You are what you eat. ... or take in the way of supplementation

According to an article that I read on the Harvard website, "multivitamin bashing seems to be in season. The March 2008 Harvard Men’s Health Watch gives the impression that few of the ingredients in a multivitamin are worth taking. The June 2008 Nutrition Action Health Letter suggests taking a multivitamin every other day instead of every day. The central concern of both articles is folic acid—specifically,getting too much folic acid." And when we read articles about supplementing what it always comes down to is that you can't replace real nutrition with synthetic nutrients.

Their better advice: "Take a standard multivitamin every day, but stay away from heavily fortified foods that deliver a full day’s dose—or sometimes more—of folic acid ... there is newer evidence that excess folic acid (the synthetic version of folate, a vitamin found abundantly in vegetables, fruits, and grains) may be contributing to an uptick in colorectal cancer. many of those multi vitamins or meal replacement shakes contain your recommended daily amount — 400 micrograms (mcg) — but look at your package foods and you'll see that folic acid is also added to breakfast cereals and enriched grain and cereal products, including breads, rice, and pasta. A person taking a multivitamin can easily exceed the recommended total intake, and maybe even the safe upper limit of 1,000 mcg. This issues of getting too much isn’t a problem with folate found naturally in foods. But most supplemental vitamins are fortified and not the whole foods that your body really needs." That's why I use encapsulated whole foods, only.

You've heard me talk about Folic vs. Folate before when I have talked about MTHFR, but did you know that most vitamin B1 supplements are made from derivatives of coal tar? Or that ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is often made by reacting high-fructose corn syrup with sulfuric acid? Or even that many iron supplements (for those that have the iron-folic anemia you may want to hear this) ... are often made from the rust off of nails?

Where you get your nutrition matters. How you react to what you are eating matters. If your skin looks like it's being used to detoxify your system, you have a problem with your central detoxification chimney.

I want to get more into the concept of food synergy. This concept is based on the proposition that the interrelations between constituents in foods are significant. We all should realize this by now, but we don't. It's because we see these ads all over the place that say we need this fortified food and that fortified food. This significance in our food and/or supplementation is dependent on the balance between constituents within what is going into our bodies, how well these constituents survive digestion, and the extent to which they appear biologically active at the cellular level.

The Journal of the American College of Nutrition published data says: A healthy diet should contain all of the required nutrients and sufficient calories to balance energy expenditure and provide for growth and maintenance throughout the life cycle. Importantly, dietary factors are associated with 5 of the 10 leading causes of death, including coronary heart disease, certain types of cancer, stroke, noninsulin dependent diabetes mellitus and atherosclerosis. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8892167