Vitamin supplementation is a real issue in our society.  Nutrition is about more than the number of calories contained in food.  It is about supplying your body with the basic building blocks it needs to repair itself and remain “in like new condition” throughout your life.

I have a professional colleague, Bette Dowdell, who has a blog and news letter called Too Pooped to Participate. She had a serious problem with her endocrines system and like a lot of my patients, took charge of the condition and learned all she could about it.   She shares her knowledge of supplements and endocrine function with all of us in her newsletter and teleseminars.  Here is what she said about vitamins in her most recent newsletter.

People are asking about what brands of vitamins I use. Truth to tell, I’m kinda fickle. Something on sale always catches my eye, for instance. But I always stay with form of each vitamin that I know is best and the brands I can trust to produce a superior product.

I love vitamin questions! Why? Because everybody needs vitamins. We simply can’t get all the nutrition we need from our food, no matter how hard we try.

People with endocrine problems REALLY need vitamins because we don’t absorb nutrients as well as we should. And once we pass our fortieth birthday, it gets worse.

So here’s an alphabetical list of brands I use. Other quality brands are around, but here’s a good start for you.

Biochem

Country Life

Jarrow

LifeTime

Natrol

Nature’s Way

NOW

Solaray

Source Naturals

TwinLabs (but read the label)

You’ll notice that none of these brands are sold in grocery stores, drug stores, Walmart, KMart, Target, Sam’s Club, Costco, Trader Joe’s, etc. Go to a health food store or buy at an on-line equivalent.

Why do I say this? The highly advertised, mass produced vitamin brands tend to use less expensive ingredients. For instance, the ingredients on a multi say it includes a good amount of Vitamin D, but don’t mention the fact it’s in the D2 form which the body can’t use. And maybe the Vitamin E is the synthetic dl form instead of the natural d form. And so on.

Plus, mass-produced vitamins tend to come in pills instead of better absorbed capsules. Worse, those pills are compressed to a fare-thee-well, and you may never get any value from them because they don’t dissolve. If a pill comes out looking pretty much the same way it went in (please excuse the visual), it’s a bad pill, and you wasted your money on it.

With that, I’ve probably said enough.

Until next time then.

God is good,
Bette Dowdell

I encourage you read Bette’s blog and subscribe to her newsletter.  When you can make it, check out her teleseminars.  Until next time, I hope you begin thinking about the brand and form of vitamins you are taking.

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