Here are a few more things to consider if you want to be sure
that the vitamins you use are not exiting your body in
the same shape that they went in!  Watch for part 3.

If you  haven’t read part one, please click here.

Are other nutrient(s) present that enhance or detract from absorption and effectiveness?

An example of this is iron, a difficult mineral for the body to absorb in supplement form.  An iron supplement is far better absorbed if it is combined with vitamin C.  Calcium is best combined with Magnesium and a number of other vitamins and minerals for best absorption.

You often hear that we should not use iron with vitamin C, Calcium or with B Complex.  That is contrary to what Nature provides. You will notice that some of the best sources of iron are green leafy vegetables that contain lots of vitamin C, Calcium, and B Complex.  The prohibition here applies only to the synthetic forms and to ferrous form. (One exception to the green leafy veggie benefit re: calcium, is cooked spinach which will inhibit the utilization of calcium because of the oxalic acid that cooking releases.  Raw spinach is fine.)

Your best bet for getting a top quality supplement is to require the manufacturer to provide research done on their products that has been published in actual scientific journals.  The journal must be a Peer Reviewed or Refereed journal that requires that the research be evaluated by top experts in the field before there is even a possibility of it being published.

Look for a company that does that kind of research and formulates its own products based on making sure that the product is bio-available.  They need not have their own manufacturing plant as long as the products are manufactured to their own standards and they have their own people insuring that this is the case by doing extensive quality assurance tests all along the process.  Al & I only use food supplements from a company that does its own research on many of its own products in addition to actively reviewing other research that has been done on the mineral or herb is how well the body assimilates and uses it.

There are many so called journals that will publish articles upon payment.  There is even one vitamin supplement company who cites journal articles that look very scientific, but when you dig deeper, you find that they own the “journal” and publish their own articles.  I personally would want more unbiased proof than that can give me.

The reason for a company to do it own research on its own product is that if they simply put a product together based on what other research shows, they may not formulate their own product in the best way for the body to utilize it.  For example, there are multiple sources for each vitamin and mineral.  The company’s choice of the source can impact the quality of the vitamin or mineral supplement.

There are many ways to process the ingredients, some of which involve heat that can kill off enzymes that are necessary for absorption.

On some supplements that extra research isn’t necessary because the original research also lets them know how it needs to be formulated, but for many, the difference between one brand and another brand of the exact vitamin, mineral or herb is how well the body assimilates and uses it.

Part 3 coming up!

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I’d love to have your comments as well and to have a conversation with you about them.