Do Your Vitamin Supplements Really Work?

I must first acknowledge that if we lived in perfect stress free world with no high fructose corn syrup, Aspartame, hydrogenated fats, processed, pasteurized, irradiated, or fast food, GMOs, and we only ate 100% organic produce, nuts and seeds, all complementing our grass fed beef, pastured chickens, and fish caught from a clean ocean, we would not need vitamin supplements.  OK…back to reality.

There are two types of supplements: Those made from whole foods and those created in a test tube. “The body doesn’t know the difference” remains the mantra of the synthetic vitamin companies. However, laboratory made, synthetic, lifeless, inert, fractionalized, isolated, chemicals can never be passed off as whole food complexes complete with live enzymes, co-factors, trace minerals, antioxidants, and activators. The wisdom of the human body is infinitely more intellectual and transcendent than man’s finite ego-based book knowledge and very certainly does know the difference. 

Strike one: Synthetic molecules can never function like a whole food complex. 

Ascorbic acid is commonly thought of as vitamin C. It is not. Synthetic vitamins are “pieces” of a once dynamic food matrix. Ascorbic acid is the outer layer of molecules that keeps the inner vitamin C complex from oxidizing.  It is the Tupperware® that keeps vitamin C mosaic from spoiling. Vitamin C is instead is a network of nutrients which includes flavonoids (a complete biochemical matrix in and of itself including rutin, quercetin, epicatechin, flavones, isoflavones, flavins with their own subgroups, and anthocyanidins.) Let’s not leave out tyrosinase, an enzymatic form of organic copper essential for proper adrenal function, as well as P, K, and J factors. Pretending ascorbic acid is vitamin C is classic reductionism (Newtonian physics). It is bad science from an outdated paradigm. The carrot has over 200 known nutrients and phytonutrients in it. Are you satisfied with a synthetic beta carotene laced supplement or would it be a more nutritionally sound choice to have a supplement made from carrots? We can say the same for d-alpha tocopherol posing as vitamin E. 

Strike two: The sources of these lifeless chemicals will make you think twice.

Most synthetic vitamins are petroleum extracts and coal tar derivatives. Other chemicals used to create these imposters include methanol, benzene, ammonia, and formaldehyde. Ascorbic acid is made by hydrogenated corn sugar, acetone, and hydrochloric acid. It’s toxic sugar. Corn products in this country (unless grown organically) are genetically adulterated through Monsanto’s GMO program. Genetically altered food is dangerous and comes with inherent health risks.

The giant pharmaceutical company Hoffman LaRoche, in the mid-1940s, started manufacturing d-alpha tocopherol (synthetic form of vitamin E) from turpentine, acetone, and acetylin. Any relationship of this man-made vitamin E to a natural food based vitamin E was perhaps chemical but hardly biological. Through prestige and power in the marketing industry, they were able to force this bad science through regulatory channels as the chemical industry standard.

Strike three: The molecules that make up a synthetic vitamin are optical isomers

They are mirror images. Because these structures are reversed, a left handed molecule cannot take part in a chemical reaction meant for a right handed molecule. Try as a mad scientist might, he has not been able to create a molecule in a lab that will “spin” in the “natural” direction. Physiologically speaking, these counterfeit pseudo-vitamins cannot work despite million dollar TV commercials.

Synthetic vitamins can only function like all other man-made pharmaceuticals. They alter chemical reactions in the body so we perceive or sense a different outcome. They stimulate and never feed the body. The effect of a synthetic vitamin is palliative at best and never curative. At worst, these counterfeit supplements can impair bodily functions by contributing to biochemical imbalance. When choosing a supplement, be sure the ingredient label reads like a garden and not like a chemical text book.