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Multivitamins and Minerals

Manganese

Manganese has received a lot of attention for its role in bone and joint health. Most multivitamins provide only a few milligrams of manganese – enough to satisfy the minimum requirements – but you may want to look for one that provides more than the minimum or consider taking a separate trace mineral supplement.

Benefits of Manganese

  • Promotes normal growth and development
  • Assists enzymes in generating energy
  • Promotes normal cellular function

Chromium

Chromium is important in sugar and lipid metabolism and should be included in any multivitamin formula. However, some manufacturers include far less than the recommended 50 to 200 microgram sin their product’s daily dose. Organically bound chromium is much better absorbed than inorganic chromium chloride.

Benefits of Chromium

  • Assists in the regulation of blood sugar
  • Improves glucose tolerance in people with type 2 diabetes
  • Promotes healthy glucose metabolism

Selenium

Selenium is an important antioxidant cofactor and may be important in cancer prevention. A new RDI has been established at 70 micrograms, but many formulas contain as much as 200 micrograms, which some authorities consider to be in the upper range of recommended intakes.

Benefits of Selenium

  • Acts as a powerful antioxidant
  • Teams up with vitamin E for additional antioxidant properties
  • Promotes normal growth and development

Other Nutrients

Multivitamins vary widely in their nutritional composition. Many include trace minerals such as boron, molybdenum and vanadium. While there are no established recommendations for these nutrients, experts agree that they’re necessary for good health. If your multivitamin doesn’t contain trace minerals, consider taking an occasional trace mineral supplement.

The Bottom Line

If you were to take only one dietary supplement, a good multivitamin would be your best bet. Many of us aren’t getting optimal levels of all the essential nutrients, but a multivitamin can ensure that our nutritional needs are met. The multivitamin / mineral supplement could now replace the apple in a new adage, “A multi a day keeps the doctor away”.

Multivitamin / Mineral Fast Facts

Product forms: Tablets, capsules, liquid, powder and chewables.

Uses and Benefits: Multivitamin supplements prevent nutrient deficiencies and help maintain basic body functions and processes. Multivitamin supplements may also help prevent health conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer and arthritis.

Special Considerations: Always consult with a qualified health care provider before taking a dietary supplement to help treat a specific disease or condition.

A New Standard For Your Life

Ask yourself the following questions:

  • Does your commitment to health – for yourself and for those you care about – extend to studying all product labels to identify those containing synthetic ingredients?
  • Will you refuse to overpay and waste your money on synthetic vitamins that you know your body cannot readily absorb them?
  • Are you prepared to seek naturally occurring sources for the nutrients you know your body needs for immunity and good health?
  • Do you feel willing to tell others that we need to defend our right to choose non-synthetic nutrients and food products?

If your answer to any of these questions was in the affirmative, you are probably a good candidate for spreading the word about the importance of establishing a naturally occurring standard for vitamins, minerals, and foods in general. This standard will be a concise and clear beacon for those who want to make a statement on behalf of their own health and the public health.

We need naturally occurring vitamin supplements to be more widely accepted and available in the marketplace. But until the public can clearly distinguish between natural and synthetic, our choices and our health will be at the mercy of those economic institutions that profit from sowing confusion.

NOS will be a label affixed to nutritional supplements and whole botanical products that come directly from the plants of nature and contain no synthetic ingredients of any kind. If you do not see the NOS designation on a product label, you will be able to assume that it contains synthetic chemicals. The NOS will also provide a way to certify the potencies of natural ingredients placed in vitamins and fortified foods.

A nonprofit organization has been formed, the Naturally Occurring Standards Group (NOSG), to promote the NOS label and guidelines for foods, vitamins, and medicines. This group will develop protocols and applications for NOS certification of products and will issue an NOS certification sticker for manufacturers that meets rigorous NOS criteria.

Minerals – Calcium

Calcium is responsible for the construction, formation, and maintenance of bone and teeth. This function helps reduce the occurrence of osteoporosis. It is also a vital component in blood clotting systems and wound healing, and helps to control blood pressure, nerve transmission, and release of neurotransmitters. It is an essential component in the production of enzymes and hormones regulating digesting, energy, and fat metabolism. It helps transport ions (electrically charged particles) across the cell membranes and is essential for muscle contraction. Calcium assists in maintaining all cells and connective tissues in the body.

When the body needs more calcium than is supplied through diet, it withdraws it from the bones. This unfortunate but necessary biochemical activity frequently results in conditions such as osteoporosis and osteoarthritis, fractures, and so on. Foods that contain oxalic acid, in particular spinach and rhubarb, can prevent the absorption of calcium. The consumption of meat and dairy products has been shown to rob the minerals from bones, thereby weakening them and subjecting them to many diseases and conditions from fractures, arthritis, and osteoporosis. The United States has some of the world’s highest rates of osteoporosis, and, not coincidentally, we consume equally high rates of dairy products. This is also true in the Nordic countries of Finland, Sweden, and Norway. If dairy products (cheese, milk, butter, and so on) were good sources of calcium, we would not have such high rates of these disorders.

