Live healthy, my friends!

Okay, so you’re convinced.  You need to take a good vitamin regimen.  So what do you buy?  You listen to infomercials about nutritional supplements and hear one thing.  You go on-line and every company says their supplements are the best.  You go into a specialty store and they try to sell you a different vitamin every week.  Or do you just cave in to the pressure of the ten million dollar weekly advertising budget of the “everything from A to Zinc” vitamin pills?  Hopefully this quick primer on choosing a supplement will help you make an informed decision. Here are seven things to look for first on any vitamin label.

1. Check for numbers –

This is the fastest and easiest strategy for choosing a multivitamin and one that can be used when shopping for food as well.  Simply do a quick scan of the label and look for numbers in the ingredient list.  As soon as you see “#40” or “#6” you can be sure that there are artificial colors in your product.  Artificial colors, particularly Red Dye #40 should be avoided in any food or nutritional supplement.

2. Look at the quantity of ingredients –

Are the percentages of vitamins and minerals closer to the RDA (Recommended Daily Allowances) which were developed in the 1930s as minimums needed to avoid malnutrition, or are they closer to the numbers that the current mainstream medical literature recommends taking for fighting degenerative disease.  Let’s face it, people rarely die from scurvy any more but lots of people die every year from cancer and heart disease.  Why buy a vitamin supplement that was designed to fight scurvy?  That’s what the RDA’s are for.  Here’s just one example.  The RDA for Vitamin E is 30 International Units (IUs).  The medical literature shows a consistent increase in health benefits all the way to 400 IU and then a slightly higher benefit all the way up to 800.  Not much of an increased benefit is seen after 800.  But why take only 30 IU?

3. Look at the TYPEs of ingredients –

Are the ingredients in the pills or food “dirt-based” or plant-based?  Are they alkaline or acid forming?  Are they the most bioavailable forms (will they get where they need to get in your body?)  And frankly, are they dangerous?  Let’s break this down.  What do I mean by dirt-based vitamins and what don’t you want them in your supplements?  If the human body could absorb vitamins, minerals, and cofactors from dirt, we could just go around eating dirt all the time and forget about eating plants or animals.  The reason we don’t eat dirt is that our bodies cannot readily absorb all the nutrients they need from dirt. 

They can, however, absorb these vitamins from plants or from animals that have eaten these plants.  Nutrients that our bodies can absorb in their raw form are things like gluconates, citrates, and amino acid chelates.  Nutrients our bodies have a much more difficult time absorbing include chlorides, oxides, etc. Nutrients that are essentially salts or “dirts.” So when you are reading the nutritional information label on your vitamin supplements or foods, simply scan the product label for excessive amounts of oxides and chlorides.  If there are many more oxides and chlorides than gluconates, citrates, and chelates you should probably not choose that vitamin supplement or food.

Once again, a great example is Vitamin E.  Most Vitamin E you will find is either d-alpha tocopherol or dl-alpha tocopherol.  Now, first of all, did you even notice that those two terms were different? Did you notice the small letter “l”?  Most people don’t and believe me, on a small supplement label, it is even more difficult to see.  But there is a HUGE difference.  D-alpha is natural and typically from vitamin E (again, plant-based and easily absorbed) whereas Dl-alpha is a synthetic and not as easily absorbed! Take the time and read the fine print on the nutritional labels. A small difference on the label can mean a big difference in your body.

4. Let’s Talk Cofactors –

There are two forms of Calcium used in our foods and vitamin supplements. Calcium Carbonate is basically limestone (hmmm… sounds like dirt).  Calcium citrate is plant-based and as we just finished saying is the more preferable form.  However, calcium in either form doesn’t work alone.  Even in its more digestible form, in order for our bodies to gain maximum benefit from the calcium we eat it needs be in a two to one ratio with magnesium and it requires four cofactors: silicon, boron, Vitamin D, and Vitamin K.  So when you’re looking at the vitamins in you supplements or food, remember to look for the plant-based form, but don’t forget to scan that label for all the associated cofactors!

5. Look for chlorides and oxides –

One more advantage of plant based vitamins in your supplements and food relates to their pH (alkaline versus acid scale). In general plant-based supplements tend to be more alkaline forming in your body.  The salts (chlorides) and oxides as well as synthetic vitamins tend to be more acid forming.    This is why eating lots of vegetables in your diet, particularly raw vegetables, is very healthy.  Diseases love acidity.  So keep your body alkaline!

6. Look for independent studies –

The problem with “asking the experts” is that the experts are typically selling their own products.  This is why it is always recommend that you look for independent studies when evaluating vitamins and nutritional supplements.  The most comprehensive study I’ve found is the “Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements” by Dr. Lyle MacWilliam. You can find it on Amazon.com or directly through www.comparativeguide.com.  The Comparative Guide looks at over 1,500 multivitamins in North America.  Rather than comparing them against the RDA nutritional levels, the study used a blended standard developed by 12 experts in the field of nutrition.  The reason you can trust the standards in The Comparative Guide is that many of the 12 experts who established them have competing product lines that they recommend.

