Nutritional Supplementation
By Don Bennett, DAS

Firstly let me say that supplementation in general is a heady issue and one that is hotly debated. And I've found that anytime an objective issue is hotly debated, there are probably some emotional components to the debate. And by "objective" I mean that conclusions should, if possible, be based on hard-science and reality. But we are emotional beings, and some of us can't separate our emotional side from our logical side as easily as Mr. Spock can. Being aware of this as I am, and wanting always to get to the truth of the matter (the reality of the situation), I make a concerted effort to use only logic and common sense when researching issues of health (which helps greatly when not wanting things like personal preferences and biases, and preferred beliefs to color otherwise sound thinking).

Secondly, the issue of supplementation is not as cut-and-dried as some would think. There are many considerations, and if someone is subject to "subconscious selective consideration" their conclusions will probably not represent reality (I'm not going to discuss here those who employ "conscious selective consideration" i.e. hucksters, marketeers, promoters who don't give a rat's rump about their customers' future health).


Some of my observations and conclusions

• Just because there is no more instances (in the developed world) of scurvy, beriberi, or pellagra doesn't mean that those not suffering from these conditions don't have an insufficiency/deficiency of one or more nutrients that is/will be a contributing factor (primarily or secondarily) to one of the serious degenerative diseases that are plaguing our society today (cancer, heart disease, mental illness, itis's, and other chronic conditions), And make no mistake about it, this is a plague, it's just a plague of very-slow-to-be-noticed illnesses, as opposed to acute conditions like the flu.

So I disagree with the contention that most of the illnesses which the general population experiences today are illnesses of excess. They are illnesses of BOTH excess and insufficiency. And it does not help the situation to pin the blame mostly on one OR the other; they both need to be addressed, and addressed dispassionately, if robust health is the goal. And they are not mutually exclusive: One can be getting entirely too much ethyl alcohol and at the same time have a deficiency of a nutrient (and not because of the alcohol consumption, although alcohol does deplete the body of certain nutrients).

So it's safe to say that the vast majority of our modern maladies are caused by a combination of excess and insufficiency. And by-the-way, rickets (a bone disease caused by not enough vitamin D) was eradicated by fortifying the foods the public commonly consumed with vitamin D. But rickets is making a comeback! Why? When deciding how much D to fortify foods with, the object was to add only the amount that would be needed to make rickets go away (why waste money on more D than necessary to accomplish the goal). But since we get vitamin D from sunshine, the amount of D that was added to food was an amount that, when combined with the D we made by being outdoors, was enough to end the occurrence of rickets. But now that kids are spending less time outdoors thanks to computers, Facebook, GameBoys, I-Touches and more "latch-key" kids, the amount of D added to processed, fortified foods is not cutting it in some cases. The answer? Simply up the amount of D added to foods. Sorry, to me, that's not the answer, especially when you consider that along with more indoor time comes more overweight children. (When I was in elementary school, there was only one overweight kid in the whole school! Today I was shocked to see how many kids are overweight and obese in elementary schools.)

• Things that muddy the waters re: supplementation are:

1. Not all supplements are created equal. If you, the reader, wanted to come out with your own multivitamin (complete with your picture on the bottle), you can very easily go to a supplement manufacturer (who actually makes the supplements for many of the well-known brands you see on the shelves in supermarkets and health food stores) and work with their product formulator to "design" one for yourself. Here's what happens when you sit down with the manufacturer's formulation scientist: he/she asks you what you want in the multi, giving you some suggested formulations depending on what you want to pay for a bottle (the wholesale amount) which will probably depend on what you want the bottle to retail for. If the price (to you) is too high, the formulator can do things like changing calcium citrate (the best form of calcium) to calcium phosphate or carbonate, and this will bring down the cost. In-other-words, the forms of the nutrients, the number and the amount of the nutrients themselves, and the quality of the excipients (binders, fillers, disintegrants) dictate the cost of the product, so the formulation depends on your market. If you want the bottle to sell in a regular supermarket for $12.95 for a 30 day supply, economics dictates that the formulation can NOT be as bioavailable and thus as efficacious as a product that costs you $20 and thus must sell for around $39.95. So there can be a HUGE difference between a worthless product (in my opinion) such as Centrum, One-A-Day, and Theragram, and a product that NASA buys to give to their astronaut fleet.