Supplements are used to treat muscle cramps as well as problems of the back and bones related to improper aging, such as arthritis, rheumatism, and osteoporosis (the loss of bony tissue that results in brittle bones, particularly prevalent among post-menopausal women). These problems are in fact more an indication of improper living throughout a long period of time. Calcium deficiency often follows vitamin D deficiencies and can lead to rickets in children. Typical symptoms of rickets are bowlegs, knock-knees, and pigeon chests, all caused by softening of the bones. In adults, calcium deficiency can cause osteomalacia, characterized by aching bones, muscle spasms, and curvature of the spine.

Most calcium supplementation today is derived from calcium carbonate, which is found in chalk, oyster shells, coral rock sediments, eggshells, and other non-organic sediments and non-living mineral sources. Calcium from these sources is not an organic, naturally occurring food ingredient, and despite how it is marketed to consumers, it does not fulfill our nutritional needs.

It is a challenge to find a real and substantial vegetable source of calcium supplementation derived from food.

Calcium is the most abundant mineral in the body. The average male has about 3 pounds of calcium, the average female about 2 pounds. Most calcium is found in bones and teeth (according to the National Research Council, 1989) with the remaining 1 percent in the soft tissues and watery parts of the body where calcium helps to regulate normal organ processes.

When blood calcium levels drop, the body can borrow from its skeletal stores and return calcium to bones as needed. A constant supply of calcium is necessary throughout our lifetime, but is especially important during phases of growth, pregnancy, and lactation. About 10 to 40 percent of dietary calcium is absorbed in the small intestine.

The level of calcium absorption from dietary sources drops in post-menopausal women. The body will absorb more calcium if there is a deficiency.

Factors that improve calcium absorption include adequate amounts of protein, magnesium, phosphorus, and vitamin D. Conditions that reduce calcium absorption include high or excessive intakes of oxalates and phytates, found in foods such as cooked spinach. Consumption of alcohol, coffee, sugar, or medications such as diuretics, tetracycline, and aluminum-containing antacids, as well as stress, reduces the absorption of calcium and other minerals.

Lack of exercise reduces calcium absorption as well as causing an increase in calcium losses. A lifestyle of immobility also leads to calcium deficiency. Calcium deficiency increases the risk of bone disorders such as osteoporosis.

Naturally occurring sources of calcium include dark green leafy vegetables, sprouted beans, pea greens, corn sprouts, green juice, and some botanicals. There is a high level of naturally occurring vegetable calcium available in Terminalia arjuna (known as “Arjuna” herb), a traditional medicinal botanical grown in Asia. Some extracts of this herb are specifically offered as calcium supplements.

What is the difference between “organic” plant-based minerals and “non-organic” minerals?

Organic minerals are those derived from plant-based foods such as vegetables and botanicals. Organic minerals are received by consuming plant food. Their root systems convert rock-solid non-organic minerals into useable organic ones. The word organic is often misused by referring to a mineral or a specific chemical compound rather than a “living” entity, and that creates a lot of confusion.

“Organic” chemistry defines many toxic and poisonous compounds as organic, so the use of the word itself is problematic. It is clearer to refer to minerals as either naturally occurring in foods or not naturally occurring. Using the term naturally occurring is how we distinguish between natural and unnatural vitamins, so the same standard applies to minerals. These recommended standards eliminate any confusion concerning the issue of organic and non-organic minerals.

Minerals from food sources contain many cofactors such as enzymes, vitamins, hormones, oxygen, phytonutrients, enzymes, and other yet unknown elements.

As with vitamins, nature does not make isolated, individual minerals in foods without cofactors. All the naturally occurring minerals in food sources are naturally chelated (broken down to a digestible form) compounds that are bound to other nutrient factors such as other minerals, vitamins, hormones, enzymes, oxygen, and phytonutrient compounds that are in the food source itself. For example, when an alfalfa plant absorbs calcium carbonate from the soil, that calcium is metabolized and transformed through the plant’s complex chemical “factory” into calcium phytate or other organic calcium compounds. In addition, other vitamins, minerals, and nutritional factors may have been united with the calcium phytate to form a unique source of naturally occurring calcium complex.

Botanicals have the ability to transmute compounds and nutritional factors into a useful, complex nutrient matrix such as a vitamin or a specialized protein. The naturally occurring minerals found in foods are “complexed” and pre-metabolized, making them more nutritionally useful and bioavailable than non-organic, non-food forms of mineals, which often accumulate in the body and cause calcium and mineral deposits as well as hardening of the arteries.

Calcium from food sources is more assimilable and bioavailable than calcium from rocks, sediments, and other non-organic mineral sources. Non-organic minerals are not formed by fresh, living matter and contain no vital carbon compounds. As do all organic minerals, organic calcium materials contain carbon that was once a part of, or produced or metabolized by, living plants or animals.