“Frequently, it is stated in the literature that vitamins appear in the urine a short time following administration. These are synthetic vitamins and the body is actively ridding itself of these foreign substances. Further, it has been shown that the body selectively absorbs whole vitamin complexes in preference to the synthetic forms.”  Ron Carston

When is the last time you took Vitamin C for a cold?  What was the result?

But true wisdom and power are with God; counsel and understanding are his.  (Job 12:13; NLT)

Yesterday’s DG concluded with a promise to focus on a specific vitamin as a way of making the point that there is a huge difference in vitamins.  I’m choosing Vitamin C as the example.  After all, everybody knows how fantastic Vitamin C is for you.

First a little history of Vitamin C taken from the article by Richard Goutal.  In 1747, surgeon John Lind proved with a controlled experiment that citrus fruit in sailors’ diets prevented scurvy–a major killer of sailors during those times.  By 1933, Hungarian Albert Szent-Gyogyi isolated the property in plants believed to be that which prevented scurvy, and labeled it ascorbic acid.  Szent-Gyogyi received a Nobel prize for this in 1937.  The following year, other scientists devised ways to synthesize the molecule.  Hoffmann-LaRoche became the first Big Pharma company to mass produce synthetic “Vitamin C.”

Ironically, by the time Szent-Gyogyi received the nobel Prize, he was already convinced that ascorbic acid alone was not the only factor in preventing scurvy; he had identified something he called Vitamin P (P Factors) which he said must be provided with the ascorbic acid.  However, the manufacture of synthetic “Vitamin C” was well underway causing the two terms to be considered synonyms.

Here is an overview of the manufacturing process for ascorbic acid which actually requires dozens of steps.  First, plain corn syrup is converted into d-sorbitol.  At that point, acetone–the solvent used in many commercial cleaning processes, is added.  This is then refined into a powder which is sold as Vitamin C.

Contrast that with “whole vitamins.”  Vitamins found in foods are an integral part of a nutritive mixture of a compound which is exquisitely interlaced and fused with the whole food itself.  Although considered a single substance, each vitamin in food is actually a group of chemically related compounds.  Food-based vitamins are commonly referred to as “whole” or complete vitamins.  In short, a whole vitamin is a complete complex of organic, living molecules

So if you were able to remove a portion of that complex, you would have a result known as a fractionated, or separated, substance.  You cannot do that without denaturing or killing the complex.  So when a manufacturer wants to obtain a fractionated single part of the whole complex, he just synthesizes it resulting in a chemical of little or no value to living cells.

Turns out that ascorbic acid is only part of the natural Vitamin C complex.  Other parts are P-Factors (Szent-Gyogyi’s Vitamin P), K-Factors, J-Factors, and bioflavonoids.  Therefore, synthetic, fractionated ascorbic acid is devoid of all its synergists, i.e., factors which cooperatively work together to enable biochemical operation.

Why is it that most so-called Vitamin C consists only of ascorbic acid?  Because it is relatively simple to make and therefore inexpensive to manufacture.  I’m running out of room again today, but keep in mind that what I’ve said about ascorbic acid (aka Vitamin C) also applies to virtually every other synthetic vitamin on the market.    Hopefully you’re beginning to catch a glimpse of the difference between the inexpensive vitamins and the more costly whole food vitamins.

To be continued.

Prayer Power
Father, please forgive us as we sometimes believe we really do have a way to reproduce what You have created in our chemistry labs.  But it turns out that we can never have a complete understanding of what we’re doing and our valiant efforts virtually always result in unexpected and sometimes devastating consequences.

Link of the Day
The Truth About Vitamins

Blessings on you as you consider the difference between synthetic vitamins and food-based vitamins.

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