2. The philosophy that says we can live in such a way where we shouldn't have to take supplements only works if we can live where humans were designed to live, and if we can eat the foods that humans were designed to eat. But the definition of "the foods that humans were designed to eat" cannot be defined by their names alone (i.e. kiwi, banana, papaya). It has been established that the nutritional value of a banana grown conventionally and a banana grown organically are different (monkeys can tell the difference between). And there is likewise a difference in the nutritional quality of a food item that grows wild, and one that is grown in an agricultural-based system. So, yes, if I was living in a tropical environment and getting plenty of sun and eating the foods of my bio-physiological design from the wild, I would not need nutritional supplementation (unless I had a genetic defect that made this necessary, meaning that even though I now live in the wild, I wasn't born in the wild to parents who were born in the wild; I was born in Michigan to parents who were born in the U.S. and my Mom's diet wasn't all that good when she was pregnant with me and she was taking a medication which depleted her body of folic acid unbeknownst to the physicians of the time so that I was born with genetic defects that you can't see but interfere with my ability to utilize nutrients... see, I told you this issue wasn't cut-and-dried).

• It's true that a pill can't correct the damaging effects from an excess of calories, salt, protein, cholesterol, or fat, but it can provide the most important nutrient, and that's the one you are lacking in. And if the ones that are supposed to be able to come from food (most of them) aren't made available to you from the food you are eating (usually agri-based food) then you have only two choices: 1. Get them from someplace else (supplement or home-grown foods grown in nutritious soil), or 2. Live without them the best you can and put up with any health problems that arise due to the lack of these nutrients. I choose number one.

• Of course you can damage yourself by taking overdoses of individual nutrients; those dosages based on what you or some other miseducated person says to take, but taking a proper dose of an effective supplement can be helpful, and I have first hand knowledge of this. Take me for instance; I eat a wide variety of organically grown raw sweet fruits, non-sweet fruits, leafy greens, and occasional nuts and "overt" fatty foods, and have been doing so for over 19 years, yet if I don't take the very high quality multi that I take, I get occasional bouts of an abnormal heart beat. But I don't get these bouts if I am taking the multi. What's in the multi that helps prevent this from happening that isn't in my diet in enough abundance? I don't know. And I'm not about to experiment with dozens of bottles of individual nutrients to try and find out... for me it's a moot point. I don't feel the need to get overly complex about my life; the science of health is complex, but the art of health is simple. And if I simply take a high quality multi, I'm fine – but I do know why it works in simple general terms.

And there are other non-serious health issues I experience when I haven't taken the multi for a period of time. This scenario has also occurred with other people I've counseled. A good example is when someone diagnosed (by an MD) with Type 2 Diabetes, who is taking insulin for it but who hears that Type 2 Diabetes can be resolved and wants to do this if at all possible, and they then come across someone like me who educates them on what they must do to eliminate the condition (fat content of diet must come way down, often under 6%, eat a healthy diet, exercise, etc) but who, after doing all that needs to be done, and doing it for a goodly amount of time, still needs some insulin. At first this was a head-scratcher, but it turns out that when I wondered if a sub-clinical nutrient deficiency could have something to do with this, and then put the person on a high-quality multi, no more insulin was needed. I know I said that I wasn't interested in which nutrient was responsible for keeping my abnormal heart rate at bay, but in this instance I wanted to know what was going on. Turns out it was chromium (that was missing/not abundant enough in the diet); chromium plays a key role in blood sugar metabolism. Please see this short video for further explanation.

• There are some so-called "superfood" products on the market, and ones specifically marketed to the growing raw food market, that I wouldn't recommend. Not because they don't have any bioavailable ingredients in them, but because of some other ingredients that have no place in the human body, and are used because of the "we all know that XYZ is good for you." For example, there's one product out there that I would recommend and take myself if only it didn't have garlic and ginger in it.

On the issue of supplements causing imbalances

What are the odds of you consuming foods during a week's period of time that provided you with exactly what you needed in the way of calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, manganese, potassium, etc? The odds of you getting no more or less than what you needed are astronomical, meaning, not possible. So there are only two other scenarios: you will either get more than what you needed or less than what you needed. I don't think I have to explain what can happen if you get less than what you need of the "essential" nutrients (those your body can't manufacture, that must come from food), so, hopefully, you will get more than what you need. But this is not a problem for your body; it can store what it wants and discard what it doesn't need to store. No one would suggest that the differing amounts of the various nutrients you're taking in somehow unbalances the body. So then why would it be assumed that taking in some nutrients that result in an overage (not to be confused with an overdose) will upset the body's balance in a detrimental way. Or that taking in more of one nutrient than one of it's co-factors will do likewise, when we eat such a varied diet that this "unbalanced ratio" will happen naturally.

