I'd like info on vitamins & supplements.

Dear sister Elizabeth,

Thank you for mentioning the aspertame word.  I have been advocating people not use it for several years and all I get are poohpoohs.  I avoid it like the plague, excuse the reference. LOL   It is a plague and causes innumerable illnesses. I used to have a link to information about it which I will look up. Also MSG is a very negative substance, not conducive to health.  ..

I may suggest that if someone is wanting to use a sugar subsititue, us Splenda. I have yet to read a reliable negative article on it, only those propagandas put out by the sugar, sacrin and aspertame manufacturers.

Here is a link to the dangers of aspertame. Glad and encouraged to supply it for those who are avid diet soda drinkers!  And other things.

http://www.sweetpoison.com/aspartame-information.html

With Light and Love shining into Shadows and Fear

 Berry

Kate, I used to take a vitamin daily along with other suppliments. I quit and I don't feel any worse for the lack.  I will occasionally take one if I am feeling I am short on Calcium, potasium or some other identifiable symptom like muscle spasms or such.

Interesting fact about aspertame, it was originally developed as an ant poison.. That's right.  Try putting some powder on an ant hill, sprinkling it with a little water and watch the ants disappear.

I still believe that honey in moderate quantites is the best sweetner, though that may become very dear if the bees keep disappearing.

With Light and Love shining into Shadows and Fear Berry

Hi Kate and everybody

I got an e-mail from Brazil asking about Codex Alimentarius, the new code that will regulate everything concerning food, vitamins and supplements as of Jan. 2010. I checked it out online and it really looks very bad, hard to believe 170 countries (it seems it's already happenning in Europe) are about to be trapped into an Orwellian nightmare like this. Can anybody shed some light on this topic?

Love,

Norma

You can break the bank buying supplements.  I take a multivitamin, fish oil, antioxidants, and a probiotic pretty much daily, plus supplements to address specific conditions for me and my wife.  Digestive enzymes both for digestion and to address inflammation. I use wheat grass and maca.

Someone asked about B12.  There are two form, differentiated by the manufacturing process.  Cyanocobalamin is cheaper but does not absorb very well, and 3/4 of it is wasted.  Methylcobalamin is the kind you want.  Cobalamin is destroyed in the stomach so injections or sublingual lozenges are the preferred method of administration.

Codex is the PTB's attempt to control our access to healthy food.  We will have to go underground when it passes, and I am already hoarding natural remedies.

8-D

8-D

courtesy of http://www.lef.org

A lengthy article but worth the time for those who want to know.

Preliminary Rebuttal to Recent Attacks Against Dietary Supplements

By William Faloon

The media recently ran headline news stories claiming that vitamins C,
D and E do not prevent heart attack, stroke or breast cancer. This
report represents Life Extension’s preliminary response to these media
attacks that are based on egregiously flawed studies. We will submit
this report for formal peer review and referencing and expect to post
our official report within a few weeks.

Needless to say, when these biased attacks are launched, we are not
given prior notice so that our side of the story makes it into the mass
media.

In the early 1990s, several large population studies showed significant
reductions in cardiovascular disease in those who consumed vitamin C or
vitamin E.

The most widely reported study emanated from UCLA, where it was
announced that men who took 800 mg a day of vitamin C lived six years
longer than those who consumed the recommended daily allowance of 60 mg
a day. The study, which evaluated 11,348 participants over a 10-year
period of time, showed that higher vitamin C intake reduced
cardiovascular disease mortality by 42%.

These kinds of findings did not go unnoticed by the federal government,
who subsequently invested hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt
to ascertain if relatively modest vitamin doses could prevent common
age-related diseases.

In a study that received extensive media coverage, four groups of male
doctors were given various combinations of vitamin C and/or vitamin E
or placebo. After eight years, there was no reported difference in
heart attack or stroke incidence among the groups. This led the media
to state that consumers should not buy these supplements.

As you will read, there were so many egregious flaws in this study that
the findings are rendered meaningless. Regrettably, consumers who trust
their lives to the mainstream media may fall victim to this latest
charade to discredit validated methods to reduce cardiovascular disease
risk.
Do you take your vitamins every other day?

The study subjects in the vitamin E groups were told to take one 400 IU
capsule of synthetic alpha tocopherol every other day. This design flaw
raises several issues that are rather obvious to serious supplement
takers.

First of all, we don’t take our vitamins every other day. Free radicals
are constantly being generated in our bodies, and supplement users
today seek to take their antioxidants with most meals, as oxidative
damage is generally the greatest after eating.

It is rather ludicrous to think that these study subjects would reduce
their vascular disease risk by taking modest dose, every other day, of
a form of vitamin E with inferior anti-oxidant capacity.

