The Non-Holisitic Supplement Industry
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