Sure, supplements allow you to take in way too much of a particular nutrient if you buy individual bottles of C, E, A, B, etc, and taking too much of a fat soluble vitamin like A or D can be problematic, but this is where necessary education comes in. I call it "necessary" because we are no longer living where we're designed to live, so now we need an owner's manual of sorts to be at our best. Or we need to consult with someone who is very familiar with such a manual.

And here's an example of vitamin D intoxication (overdose): A person was taking 1,000 IUs of D3 a day in liquid form. After a few weeks he started exhibiting symptoms of vitamin D toxicity. Turns out the manufacturer of the liquid D didn't dilute the batch before bottling it, and the man was taking not 1,000 units a day but was taking one-million units a day! (His 25-hydroxy-vitamin-D blood level was 520 ng/ml and it's supposed to be between 50-80). But he didn't die, nor was there any long term damage; he was able to get his blood levels of D down to where they needed to be. And as it turns out, the possibility of D intoxication from taking 10,000 IUs a day is zero. But I and others recommend 1,000 to 5,000 a day depending on age and weight. So even if your multi contains 400 IUs and you still eat some foods fortified with D, you will not be in danger of D toxicity if you take a D supplement which, along with B12, are the only two "individual" supplements I recommend... as needed of course).

The problems with studies

The main problem with studies is that they are carried out by human beings. And human nature being what it is, some of these studies are "loaded", meaning, they are designed to prove something that the entity that commissioned the study wants shown (usually for reasons of financial gain). These tainted studies appear very credible to the naked eye, indeed many of them at first blush can rock your boat and make you think twice about something you thought you were sure about. And that is one of the intents of a loaded study. I have seen so many of these studies that I have felt ashamed that I'm a member of the human species.

There are studies that will show that a particular nutrient increases mortality, but when you dig through the data you can sometimes find the faulty premises, the missing info not considered, the skewed way the testing was carried out, and/or the inconsistent or unreliable way the data was collected, and you'll begin to see why not all study results are created equal.

The first thing to look at when considering a study is "who commissioned it". This may not always be an easy thing to determine. If the diary industry wants to have a study done that refutes the data that milk consumption is a contributing factor to diabetes, cancer and osteoporosis, they would be crazy to fund the study directly, for this would make the study suspect. What they do is create an organization (that often creates and funds another organization) to commission the study. This can make it hard (but not impossible) to "follow the money". Yes, it's sad that we have to do this, but consider what's at stake.

So before you accept as the Gospel truth a study that seems to suggest that something that you were taught is true isn't, try to find the info that refutes the study in question. Yes, often it can come down to "I just don't know who or what to believe!" because you may lack the technical expertise to separate the sense from the non-sense and the fact from the fiction. And this is where logic and common sense need to come into play, because if you allow confusion to set in, it's unlikely you will end up adopting healthful info, because a confused mind does one of two things: it keeps the status quo and makes no decision (which is technically a decision in and of itself) or it turns to matters-of-the-heart to decide what to do if a decision is to be made, and the decisions that affect your physiological health are decisions best made not by your emotions, because those emotions have been influenced for many decades by industries and people who do not have your best interests at heart, and by well-meaning people who are never-the-less miseducated.

Vitamin D

"Because vitamin D is so cheap and so clearly reduces all-cause mortality, I can say this with great certainty: Vitamin D represents the single most cost-effective medical intervention in the United States." – Dr. Greg Plotnikoff, Medical Director, Penny George Institute for Health and Healing, Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis

With the above in mind, let's consider something: If it's true that by keeping your blood levels of vitamin D in the sufficient range we could reduce the risks of flu, colds, type 2 diabetes, osteosarcoma (bone cancer), melanoma, colon cancer, breast cancer, osteoporosis, inflammatory bowel disease like Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, mental illnesses like depression and psychosis, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, periodontal disease, macular degeneration, muscle weakness, chronic pain, bone fractures, autoimmune diseases including type I diabetes, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis, kidney disease, and obesity, wouldn't there be some industries that wouldn't want you know about this fact? Yes, if you took over an industry that depended on ill-health for its survival, you might feel that people's health is more important than the profits of this industry and decide to shout out this news to the world. But unfortunately the big wheels of those industries are not as nice as you or I, and they will do whatever is necessary to keep this kind of information from affecting their financial bottom lines and their (huge) paychecks, including creating misinformation (disinformation) that refutes information which suggests that keeping up a decent D level is a healthful thing to do.

