC that come close to the quality of these two companies. Using a whole food (the adjective, not the name of the store) product assures us that we aren’t using isolated compounds that can toss our body into further imbalance. Taking isolated synthetic supplements can cause a deficiency in other endogenous nutrients because the body needs to metabolize the unnaturally large quantity of isolated fractions.

However there are good products you can pick up retail and one of my favorite products at Whole Foods is called ProGreens by Nutricology. There are other fine whole food green products out there as well such as Green Synergy. But beware all these green products need to be manufactured properly, just because the label says it contains lots of vegetables and green grasses doesn’t say anything about quality.

No matter what supplement you purchase it is important to know the manufacturer. Either doing your own research or trusting your practitioner. Find out if the company has a ‘certificate of analysis’ and conducts a regular random inspection on its products. Inquire about the manufacturing process and if they have any literature about their procedures. Any reputable company will be able to provide this. And I believe most important to choose whole food based supplements to give your body balanced nutrition, no need for most people to mega-dose.

Allopathic prescribing of supplements

Taking supplements in this way is no different than taking prescription drugs. It is a reductionist theory where each part is treated separately. However there is a connection between the knee pain, heart issues, and eczema. A skilled practitioner will find the connection between the physical manifestations and prescribe supplements to correct the underlying imbalance.

Have you ever heard someone say, “oh I tried acupuncture, but it didn’t work”? What this person needs to understand is that there are thousands of Acupuncture flavors, and just like ice cream, you want to find the flavor that is right for you.

The under-informed person will dismiss ever considering acupuncture to help with their condition because they believe ‘if I had it once, I had it all’. That couldn’t be further from the truth because acupuncture is style and practitioner skill dependent. There are literally tens of thousands of styles of acupuncture. There are Chinese styles, Korean styles, Taiwanese styles, Japanese styles, German styles, French styles and a myriad of new more modern styles of acupuncture. Within each of the mentioned acupuncture styles, there are thousands of more styles. To say one practices Japanese acupuncture is like saying they speak European. There are many similarities, but also many more differences.

The level of training is also paramount. Unfortunately in many states some people can practice acupuncture after a weekend course, or not taking any courses at all! It is scary and I wouldn’t want to be treated by someone like this. When I lived in Colorado I received acupuncture from a chiropractor who had a couple of weekend acupuncture courses under his belt. A weekend or two does not make a quality practitioner! I didn’t know any better some 16 years ago and figured, hey how hard can it be to stick in some needles? Well the acupuncture didn’t do anything for me and that is because the chiropractor in this case didn’t have a clue how to treat with acupuncture! I feel this is much too common and an unfortunate circumstance as acupuncture is a fabulous healing tool when done by the proper hands. You wouldn’t hire some random carpenter or contractor to remodel your newly designed kitchen would you? Rather, you investigate and look for someone that is properly trained and capable and knows how to use the tools. But we assume too much about healthcare professionals and give our power away. Check their credentials, ask who they trained with and ask for references.

Fortunately, in Massachusetts there are good acupuncture laws in place. I can’t say the same thing about our neighbor to the south, Connecticut, where literally anyone can practice acupuncture. Chiropractor, MD, nurse, physical therapist, all with little quality training. It is a shame and a disservice to the art. My acupuncture school training was 3 years full time (42 weeks out of the year), so effectively a 4 year program of over 3000 hours. This is pretty much the case for most NCCAOM certified programs. I also currently apprentice with Master practitioner Kiiko Matsumoto Sensei and David Euler helping teach assist their acupuncture for Physicians course at Harvard Medical School. I feel the MDs coming out of the course gain a good understanding how to use ‘Kiiko style’ acupuncture and are quite effective. But many MDs in other areas are not properly trained. I would suggest getting acupuncture from a properly trained acupuncturist, but if you do receive acupuncture from an MD ask if they are part of the “American Medical Acupuncture Association.”

Acupuncture is a truly amazing healing modality. I have seen incredible results from post-stroke recovery, insomnia, digestive disorders, and especially anxiety and stress. Give yourself a few sessions to see if you get some benefit. If you don’t notice a difference after 3-4 sessions then perhaps you need to find another acupuncturist or it may not be the correct healing modality for you at this time. But do realize that there is a tremendous variation between acupuncturists, styles, bedside manner, and training. You just need to find out what is right for you.