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| These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. | ||
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True or False: Vitamins Are Necessary If You Eat a Good  Diet Perhaps you've heard people say, "I don't need to take vitamins because I eat a well-rounded diet and get all the nutrients I need from the foods I eat." According to Gene Bruno and Presser of the American Academy of Nutrition, that's a largely false statement for two reasons: 1. Advanced agricultural techniques and deteriorating soil/growing conditions have decreased the nutrient levels in food (heating and chilling during food preparation also takes away some nutrients). From 1909 to 1994, the levels of nutrients in foods have decreased considerably:
2. Ninety percent of Americans don't eat a good diet, even though they may intend to. For example, only 17% of people actually consume the recommended daily servings of fruit. Moreover, 50% of Americans consume less calcium, copper, chromium, folic acid, Vitamin B6, and Vitamin E than the RDA suggests. Only 6% of female adults over the age of 60 get the required amount of calcium. When you add these two factors up - (1) fewer nutrients in food, and (2) poor dietary habits - supplementing your diet with a multivitamin is necessary, Bruno and Presser say. They're not the only ones saying it. They say the Council for Responsible Nutrition also recommends that many Americans take multivitamins and other supplements. The Journal of the American Medical Association even says that if you don't get enough of some vitamins, you increase your risk of chronic disease, especially if you are elderly. Not All Vitamins Are the Same Now you know the need for multivitamins, but how do you go about choosing one, with hundreds of different vitamins to choose from? If you go into local supermarket and browse the vitamin isle, you may see Centrum vitamins or other cheap multivitamins at appealing prices, but you should know that not all vitamins are the same quality. You get what you pay for. It's somewhat like wine - sure you can get a $10 bottle of Boon's Farm at the corner store, but it's nothing compared to a Dom Perignon. Both nutraceuticals and pharmaceutical products receive ratings from the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP). The highest USP rating a vitamin can receive is 27, and the lowest is 5. Poor quality vitamins ("supermarket vitamins") receive USP ratings of about 5 because they have fillers, additives, and other impurities in them. These supermarket vitamins aren't absorbed into your body very well. So even though they may supposedly contain all the recommended daily allowances of the vitamins you need, these vitamins won't be entirely absorbed into your body. In short, you swallow the tablet, and most of it comes out in your bowels. Health food stores have higher-grade vitamins, with USP ratings of about 8-12, sometimes even 15, depending on the brand. While these vitamins are a step up from supermarket quality vitamins, if you want total nutrition, you have to actually buy your vitamins from a doctor's clinic, because the vitamin companies that sell the highest quality vitamins only sell to doctors. The USP rating of vitamins sold to doctors is in the 20+ range. These vitamins give you total nutrition your body can absorb. At LifeWorks Wellness Center, we have a large in-house pharmacy of vitamins that we sell to the general public either through phone or web. One of the companies that makes multivitamins with an extremely high USP rating is Thorne Research.
Thorne Research's Basic Nutrients IV Multivitamin contains 180 capsules and will give you the nutrition you need in a form your body can absorb. You cannot buy Thorne Research vitamins from your local health food store or supermarket - they are only available from clinics with in-house pharmacies such as LifeWorks Wellness Center. Call LifeWorks Wellness Center today at 877-543-3975 to order the Basic Nutrients Multivitamin.
"Do I Really Need To Take Vitamins?"
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