And if you don't think people would do something like this, just look at what those nice folks in the tobacco industry did when they discovered just how health-damaging cigarette smoking was. Did they take out public service ads to warn the population? No. Did they print warnings on each and every cigarette pack? No. In fact, when Congress decided to make them do that, the tobacco industry fought it tooth-and-nail. Why? Because it would lower their profits, and that's the name of the game. How nice.

So don't think for one second that the truth about the benefits of having sufficient vitamin D levels will be disseminated by all parties to the issue. When the facts came out about the link between breast cancer and bra wearing, the garment industry (to name only one) launching a campaign to discredit the authors of the study. And in keeping with the media's policy of not biting the hand that feeds it, the media did what they are supposed to do, and made the authors look like nut cases even though the data is solid. Folks, this kind of stuff happens all the time, and there is no doubt in my mind that it is also occurring in the vitamin D arena (and in the nutritional supplementation conversation).

For what it's worth, I am of the considered opinion that a well-made supplemental vitamin D3 is safe to take in the proper dose (as determined by your blood level of 25-hydroxy-vitamin-D as determined by a test for same) when the sun isn't strong enough to enable your body to make enough D (assuming that you are getting out in that sun), and that keeping your blood level of 25-hydroxy-vitamin-D between 50-80 ng/ml can help prevent many of the conditions of ill-health that we see today, and can even help resolve certain conditions. This is based on my research and my clinical experience. For more of my info on the subject see this article.

Bottom line

My research over the last 30+ years suggests that there is more of a chance of ill-health from a deficiency of nutrients than from getting more than you need, which is not to be confused with an overdose (which can be caused by taking way too much of individual nutrients in pill form). And I have seen first hand how the food items we're supposed to eat, if coming from an agri-based system, can be deficient in some nutrient that we need and can't manufacture ourselves. And I know full-well that all nutritional supplements are not created equal; probably 95% of them are garbage and don't do anything except give you expensive urine (unless, of course, the pill passes out whole, which you are unlikely to ever know about – the owners of Porta-Potty companies are familiar with this however).

I also know that a high quality bioavailable supplement can be of use by the body when the body is dealing with nutritional insufficiencies which are mostly caused by foods that come from an agri-based system (and of course by cooking foods). For me, this comes under the heading of empirical evidence, which is tough to argue with (but not impossible). And since my reasons for stating what I do are not motivated by preferred beliefs, dogmatic research, or financial gain, and are motivated by a vigorous desire for the truth (even though the heavens may fall), this should hopefully say something about the credibility of the information.

The choice to supplement or not is, of course, a personal one. I am not the supplement police any more than I am the food or exercise police. But I firmly hope that whatever decision you make regarding nutritional supplementation is a well-thought-out and considered opinion, and one that will end up serving you well in the long run.

Here's a shorter, more concise take on the issue. It does provide some additional information.

The Skinny on Nutritional Supplementation
by Don Bennett, DAS

Why Nutritional Supplementation?

Humans, as with all animals, have certain nutritional requirements. Deficiencies of certain nutrients become very apparent very quickly (lack of vitamin C results in scurvy, insufficient thiamine/vitamin B1 results in beriberi), but certain nutritional inadequacies take a long time to manifest noticeable symptoms (insufficient B12 results in pernicious anemia).

In Nature, where our ancestors came from, we'd get our nutrition from our natural diet that grew "wild". We'd eat a variety of foods thus assuring that we got enough of all the nutrients our bodies need to thrive (not just survive). But in today's culture, most if not all of our food is agricultural-based and one of this industry's "movers" is financial profitability (as with most businesses). And as such, certain foods may be lacking in certain nutrients. If they contain less than they would in Nature, but still have enough to supply our needs, then it's not a problem, we simply store or excrete what we don't need at that moment. It's when there is not enough of a certain nutrient that we are put at risk of not thriving, and this can mean not dealing very well with degenerative disease thus allowing it to get ahead of our body's ability to handle it; there is a big difference between thriving and surviving.

