Stop flushing your money down the toilet - literally!
March 19, 2013
This is the everything-you-need-to-know-to-be-as-healthy-as-possible newsletter, brought to you by Kristy Russ, pharmacist and health consultant. I have close to 20 years experience in helping people improve their health. I specialize in nutritional medicine, which is the secret of "true" preventative medicine. Yes, if I'm successful in getting people to follow my advice, I will put myself out of a job.
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Are You Literally Flushing Your Hard-Earned Money Down The Toilet?
Okay everyone, pay attention to this one. It's probably one of the least known facts about supplements, but by far the most important...
In the last e-zine I showed you why you MUST take supplements to give your body the amounts of nutrients that it needs. What most people unfortunately don't know is that MOST supplements available (over 90%) are pretty much useless.
In fact, I'm going to boldly say that if you're buying your supplements in a store, you are wasting your money. Yep. You may as well throw that money in the garbage for all the good they're doing you.
How do I know this? I have done a LOT of research. I'm happy and proud to report that my conclusions are the same as a highly respected group of researchers looking for the same information. (Honestly, I wish I had come across their results earlier in my research- could have saved myself a lot of time and effort ;-)
The group of researchers have studied and ranked every "multivitamin" available in North America (over 1600 products). They have no affiliation with any company so their results are unbiased- they did it so that consumers could make an informed decision. They rate each product based on MANY factors, including the amounts of each nutrient, how easily they will be absorbed by your body, presence of toxic substances, quality of manufacturing, and so on... They give each product a rank out of 5 stars. The results are published in the Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements.
And they are shocking.
The top 2 selling multivitamins (I'm sure you know which ones) don't even rate well enough to receive a rank! Which means they don't even rate a half star. The formulas don't have nearly enough nutrients in them and the quality of manufacturing is so poor that for almost 50% of people, the tablet doesn't even dissolve. When that happens, it doesn't matter what's in the tablet, because you're not going to get anything from it anyway- you're literally flushing your money down the toilet.
At this point, most people get pretty angry. How is that possible they say? Aren't there government regulations to stop companies from selling junk like that?
The problem is that supplements fall under the category of food. So they only have to meet food regulations- as long as they don't cause immediate harm, it's legal to sell them. Whether they work or not is irrelevant.
Pharmaceuticals have to meet much higher standards of safety, manufacturing quality and efficacy. Unfortunately, it costs quite a bit more to meet these pharmaceutical standards, and since it's not required, there are only a handful of companies that do it. Not surprisingly, it's only these companies that got a 5 star gold medal rating.
The other thing that makes people surprised and/or angry is that the crummy supplement they're taking is the one that their doctor/pharmacist recommended. Here's why: doctors and pharmacists get next-to-no nutritional education in school. Sad, but true. Most of us were taught that if you just eat a proper diet, you don't need to take supplements. Multivitamins were just in case you weren't eating properly. (Of course, research now shows that to be completely false, as I told you in the last e-zine.)
I used to recommend the same junk when I was asked because I didn't have any background knowledge about it- that's just what my preceptor used to recommend when I was doing my internship. So it's not that they're trying to lead you astray, it's just that they don't know. Unless they've done their own research in the last 5-10 years, they're just as ill-informed about nutrition as the rest of the population.
There are a LOT of things you need to look at to find a good quality supplement.
More John Pinette...
I can't help it, he cracks me up. Enjoy!
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See you next month...
Good Health to You,
Kristy Russ, BScPharm
Pharmacist and Health Consultant
P.S. Give your body the best nutrition possible. You'll not only feel better now, but you'll also have that quality of life in the future that you've always imagined for yourself.Click here to find out more.
