“Poor scientific work done by physicians and scientists — plus a lack of proper filters in journalism’s coverage of science — is contributing to misleading and contradictory dietary supplement health information seen by consumers, leading to them making poor health choices.”  Neil Levin

With all the controversy regarding the use of vitamins, who do you believe and why?

Lord, your discipline is good, for it leads to life and health. You have restored my health and have allowed me to live!  (Isa. 38:16; NLT)

There is hardly a week go by that the media doesn’t ballyhoo a new alleged research study that touts the findings that vitamins are a waste of money.  Then it seems as if after just a few days here comes a study that shows just the opposite.  How can this be?  Talk about confusing.  How can two highly qualified researchers come up with such contradictory results?

I’m certainly not a researcher, and I may be overstepping my bounds here, but one very real possibility for such dissonance might just be semantical at it’s roots.  It other words, it all depends on what the definition of a vitamin is.  Oh come now…how could there be disagreement over a term that has been around as long as vitamin?

Well, I had the good fortune to come across a brilliant article by a friend of mine, Richard Goutal.  Richard points out that vitamins are “complex organic molecules.”  They are a category of nutrients required for the ongoing functionality of cells including human cells.  They are the raw materials for the biochemical reactions that allow the cells to do their work.  When all of the cells are working right, your organs work right.  When your organs work right, you are healthy.

So, when you have all of the vitamins and other nutrients that you need, your cells function properly.  Functioning cells mean healthy organs; healthy organs mean healthy bodies.  Most of these raw materials come from food because our bodies are able to manufacture some of these vitamins, if…and a big if here…if the foods the body ingests have the needed raw materials in them in the first place.

In our modern age of industrial agriculture, it seems that quality of food has been sacrificed for quantity.  Foods are picked green, shipped for weeks at a time, than gassed or radiated to make them appear ripe and nutritious, but the diminishing nutrition that was in the soil was left on the vine due to the green harvesting.  Even the American Medical Association came out a couple of years ago and reversed their long standing position against the need for supplements.  They now admit that the nutrient value of our food supply has diminished so drastically that it is virtually impossible to get all the nutrients one needs from food alone.

So, if more and more are admitting the need to supplement, then the issue comes back around to the one I alluded to earlier  What is a vitamin, anyway?  It turns out that there are more than 10 known vitamins and over 14 minerals which the body must get from food.  What’s the difference between some of those lower cost “vitamins” that only require 1 pill a day and some of the higher priced versions that advocate 4-6 pills a day.  Is there really a difference that justifies the huge difference in cost?

This is getting a little long, so I’m going to stop here and pick it up again on Wednesday.  To simplify things, I’m going to focus on just one vitamin, i.e., Vitamin C.  I’ll leave it to you to extrapolate some of the story I’m going to tell to the other 9 vitamins required by our bodies.

Prayer Power
Father, the foods you designed for us to eat were perfect in every way in their ability to deliver the life-sustaining nutrients that our bodies need for health and well-being.  However, science has come along with “a better idea” for which we are just now beginning to realize have some unsuspected consequences.  Grant us the wisdom to sort through all the conflicting information to arrive at what is truth for us.

Link of the day
Are Vitamins BAD for You?

Blessings on you as you ponder the value of supplements to your health.

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