Why does every supplement manufacturer suggest you take their supplements with food?

 The typical vitamin bottle reads: 

Suggested Dose: As a dietary supplement, one tablet with food.

(Source – All leading vitamin companies)

 They know that food is the key to all nutrient utilization.

Humans have been successful in obtaining the nutrients we need to perpetuate life for as long as we have inhabited this planet! It’s only been since the 1920’s that we have been trying to “supplement” our diets with isolated substances that are chemically produced from refined foods or synthesized in a laboratory.

This is a controversial subject with a great number of varying opinions as to what we should or should not use for nutritional supplements.  Many of the answers to this question have become part of the nutritional “folklore” without any science to support these notions.  The fact is as recent as 1997, we did not know the delivery mechanism of vitamins.  Based on the fact that no one knew the pathways of nutrients to the cells there have been many learned men and women who have based their supplement recommendations on theory and assumptions.  We now know the details of this nutrient delivery mechanism.  This knowledge will change our thinking about nutrition forever.

There are over 103,000 nutrients currently identified in food.  The simple tomato contains over 10,000 of these known food factors.  This complex nutritive nature of food is the major factor in its benefit to humans. 

The argument that synthesized isolated nutrients are as beneficial as those found in food is not supported by the scientist who discovered the isolated fractions.  Dr. Casmir Funk, who won the noble prize for the discovery of the first vitamin (thiamin) and created the word “vitamin” wrote, “Synthetic vitamins: These are highly inferior to vitamins from natural (food) sources”.  Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, noble laureate for discovering ascorbic acid, found that the whole food concentrates he created early in his search were far more effective in preventing and curing scurvy than the isolated fraction of vitamin C (ascorbic acid).

Voluminous research now validates the uncovering of the importance of the “vitamin food factors” found by these esteemed scientists. 

Diets with high Vitamin C content from fruits and vegetable are associated with lower risk, especially for cancers of the oral cavity, esophagus, stomach, colon and lung.  In contrast, consumption of ascorbic acid as a supplement in experimental trial had no effect on development of colorectal adenoma and stomach cancer.  These differences may have several explanations.  Fruit and vegetable ingestion is associated with lower cancer risk, not because of ascorbic acid alone, but because of complex interactions between the vitamin C and multiple biologically active compounds in these foods.   

Most supplements are in a highly refined isolated form that is far removed from their food state.  These types of supplements, isolated fractions, are lacking in the food factors that are necessary for nutrients to be effective. Scientists using fractions of whole food cannot create something as beneficial as whole food. This is very difficult to grasp. The seemingly “simple” orange, the whole food, is far more effective than the isolated or synthetic ascorbic acid from the laboratory. 

The human physiology is designed to obtain nutrients from food.  Food contains all the necessary factors needed to deliver the nutrients to the cells.  Food is so complex; scientists have yet to completely understand its structure.  As one example, a tomato contains over 10,000 different vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. All of the nutrients and the food factors that naturally occur in food are vital to life, not merely a fraction of them.  Once nutrients are removed from food or chemically synthesized, they no longer possess the qualities of a whole food.

Manufacturers always recommend that their supplements be taken with food.  Current research shows that no nutrient can be delivered without its messenger food factors intact.  These messengers are known as protein chaperones.  If they don’t naturally occur in the supplement then they have to be provided from another source.  That food source can be a quality meal, a food based tablet or in BiometabolicÔ 100% food supplements.  If the right foods are not provided, the body can and will cannibalize itself by breaking down our cells to provide the food factors that it needs to utilize the supplement.

For humans to achieve and maintain optimal health, a diet rich in whole foods is a daily necessity. Unfortunately, the average American diet lacks enough whole foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables. These foods contain essential nutrients and food factors such as, enzymes, proteins, and thousands of health-promoting compounds that have a crucial role in the delivery of the nutrients to the cells that need them. Since the average diet is nutritionally devoid of numerous essential nutrients, supplementation is recommended. In fact, the American Medical Association recently released a statement stating that all adults should take a daily multi-vitamin to maintain good health. Although supplementation is helpful, supplements made with isolated vitamins and minerals alone cannot replace the health-promoting components that naturally comprise food. The closer supplements come to the complexity of food, the more nourishing and efficacious they will be. Otherwise, supplements made with isolated nutrients are absorbed only to the extent they “find” appropriate accompanying nutrients in the digestive system. The degree of efficient absorption and utilization of a nutrient depends on the foods an individual has eaten and when. Considering the average American diet, the likely hood that the right foods containing the right factors for nutrient utilization is minimal.

Biometabolic is a trademark of Bio-Metabolic Nutrition.

© 2002 BIO-METABOLIC NUTRITION

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