7. Look for transparency –

There are several factors that a quality provider of vitamin and supplements should have no fear of disclosing to consumers.  A few simple inquiries can go a long way toward figuring out the kind of company you’re dealing with. Does the nutritional product manufacturer’s website give you immediate access to the ingredient list?  Does the company seek out 3^rd party verification of its quality and potency?  Does the manufacturer adhere to pharmaceutical manufacturing standards?  If any of these answers is no, look for a different provider of your nutritional vitamin supplements and food.

Choosing a vitamin supplement can be a daunting task.  Hopefully these seven quick-look-hints will help make the process a little easier to swallow (pardon the pun).

There are two major hormones, which are primarily involved in controlling blood sugars. Insulin lowers blood sugar and is essentially our “storage hormone” and drives the sugar into the cell to be utilized or stored as fat. Glucagon is the opposite hormone of insulin and essentially takes stored fat and changes it into sugar as means of increasing blood sugar levels. Amazing findings are being revealed about what takes place in our bodies when we eat what is now referred to as a high glycemic meal. We now know why so many Americans and people who live in industrialized countries are becoming overweight, diabetic, and having heart attacks.

All carbohydrates are simply long chains of sugars: they are digested and converted to glucose. Since the early 1900’s, it was believed that the digestion rate and conversion to glucose was directly related to the length of the chemical sugar chain. This gave rise to the terms “complex carbohydrate” and “simple sugar,” a limited concept leading dieticians and physicians alike to recommend the consumption of starchy foods along with a decreased consumption of sugar.

In the early 1980’s, however, the concept of chain length in carbohydrate digestion rate was questioned. Since then, many researchers have focused on how fast specific carbohydrates are absorbed by the body and converted to sugar, thus determining the body’s insulin response.

Many researchers now propose the use of the glycemic index—the rate of how fast blood sugar levels are raised after a particular carbohydrate is consumed—as a system for classifying foods containing carbohydrates. This concept was thoroughly reviewed in a major article, which appeared in the May 8, 2002 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association titled, “The Glycemic Index”, written by David Ludwig, M. D. This article draws heavily on Ludwig’s findings.

Glycemic index is determined by the rate the blood sugar rises following the ingestion of a particular carbohydrate when compared to a control (usually straight glucose). Glucose is usually given a glycemic index of 100. Therefore, all other carbohydrates are compared to the absorption and rate of blood sugar increase following the ingestion of glucose. Table 1 lists a sample of a few carbohydrates and their glycemic index. Many studies use white bread as their control, which has a glycemic index of 70 when compared to glucose. This has created significant confusion and variation in the glycemic numbers. I have chosen to use glucose as the standard, since this is the control being used in most of our medical studies. Table 1 also lists a new concept known as the Glycemic Load.

The glycemic load is defined as the weighted average glycemic index of the individual food multiplied by the amount of calories the food actually contains. A particular carbohydrate may have a high glycemic index but is low in calories, like carrots, or they may have a high glycemic index and a high in calories, like potatoes. Some carbohydrates like peanuts have a low glycemic index and a low glycemic load. In general, most refined starchy foods and highly processed foods have a high glycemic index, whereas whole foods like fruits, vegetables, and legumes tend to have a low glycemic index.

Following a high glycemic meal the blood glucose level quickly rises, which initially causes the beta cells of the pancreas to secrete insulin. Insulin drives the glucose into the cell to either be utilized or stored as fat. The blood sugar will then usually drop precipitously and can actually get too low. This is called “functional hypoglycemia.” The regulatory responses of the body will then kick into action, leading to the release of glucagon, the fat burning hormone, in an attempt to counteract the actions of the insulin in an attempt to get the blood sugars to rise again.

We have all experienced a time in our life when this has happened to us personally. If we go without eating, we get weak and shaky and can hardly think. Our appetite increases and even after our blood sugars are back into a normal range, we will still feel like we must eat something. In fact, we tend to crave high-glycemic foods and the cycle starts all over again.

On the other hand, when a low glycemic meal is eaten, none of this happens. The blood sugar will rise slowly and there will be a nice balance of insulin and glucagon. The blood sugar stays in a normal range and concentration comes more easily. Because no rebound of low blood sugars takes place, there is no craving of high carbohydrates foods.

Conclusion

For too long we’ve underestimated not only the power of food, but the delicate balance that must be kept in order to keep our hormone systems running smoothly. Researchers are finally realizing the health dangers of high glycemic carbohydrates and the undeniable dangers of insulin resistance. It is time for us to put this knowledge into action. Contrary to popular American diets, fat is not the enemy but instead it is high-glycemic carbohydrates.

You need to combine low-glycemic and medium glycemic carbohydrates with good fat and good proteins. You need to be eating for hormonal control and not calorie control. You need to combine these good foods in each and every meal or snack with the focus being on not spiking the blood sugar. By avoiding white bread, white flour, pasta, rice, and potatoes along with all other highly refined starches and processed foods and replacing them with whole grain breads (contains the entire grain), whole grain pasta, whole grain rice, red potatoes (these are lower glycemic), and whole fruits, vegetables, and legumes you will be making great strides toward balancing your blood sugar levels.

What about the need to lose weight? The goal is to eat for hormonal control (not spiking the sugar)—not calorie control. When the healthy eating habits found at are combined with a modest exercise program and high-quality nutritional supplements, you will see significant weight loss (if you need to lose weight).

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