Live Healthy with Mindy Mosser

Hold on to your hats, some of this information may blow you away!!

First of all, do we really know why we take vitamins?  I know that I just did it because so and so told me that pre-natal vitamins would make my hair grow faster, and then so and so told me that grape seed extract would keep me from getting a cold, and then another so and so told me that b-vitamins would give me energy.  Well I listened to these so and so's and I did just that for a long time.  I didn't feel any better, I didn't have any more energy, but I didn't know that a good supplement could do those things.

On a new friend's recommendation, I started taking a pharmaceutical grade supplement more than 3 years ago.  I noticed in the first week that I had more energy.  I didn't need a nap anymore in the afternoon.  I slept better at night.  And my husband liked me again because my hormonal mood swings had started to disappear.  This got me interested in doing some research.  What I found was unbelievable.

Did you know that all nutritional supplements are not created equal?  I did not know that!!  I also did not know that according to the FDA, supplements are considered a food-grade product and are held to the same health department standards as restaurants.  The facility has to be clean and maintained, and the ingredients can't be harmful.  (Well that's it in a nutshell.)  But what really blows me away is that what is on the label of a supplement does not have to be in the bottle!!  Yes, you read that right, you don't need to go back.  What is on the label does not have to be in the bottle!!  In a recent study, researchers found that over half of supplements do not even properly disintegrate.  So if it isn't disintegrating, then it isn't dissolving, then how are the needed nutrients getting into your system to be used?  I have heard nurses say that they call a certain well-known over the counter multi-vitamin "bed pan bullets" because you can still read the name on the tablet when it is passed through the body!

Proper disintegration is just one factor!!  Another study showed that when tablets were tested, two tablets in the same bottle could have a different amount of nutrients.  How the heck does that happen?  This is why taking a pharmaceutical-grade supplement is so important!  Pharm-grade products have very stringent regulations and inspections and their potency has to be guaranteed.  Call your product manufacturer and ask if you can get a potency guarantee in writing?  They'll probably laugh at you and say if you're not happy you can return the product, but they don't give a written (or even a verbal) guarantee.  I know one company that does!

Well here is something else that may interest you.  The basic explanation of why we need to take nutritional supplements.  I am not a scientist, and not even close, so this will be the simplified version and easy to understand.

1. Let's use an analogy.  Say that you have a fireplace, with a carpet or rug in front of it.  When you build a fire, you'll get sparks that jump out of that fireplace.  Imagine that rug after a couple months or years of fires burning with no screen to keep the sparks contained.  That rug is like your body and the sparks are these tiny little things called free radicals.  Essentially free radicals are molecules missing an electron, and they kind-of swarm around inside your body stealing electrons from your unsuspecting healthy cells.  Free radicals are introduced into your body through many means, such as: lack of sleep, stress, poor food choices, pollution, radiation from the sun, excessive exercise, and I could go on.  Once your body's cells are damaged by these free radicals, they can no longer reproduce healthy human cells, so many begin to reproduce unhealthy or damaged cells.  This unhealthy cell damage and reproduction causes oxidative stress.  Also known as degenerative diseases.
2. The top killers in the US are a few little degenerative diseases you may have heard of like cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and respiratory disorders.  Free radical build-up also looks like arthritis, migraine headaches, asthma, fatigue, lack of focus, depression, and many other nasty little side effects.
3. So, how do you put up a fireplace screen in your body, you take anti-oxidants!!  Yeah, antioxidants prevent oxidation!!  But how do you know you're getting the right kind of stuff and enough of it?
4. I was introduced to this great little book called the Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements.  This little book evaluated over 1,500 nutritional supplements in North America.  The company that produced this book is NutriSearch, and they had a board of scientists to compile the info and rate each supplement on a scale of 0 to 5 stars, with 5 of course being the highest.  And you know they found that only 4 rated high enough to be given the "5 star Gold Medal of Achievement for proven product excellence."  That statement came from Lyle MacWilliam, Bsc, MSc, FP, a former Canadian Member of Parliament and Member of the Legislative Assembly for British Columbia.
5. All that boils down to this, out of 1,500 products, only 4 are really doing what they say they are doing.  Make sure you are taking one of those 4 supplements.  To find a copy of the comparative guide, go to pretty much any big bookstore.  Look up the name of your supplement and find out how high or low your product rates.  You can also email me from my contact page with the name of your supplement and I'll get back to you with it's rating. 

The reason I tell you this story is because when I started feeling great after taking a good supplement for only 4 days, this info is what I learned when I researched that product.  I found that the product I now trust my health to has the #1 rated supplement spot in this Comparative Guide.  My supplement has the editors' choice award as well.  I trust them, and I will not go another day without taking these vitamins.  I feel great!!  And I want others to feel great too.  Check out my product page to learn more.