Synthetic Supplement Sneakiness

Image by Steve Buissinne via Pixabay

​It took oh-so long to convince people that we were not getting enough vitamins and minerals from our food. And we weren’t. The food-growing industry had changed: What are now referred to as “conventional” foods, didn’t contain near the subtle nutrient value as foods grown as recently as thirty years ago – foods we now refer to as “organic”. ...

Taking supplements made up for the lack of nutrients (or was it really the burden of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers?) in conventional foods and benefited the health of millions. People became educated and the supplement industry flourished. Dietary supplementation became so popular and lucrative that the pharmaceutical industry wanted a piece of it. It is important to note here the job of the pharmaceuticals: to synthesize nature. They cannot trademark or patent Mother Nature, so they must synthesize it in order to make money and make stockholders happy. Currently, the majority of the major supplement companies are now owned by the pharmaceutical industry. Slowly and assuredly our natural vitamins are being replaced by synthetics. Look at your vitamin label: does it say d-tocopherol or dl-tocopherol or both for Vitamin E? D-tocopherol is natural. Dl-tocopherol is synthetic. Synthetics are cheap to make.

None of this meant anything to me until two things happened: I began to hear stories of people who had to stop taking multi-vitamins, because they had become “allergic” to them. Then, it happened to me. I was born with a compromised immune system. Until I discovered vitamins, I was getting sick too many times a year. After vitamins, there was a light at the end of my tunnel. I took them successfully for years, until I found out my vitamins were making me sick. This is when I put two-and-two together. I had already learned years ago that my body tends to act as a Geiger counter for all that is fake: As a young woman, I suffered violent reactions from “the pill’. Later, my physician and I discovered that I could not take synthetic hormones. This is just one example of many. But, these are the examples that allowed me to begin to understand that synthetic vitamins were not healthy. The liver, like the lungs, are not bottomless pits with which we can dump toxic waste. They are going to fill up eventually, and the fuller they get, the more overwhelmed they get, and the more our immune systems are going to be stressed and strained until we break down. It is usually not just one illness that gets us, but a myriad of chronic health problems – like those that are at epidemic proportions in the United States.

A potent example of a synthetic’s reaction in the body was an article from News Wire Services titled, “Fake flavor is cause of real illness.” In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a “killer butter” microwave popcorn flavoring agent was responsible for burning the eyes for years of all workers at the flavoring plant. Later it was learned that it was also “obliterating their lungs and would later be linked with three deaths and at least 200 serious illnesses.”

Wondering how I was going to explain my belief about synthetics, vitamin and otherwise, I was blessed to see an article come across my inbox titled, “Some Vitamin Supplements Increase Death Risk Say Researchers.” Complements of a Dutch-led study, reviewing 815 clinical trials on the effects of vitamin supplementation in humans, and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, I now have something that resembles reasonable proof. As www.medicalnewstoday.com nicely summarized:

“When looked at separately they found that Vitamin A increased death risk by 16 percent, beta carotene by 7 percent and Vitamin E by 4 percent. The results for Vitamin C were not so clear, but by looking at the best quality trials there was a suggestion that it increased death risk by 6 percent, either on its own or in combination with other supplements.”

That sounds a little scary until you read the important part:

“The researchers pointed out that the studies they examined only used synthetic supplements, and therefore their observations and conclusions do not apply to natural antioxidants such as those found in fruit and vegetables.”

In case I have not made myself clear: The human body not only can tell the difference between a natural chemical and a synthetic chemical, but it also treats the synthetic as something that needs to be detoxified, further burdening our livers. What additional damage synthetics wreak, I shall allow the future and more enlightened scientists to discover.

Unless one has access to and can afford organic foods and can make organic 100% of the dietary intake, you will still most likely require vitamin and mineral supplementation. This means becoming a very educated and selective consumer. There are numerous companies who are aware of this issue and are creating “whole food” supplements with care and concern towards the natural resource. Standard Process is one company that is taking hold amongst holistic health practitioners. Ask questions and demand quality, purity and honesty from your supplement providers.