The flip side of availability is need. In our modern society, our nutritional needs are more than they were many centuries ago. This is due to degraded genetics and more stress. Long ago, stress was momentary and infrequent. Today stress is pervasive; it has become part of most people's daily lives. Some stress is observable/noticeable, but a lot is not; it occurs in the "background", but it is just as health-damaging as the stress we recognize. And dealing with stress requires nutrients, both to deal directly with the processes invoked by the stress, and for the repair work that stress necessitates.

Vitamins D and B12 are in a class by themselves. Firstly, they are not vitamins, but have been lumped into the vitamin category for expediency's sake. D is normally generated by the body from the action of sun on our skin; it is not present in food. But in many parts of the world, there is not enough sunshine during some parts of the year to produce enough D. When we discovered this, we began fortifying commonly consumed foods with D (and with B12 and other nutrients that were hard to get when eating foods that we are not designed to eat). But when we transition away from non-health-enhancing foods to foods that support a vital and disease-free life, we no longer eat fortified foods, making supplementation even more important for the reasons outlined in this article. B12 is normally made by the body IF the body has a perfectly healthy digestive tract... which very few people have. When we transition to a truly healthy diet – which normally contains no meaningful amount of B12 – many people need to take supplementary B12 to prevent a deficiency of this very important nutrient; and I say "very important" because a deficiency of this nutrient can result in irreversible neurological damage.

Reasons for Insufficient/Inadequate Nutrition in Our Natural Foods

1. If the food is grown in nutrient-poor soil
Some farmers do not take as good care of the soil as others. Some will only fertilize their soil with the three nutrients (N-P-K) that are required for the plant to grow, but that plant will not contain all the nutrients it would in the wild, and it will not taste good unless the stock has been manipulated in some way to taste sweeter than normal. This underscores the importance of buying, whenever possible, organically grown foods because they tend to be higher in nutrition than their conventionally grown counterparts. Organic farmers will rotate fields and some will fertilize with rock dust so their crops get all the trace minerals and rare earth elements (in addition to the more abundant nutrients like calcium) that they should have.

2. If the food is grown from Genetically Modified seeds
For example, corn grown from "Terminator Seeds" will not pick up zinc or boron from the soil even if these nutrients are in the soil. It is hard to determine just what percentage of foods you are eating are grown from these types of seeds.

3. If the food is not allowed to remain on the tree/vine/bush long enough
We all know that nutrients from the soil are "absorbed" through the root system of a plant into the plant and then "combined" with carbon dioxide from the air, water, and sunlight to become the edible plant we eat. But not many know that not all the nutrients that are uptaken by the plant enter at the same rate/pace. Certain trace minerals, chromium for example, enters a lot slower than other nutrients. So if the plant is picked before it is perfectly ripe and ready to eat (as most are), it often is lacking in these "slowpoke" nutrients. Yes, some foods can ripen off the vine, but this only means that the starches will turn to sugar after being picked. But once that plant is disconnected from the earth, it's accessibility to the soil's nutrients is over. And if the plants don't have what you need, neither will you.

4. Nutritional quality diminishes over time
We know that fruits and vegetables will become inedible after a certain amount of time... this is obvious because we can visually see and smell this. What's not obvious to the naked eye and nose is that the food's nutritional profile starts going downhill the moment it's disconnected from its source of nutrition. In Nature, we'd eat the food at or very near the peak of ripeness, meaning it's as nutritious as the soil it was grown in will allow. But unless you grow your own food, the food you're eating is being transported (and possibly stored), and there is nutritional loss that occurs from "picking to plate".

See this short video for further explanation.


Why the Debate on Nutritional Supplementation?

1. The "shotgun" approach to supplementation. Some natural health practitioners are aware that buying and taking vitamin supplements, every bottle from A to Zinc, is not considered an intelligent nutritional regimen. And some therefore simply dismiss out-of-hand all nutritional supplementation.

