Multiple choice

by Barb Jarmoska

I might as well open with a confession. You are now reading my fifth attempt at an opening paragraph for this article. The first four are in the recycle bin. The challenge of trying to explain this process has given me a new understanding of how very challenging the task of buying vitamins must be for you.

Vitamins (and their health claims) are everywhere! Pharmacies and the Internet, WalMart and the Dollar Store, grocery stores and truck stops, salons and gyms and mail order catalogs, and of course, the health food store. Freshlife offers more than 5,000 nutritional supplements. Among them are 72 different multi vitamin/mineral combinations. Although such a selection allows us to address a full range of health concerns, the multiplicity also makes your selection somewhat daunting.

My goal here is to UNdaunt you and in the process, equip you to “embrace your best health.” Your knowledge about the fine print on the labels and the range and amount of nutrients in any vitamin-mineral formula will serve you well regardless of where you shop or what your doctor or Reader’s Digest tells you. Wise decisions are made independently; independence requires knowledge and self-reliance.

How can you determine which multi vitamin/mineral combination is best for you? Explaining both the importance of that question and the course of action needed to come up with the answer is the task before me this month in Options. Join me – and let’s have at it!

Do you need a daily vitamin/mineral supplement?

Yes. In construction terms, your multi is your reinforced concrete block, footer and frost wall. It’s your monolithic pour – a solid protection and foundation - assurance that your body has the level of vitamins and minerals needed for optimal health. Your daily multiple vitamin and mineral should provide the full range of macro and micronutrients upon which everything else is built.

Can’t you get enough of the proper nutrients from your food? In today’s world – no. There was a time when extra nutrients in supplement form were not crucial. Seventy to 80 years ago, the diet of the average American was far more nutritious than it is today. America’s food supply is increasingly refined and processed. Because of soil depletion, even unprocessed foods are not as nutrient-dense as they were three generations ago.

Studies have shown that the problem is a global issue, affecting the entire world’s food supply. The official report of the Rio Earth Summit concluded “there is deep concern over continuing major declines in the mineral values in farm and range soils throughout the world.” This statement was based on data showing that over the past 100 years, average mineral levels in agricultural soils have fallen worldwide – by 72 percent in Europe, 76 percent in Asia and 85 percent in North America.

Most of the blame lies with chemical fertilizers. Plants absorb 70 to 80 different minerals from the soil, while the number of nutrients returned by plants grown with commercial fertilizers can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Every crop that is cut or animal that is sent to market marks a further depletion in the mineral status of the soil on which it was raised. Organic wastes that in former times would have been composted and returned to the land are nowadays most often consigned to landfills or incineration.

As agriculture becomes increasingly corporate, the food we eat becomes increasingly mineral deficient. The table to the right summarizes the reductions in the average mineral content of 27 vegetables and 17 fruits, between 1940 and 1991.

Mineral levels in animal products reflect the picture in plant foods. Comparing levels measured in 2002 with those present in 1940, the iron content of milk was found to be 62 percent less, calcium and magnesium in parmesan cheese had each fallen by 70 percent and copper in dairy products had plummeted by a remarkable 90 percent.

In this same era in which nutrients have been depleted from our soil, pollutants and toxins have increased in our environment. Since the end of World War II, more than 80,000 new chemicals have been introduced. The sheer volume of these pollutants is beyond comprehension. According to EPA figures, more than 400 million pounds of toxic chemicals are released annually just in the mid-Atlantic region that includes Pennsylvania.

Conclusion? Regardless of your commitment to a healthy lifestyle and organic foods, you cannot escape the consequences of living in this century. There is an inverse ratio. Nutrients are not as available as they used to be—at the same time, more nutrients are needed to support cellular health and detoxification pathways.

Your daily multi vitamin-mineral can bridge the gap and help to make up for what your diet is missing and your body is demanding.

In the box above, number these factors in order of importance to you. For example, if you are adamant about taking only one pill per day, dose is your No. 1 concern. If you have to count every penny, cost may have to come first. If you gag every time you try to swallow a pill, choosing a liquid or powder that mixes in water or juice puts delivery at the top of your list. If you endure chronic low energy, have symptoms of toxic overload, experience bloating and indigestion, concede that you don’t eat enough vegetables, are pregnant and taking vitamins for two, or suffer from hormone imbalances – you may want to choose a formula that offers therapeutic value. If purity and quality are at the top of on your list, rest assured that our No. 1 priority matches yours, and you can trust Freshlife to meet your standards.

Prioritizing those five factors makes subsequent choices easier. For example, if “therapeutic value” was high on your list, you have narrowed down the field of 72 choices. Anyone willing to take multiple doses per day and spend a bit more money on an “all the bells and whistles” formula will find Prenatal Plus, Ultra Pure Detox Multi, Daily Energy Infusion, Life Essentials and others to offer therapeutic value in a daily multi.

If you simply want your multi to build a solid nutritional foundation, the next question is, “Do you want an age- and/or gender-specific formula or one that can be shared by several family members?” Formulas that are not age- or gender-specific offer doses that can be taken by any adult. However, adults will derive no benefit from taking a children’s vitamin (there are chewables made for you!), and young children should never take an adult formula. Freshlife offers multis for infants, toddlers, children, teens, adults and seniors, each designed to meet the unique needs of the target age group.

