Nutritional supplements have been a topic of great debate between nutritionists and doctors for quite some time. Some claim that it is possible to obtain all of the nutrients necessary from a well balanced diet while others are adamant that the only way to be fully nourished is through a significant supplement regimen.
In order to adequately discuss this topic, several questions must be answered. What constitutes a well balanced diet? Do you actually need nutritional supplements? What type of supplements are being used? Who is prescribing the supplements?
Proper Diet
Regarding a well balanced diet, eat real food. You are on the right track here by following The NRG Diet. Nothing replaces the solid foundation of nourishing real food.
Who Needs Supplements?
Other than poor diet, there are many things in life that lead to nutritional deficiencies. You may be dealing with emotional or physical stress or have illnesses, injuries or digestive problems that put additional burdens on your body. All of these challenges make meeting your nutritional needs through your diet difficult if not impossible, especially when most modern food comes from nutritionally depleted soils.
If you are aging, sick and/or stressed or pregnant or lactating you are especially in need of quality supplementation. It is vitally important to provide the body with the right type of nutritional supplementation that it can easily utilize.
Types of Supplements
Choosing your nutritional supplements wisely is of utmost importance. While vitamin, mineral, and herbal supplements can provide much needed nutritional support for the body, there can be dramatic differences in quality between different brands and manufacturing techniques. It is important to know some of these differences to be able to make the best choices.
The best nutrients come from whole foods where they are found in naturally balanced ratios and have chemical properties that allow the body to easily absorb and use them.
Dr. Royal Lee used the analogy of a watch to explain the concept of nutrients in their natural state.
You cannot take apart a watch, which is a functioning mechanism, analyze its elements of brass, springs, jewels and glass then put all those same elements into a pile and expect it to tell time. It takes a watchmaker to put it all together perfectly with the knowledge of the end purpose for those elements for a watch to be created to keep time. The ‘watchmaker’ is the Creator or Mother Nature and no chemist in a laboratory will ever make a ‘watch’ out of a pile of elements with the same function as Nature provides.
Unfortunately, most vitamin and mineral supplements on the market today are artificially produced in fractionated, inorganic and synthetic forms. Just like the separate pieces of the watch, these piles of unnatural chemicals are functionally useless and can actually be damaging to the body when taken in large quantities or used consistently over time.
Vitamins C and E are two of the most common fractionated vitamins on the market. When a vitamin is fractionated it removes all of the natural cofactors that normally surround it in nature. Calling ascorbic acid (fractionated vitamin C) a vitamin is like calling the shell of an egg the egg or the chassis of a car the car. All of the critical components have been removed.
The key to choosing the right type of supplements is choosing a whole food supplement rather than a synthetic combination of various fractionated vitamins and minerals.
Who is prescribing?
If you take or are thinking about taking nutritional supplements, it is time to examine your sources of information about your supplement choices. Just as there are countless sources of synthetic vitamins and minerals, there just as many people willing to sell you their newest and best vitamin cure. Rather than trust the latest news headline, sales pitch, or cheap vitamin wholesaler, let a trained medical professional direct you to the exact products you need for your specific situation.
Dr. William Curtis has been using high quality whole food supplements for years to help patients with diabetes, sugar cravings, depression, heart disease, digestive problems, anxiety, fatigue, sleep problems and more.
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