2. There is junk food and junk supplements. Some natural health practitioners are of the belief that most vitamin supplements sold in health food stores are not efficacious, and therefore worthless, giving consumers nothing more than expensive urine, so they dismiss out-of-hand all nutritional supplementation, but this is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

3. Personal opinion. Human beings have the capacity to filter information through our belief systems. If our closely held philosophies are based on correct information, this filtering process works for us. But what if we decide what to believe based on a philosophy not grounded in reality? What if it's instead based on what we'd like to believe or on what someone else would like us to believe. If we're a teacher, then what we teach may be inaccurate. Many natural health practitioners and laypeople are simply of the opinion that we should not have to take supplements if we're eating a healthy diet. In a perfect world, this would be true. But today even the seemingly healthiest of diets can be lacking in some nutrient(s) that prevents a person from having the healthiest (most efficient) maintenance/defense system ("immune system") they can have, which would give them less than the best odds of avoiding degenerative disease. I'd love to believe that we don't need to take supplementation, and I did actually once believe this. But when I realized that this belief of mine was not based on anything concrete, I began to research. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but everyone is not entitled to their own facts... I wanted the facts. My body exists in reality, so I want to know the reality of the situation.

4. Some health educators are teaching what they've been taught. This is all well and good if what they've been taught is 100% correct information. But what if your teacher/mentor is incorrect about something (maybe he is merely passing on incorrect information from his mentor not realizing that it's incorrect). You may be a very well-intentioned and well-meaning person, but if the person teaching you was taught incorrect info, and you don't question what you're being taught, you'll understandably have and pass along incorrect information.


All Nutritional Supplements are Not Created Equal

Things you can consume - whether they be food, supplements, or medications - can be manufactured to one of two standards in this country: "Food Grade" or "Pharmaceutical Grade". These two standards have very different regulations and requirements that must be met, set by the FDA. Most (99%) of the supplement market is made to a "food grade" standard... to the same standard as a potato chip. What it says on the bottle does not necessarily have to be in the tablet, and the dissolution rate (what constitutes the product's bioavailability) is not overseen by the FDA. Supplements made to pharmaceutical grade standard are of a much higher quality by the very nature of the regulations they adhere to. But even some pharmaceutical grade supplements don't have the best formula (this is not part of the standard). Keep in mind this chilling thought: 78% of all the prescription prenatal supplements do not contain the recommended amount of folic acid; the supplement industry is surely aware that lack of folic acid in pregnant moms can and does often lead to neural tube birth defects (like spina bifida). So nutritional supplementation is a perfect example of "Let the Buyer Beware"; no where else is being an educated consumer more important than with nutritional supplementation.

Did you know that there are certain nutrients that, when in tablet form, will "fight" with another nutrient rendering it non-bioavailable? This is why a truly efficacious multi cannot consist of just one singular tablet, and instead must have two. So this knowledge becomes a good test for a good multi. If a multi doesn't come in a packet consisting of at least two tablets, it is not a well designed supplement (but it is a cheaper to produce supplement).

NASA's head of nutrition for the astronaut program (which is planning to send people to Mars in the near future) knows that humans are designed to eat fruits and green leafy vegetables. How do I know this? Because I was immensely fortunate to have had some great conversations with this man. Knowing that they can't send people on prolonged space missions with enough food of their biological adaptation to last for two years, NASA had to look to nutritional supplementation. NASA came up with their own formula for an extremely efficacious, bioavailable, and worthwhile daily supplement, then asked all the nutritional supplement manufacturers in the world to submit their formulas, saying that they would give the nutritional supplement contract to the company that came closest to NASA's formula. Many criteria were taken into consideration: type/form of nutrients, amounts, formulation, quality of excipients (binders, fillers, disintegrants), scientific basis for including a particular nutrient, etc. And consider that no organization on earth has a higher level of scrutiny than NASA. The most popular brands of multivitamins sold in supermarkets either didn't bother to submit anything (I wonder why) or ended up way down on the resulting list that NASA compiled (oh, that's why). I continued to research and got to know the formulation scientist (and company execs) of the firm that won NASA's contract.


How Do I Know if it Really Works?

I've experimented with many supplements in my life, first the common store-bought varieties (worthless), then the "top-notch" health food store brands (which didn't seem to do anything noticeable). After being on a 100% plant-based, uncooked, fruit and veggie diet for 10 years I began taking the supplement that is now on the International Space Station. It resolved certain "conditions" I had throughout my life; things that wouldn't be considered serious, they were just there for as long as I can remember. One dealt with blood sugar regulation, and is the reason I mentioned chromium above (chromium plays a key role in the management of blood sugar). More information about the one I recommend can be found on the health101.org website.

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