In addition to age considerations, there are gender differences. For instance, women need extra iron from their teen years until menopause. Men require extra zinc and can benefit from the sterols in saw palmetto, especially after 40 when prostate challenges often arise. Seniors are not as able to assimilate the nutrients in food or supplements, and digestive support is a plus. Each of these needs has been addressed and responded to by the experts who formulate the multis on Freshlife shelves. Within each age and gender category, the other factors (delivery, dose, cost) come into play, and choices are available.

Bioavailability is critical

Just as you ranked the five factors in your buying decision, the companies who manufacture vitamins make these same determinations. There are companies whose primary goal is to get a multi vitamin to market at the lowest possible cost. The cost factor then dictates everything else. It generally means a one-a-day (dose) tablet (delivery) of poor quality (bioavailability), offering absolutely no therapeutic value (in spite of some outrageous label claims).

Let me give you a behind-the-scenes example of what happens when cost dictates all other decisions at the manufacturing level. I’ll use the mineral chromium as an example.

Chromium is an essential trace mineral that is estimated to be deficient in 25-50 percent of all Americans. Chromium is necessary for the absorption of sugar into the cells. That sugar (in the form of glucose) is your body’s primary source of fuel. Chromium deficiency is common in the United States, largely because American’s farm soils are some of the most chromium-deficient in the world – and our diet one of the most highly processed. Chromium is removed in the refinement of grains and sugar cane, where up to 95 percent of the mineral is lost. Some experts believe chromium may be one of the factors accounting for the differences in rates of diabetes between cultures.

You cannot improve your body’s chromium status by licking the bumper of your car! The solution is to eat whole, organic grains and take a multi vitamin/mineral that has a bio-available form of chromium. The operative word here is bio-availability; able to be used by the cells of the body. Just as you cannot get chromium by licking chrome, you also can’t expect much if you are taking chromium chloride, the form of the mineral most often used in cost-based supplements. Why do manufacturers bother to put a mineral in a pill if it can’t be absorbed? Because they know most customers know enough to want to see chromium listed on the label, and they hope most customers don’t know enough to realize that chromium chloride is virtually ineffective. Here’s why.

Chromium polynicotinate - the form that offers the greatest efficacy – costs $950 per kilo. Chromium chloride, on the other hand, can be purchased as a byproduct of the paper milling industry for about $35 per kilo. If you are a vitamin manufacturer and want to bring a multi to market that can be sold for less than $5 per bottle, which chromium are you going to buy? No brainer. You count on the ignorance of the public and go for the cheap chromium, then do the same for the calcium, zinc, magnesium, selenium and other minerals as well as the vitamin portion of the multi.

Although the names are only one letter apart, there is a significant difference in the ingredient cost between d-alpha tocopherol and dl-alpha tocopherol. Both are vitamin E. The first is natural – the second synthetic. The difference in your body is significant, with natural vitamin E offering about seven times the antioxidant power of its synthetic counterpart. (Hint: when looking for vitamin E, think of “dl” as “don’t like.”)

I could tell you similar scenarios for almost any single ingredient in any formula. The bottom line is – you get what you pay for, and you never have to pay 2,000-percent more for a good vitamin in spite of the fact that the raw material costs may actually be that significant. Regardless of your priorities, bioavailability is the most critical factor in determining the potential benefits of any nutritional supplement.

In helping you to become more informed, the Freshlife Wellness Coaches would be happy to help you to read the fine print on the label of whatever brand of supplement you are now taking – including ours! We can explain the harm in their hydrogenated soybean oil, Red#40, aluminum, polyethylene glycol and the benefits of our quercetin, amino acid chelates and L-selenomethionine.

Freshlife provides vitamin and mineral formulas that are made from the finest trademarked, patented and bioavailable ingredients obtainable. However, we do not claim to be the only place where good quality formulas are available. Although I would personally refuse to ever swallow a One A Day brand multi, we are certainly aware of well-formulated products on the market that we do not carry in our inventory. We pride ourselves on quality and integrity and are glad we are not alone in that endeavor. No matter where you make your purchase, do so as a wise and savvy supplement user. Bring in your bottle. Our fine-print label-reading lessons are free and without obligation.

Among the 72 different multi vitamin/mineral combos on Freshlife shelves, the formulas in our brand are the most popular—and for good reason. Anyone seeking a solid nutritional foundation using premium quality, patented raw materials will find that the Freshlife brand offers a selection to meet your personal priorities. Even the top-of-the-line blend costs less per day than a small cup of coffee. An overview of the Freshlife family of multis is listed on page 19. For the month of August, you can enjoy a 20-percent discount on the entire collection. There’s no better time to make the switch to (or stock up on!) premium-quality, bioavailable formulas. Invest in your health – you’re worth it.

There is such a big difference in the nutrient content of Freshlife multis vs. those available elsewhere that I actually have a small collection of discarded vitamins that were given to me by customers who came to the store to compare labels. After getting some help with reading the fine print, a number of these folks have handed over their former supplements and said “Can you throw this away for me, please?” Those bottles have been added to my “trash” vitamin collection instead of my trash can. The rejected products have become teaching tools, allowing me to contrast the ingredients with Freshlife’s formulas and demonstrate by comparison what bioavailability, integrity and the Freshlife motto, “Embrace your best health” truly means.