The Case for A Multi-Vite Part 3

When I introduced my wonderful new Young Life Daily I reminded you of some disturbing facts.

We are encouraged to eat more fruits and vegetables so we can get all the magical life extending and health expanding compounds in them. Current diets aside, why is it then that as a population we are getting sicker even as we add just a few paltry years to our life spans?

You can go down the list of just about everything and find something to gripe about but we most certainly have more food choices than ever. You would think with the world at our doorstep we would never run out of heathy and nutritious foods.

Problem 1: What is healthy and nutritious. We can look at all kinds of diets from Mediterranean to Vegan to Paleo and Keto and find no real answers. I think we can pretty much agree that those agencies we have put in charge of diet have failed to provide useful diets or useful answers. This means you have to try stuff for yourself and see.

To paraphrase an old adage applied to exercise- the best diet is the one you stick with!

Problem 2: The ugly specter of poor soil quality raises its ugly head. Even organic grown produce may contain pesticides long banned from the US because of deep tilling. And how much of our food comes from poorer countries that still use DDT!
Problem 3: The soil quality issue is one that is hotly debated. It is estimated that there is at least 50% reduction in mineral and nutrient content of our foods. This may not just be due to poor soil but also to genetic manipulation to yield larger and faster growing crops and increase yield with that poorer soil.
Problem 4:  I won’t even touch the issue of GMO here except to say that almost everyone is eating something that has been GMO’d along the way.
Problem 5:  The next reasonable assumption would be, “OK I’ll just eat twice as much fruits and vegetables so it will all even out.” Then you will be dealing with potentially harmful sugar (fructose) content and of course any pesticide issues. Then there is the issue of cost. Organic foods are not cheap- witness the nick name for Whole Foods- Whole Paycheck!

All of this makes a pretty solid argument for the regular use of a Multi Vite as fairly cheap nutritional insurance. There will always be the argument from pharmacy lovers that vitamins just give you expensive urine. And the argument that absorption is poor.

There are very few studies to prove any of that, it’s usually just some de facto “expert” saying so when there is no real expertise in the field of nutraceuticals on hand.

As I pointed out in a recent blog Entitled “Are You Getting Enough?” some experts don’t even know where the vitamin metabolites wind up. Yet we believe them!

For the record I have always used multiple dose (3-6 a day) vege caps to provide my multis. This is much closer to the raw form and I am 100% certain your body absorbs them and can utilize them.

But I want to move on to some stuff you probably didn’t know.

A favorite topic of mine for the last 10 years has been the biologic time clocks known as telomeres.
While the FTC takes umbrage with statements that suggest telomere length is correlated with longevity and health span as well as cellular aging, and that lengthening telomeres may reverse this, there is science on pub med that backs this up. Because of the current climate of persecution, I simply have to ask you to go there and research it for yourself. At the end I will give you some references.

In addition, there is some science to suggest that multi-vites reduce the prototypical inflammatory bio marker- homocysteine.

So I cannot be accused of making things up, here is a direct quote from one of the studies referring to cognition and multi-tasking.

“Those in the vitamin/mineral group exhibited an attenuation of the negative effects of extended task completion on mood/fatigue. Multi-tasking performance for this group was also improved in terms of accuracy across all tasks, and on two of the individual tasks (Mathematical Processing and Stroop) in terms of both faster and more accurate responses”

And another: “MVM supplementation may have beneficial effects on mood, underpinned by elevated B-vitamins and lowered homocysteine in healthy young adults.”

So here is the Acid test! If you feel as good as you want by just eating then skip the multi vites. You might want to ask your doctor to do a homocysteine level first though.

If you think you could feel better and or you have a test level that needs addressing, multi vites may be just the ticket.

A little insurance never hurt!

Doc

 

PS remember case price discounts are available on most of my stuff!

 

 

 

References: Hum Psychopharmacol. 2010 Aug;25(6):448-61. doi: 10.1002/hup.1144.
Effects of a multi-vitamin/mineral supplement on cognitive function and fatigue during extended multi-tasking.
Haskell CF1, Robertson B, Jones E, Forster J, Jones R, Wilde A, Maggini S, Kennedy DO.

Effects of Four-Week Supplementation with a Multi-Vitamin/Mineral Preparation on Mood and Blood Biomarkers in Young Adults: A Randomised, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial.
White DJ1, Cox KH2, Peters R3, Pipingas A4, Scholey AB5.

Front Aging Neurosci. 2016 Dec 2;8:288. eCollection 2016.
Functional Brain Activity Changes after 4 Weeks Supplementation with a Multi-Vitamin/Mineral Combination: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial Exploring Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Steady-State Visual Evoked Potentials during Working Memory.
White DJ1, Cox KH1, Hughes ME2, Pipingas A1, Peters R1, Scholey AB1.

Pol Arch Intern Med. 2017 Feb 2;127(2):87-90. doi: 10.20452/pamw.3927. Epub 2017 Feb 2.
Mineral and vitamin consumption and telomere length among adults in the United States.
Mazidi M, Kengne AP, Banach M.

*These articles are for reference only and do not constitute a specific recommendation for any of my products or claims thereof!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top