If one were to rely only on synthetic alpha tocopherol, the minimum
daily dose needed has been shown to exceed 800 IU, far greater than the
400 IU ingested every other day by the subjects in this poorly designed
study.

Serious supplement users normally take 400 IU every day of natural
vitamin E along with a plethora of complimentary nutrients. We would
not expect 400 IU of synthetic vitamin E taken every other day to
produce much of an effect. Yet that is the dose given to these study
subjects with the expectation that this would show a reduction in
cardiovascular disease. This is by no means the only flaw of this study.

Natural versus synthetic vitamin E

There was a long standing debate as to whether natural or synthetic
vitamin E is better. For most vitamins, there is no difference between
natural and synthetic. In fact, for most vitamins, the only forms
available are synthetic. With vitamin E, however, the natural form has
proven far superior.

Natural vitamin E is distributed through the body much better than the
synthetic form. The reason is that specific carrier proteins in the
liver selectively bind to natural vitamin E and transport it through
the blood to cells throughout the body. These carrier proteins only
recognize a portion of synthetic vitamin E and ignore the remainder.

Japanese researchers gave natural or synthetic vitamin E to young women
to measure how much vitamin E actually made it into their blood. It
took only 100 mg (149 IU) of natural vitamin E to produce blood levels
that required 300 mg (448 IU) of synthetic vitamin E.

Most studies show that synthetic vitamin E is only half as active in
the body as the natural form. As it relates to the flawed study
claiming that vitamin E does not prevent heart attack, the 400 IU of
synthetic alpha tocopherol given every other day equates to only 100 IU
a day of the natural form.

We would not expect 100 IU of natural vitamin E a day by itself to
necessary reduce vascular disease risk. As you continue to read,
however, there are many other flaws in this study that render its
conclusions useless.

Note: When checking vitamin labels, natural vitamin E is usually stated
as the “d” form (for example d-alpha tocopheryl acetate,d-alpha
tocopherol, and d-alpha tocopheryl succinate). Synthetic vitamin E will
have a “l” after the “d” (for example, dl-alpha tocopheryl acetate,
dl-alpha tocopheryl succinate, dl-alpha tocopherol). Remember – “dl”
signifies synthetic vitamin E, whereas “d” signifies natural vitamin E.
Remember that if you are getting 400 IU of natural d-alpha tocopherol
(d-alpha tocopheryl succinate or acetate) it is equal to about 800 IU
of synthetic dl-tocopherol (dl-alpha tocopheryl acetate or succinate).

As a member of the Life Extension Foundation, you gain access to
scientific information that is interpreted in the context of what
health conscious people are really doing to protect themselves against
common diseases. This information is too often distorted by the
government, drug companies and the media.

http://www.lef.org/featured-articles/Rebuttal-to-Recent-Attacks-Against-...

From KateQ

"Berry, I am not sure about Splenda.  Stevia seems the way to go."

I think you right on the Stevia, KateQ, since FDA wants to ban it, label it as on of them there nefarious haloosogenic things.

Love, Light, Life & Laughter

" There was a long standing debate as to whether natural or synthetic
vitamin E is better. For most vitamins, there is no difference between
natural and synthetic. In fact, for most vitamins, the only forms
available are synthetic. With vitamin E, however, the natural form has
proven far superior."

Vitamin E is actually a group of eight compounds, four tocopherols and four tocotrienols. These are antioxidant, and aid in the absorption of other fat-soluble vitamins (A & D). Natural vitamin E will be labeled d-alpha-tocopherol, rrr-alpha-tocopherol, d-alpha-tocopherol acetate, or d-alpha-tocopherol succinate. Synthetic forms are dl-alpha-tocopherol or all-rac alpha-tocopherol. Synthetic tocopherol is 67% as well-absorbed as natural vitamin E - in other words you waste a third of it.

Some companies add 10% natural tocopherols to a 90% synthetic product and label it "natural." It is the responsibility of the consumer to read and understand the label - and many labels are deliberately hard to understand. This is one reason it's better to buy vitamins and supplements from a store that specializes in them, where the staff (hopefully) understands what they're selling.

"For most vitamins, there is no difference between
natural and synthetic. In fact, for most vitamins, the only forms
available are synthetic."

Pretty much all vitamins begin with pure synthetic aminos called USP isolates. The traditional way of administering these is to simply press and glue them into a tablet. Voilá. There's your Centrum. The better companies take these laboratory isolates and culture them in a food matrix using organisms like l. acidophilus until the synthetic compounds have been metabolized and are in a true organic state. These vitamins are well worth the extra money.

BTW much of this info comes from Nutritional Healing by Phyllis Balch. Well worth the $26 for a copy.

8-D