According to preventive-health-guide.com, most doctors still maintain that you can obtain all the vitamins, minerals and nutrients you need from a normal healthy diet. However, because of degradation of the food supply it has become almost impossible to achieve a diet for optimal health and the prevention of degenerative disease.
One of the greatest reasons for confusion among doctors and physicians and therefore the general population is the reliance on recommended daily allowances, RDA’s (or recommended daily Intake, RDI’s.)
Somehow RDA’s have become a guide for optimal nutrition which is not what they were designed to do. Optimal nutrition (ODA) is the level of nutrition required to prevent chronic degenerative diseases such as Arthritis, Cancer, Alzheimer’s, osteoporosis, Diabetes and heart disease.
New nutritional guidelines being suggested by the few scientists and doctors that specialize in nutrition are describing levels of nutrients far higher than RDA’s for the maintenance of long term health and the prevention of chronic degenerative disease.
Doctors don’t spend a great deal of time studying nutrition. Physicians spend a large percentage of their training studying pharmacology and which drugs are appropriate to treat each disease.
Two main reason doctors don’t suggest supplements:
One:
Doctors’ bias against nutritional supplements is further compounded by an unregulated nutritional supplements industry and the power of effective marketing. Often doctors will refer to supplements as causing expensive urine based on the fact that some of the excess nutrients just pass through the system with no positive effect.
Up to one third of nutritional supplements including vitamins, minerals and herbs sold in the US have one of two major issues:
Firstly, the products can contain dangerous levels of substances like hexane to, classified as a neurotoxin and also used as a solvent to clean mercury; magnesium stearate or stearic acid (used in 90% of nutritional supplements to speed up the manufacturing process - this keeps manufacturing machines from clogging - and keeps costs down for the manufacturer); and other ingredients that do not necessarily appear on the products label or may appear as "other."
The ingredients from some of these supplement companies may be great, however, tainted by harmful chemicals on their way to the capsule.
Secondly, the products do not contain the nutrients and ingredients in the quantities as described on the label. The FDA only requires up to 30% of what is promised, and most companies allow the manufacturer to source the product ingredients for them. It is no wonder that the relationship between doctors and vitamins is strained.
Two:
Doctors can be paid a lot to prescribe pharmaceuticals. Thankfully pharmaceutical and medical device companies are now required by law to release details of their payments to a variety of doctors and U.S. teaching hospitals for promotional talks, research and consulting, among other categories.
From ProPublica.org: Click Here for a list of all companies
A ProPublica analysis has found that doctors who receive payments from the medical industry do indeed tend to prescribe drugs differently than their colleagues who don’t. And the more money they receive, on average, the more brand-name medications they prescribe.
Why would doctors suggest best in class supplements from companies like Ariix when it is a fraction of the cost of prescribed medicines costing patients and insurance companies billions of dollars? The economics for doctors are in the pharmaceuticals despite health consequences of consumers.
When you purchase nutritional products, ensure they are of high quality. This includes measures of purity, potency, bioavailability and consistency.
Additionally you need to satisfy yourself of the safety of your chosen nutritional supplements.
Educate yourself before you buy (here a list of toxins to watch for in the ingredients). Hopefully the relationship between doctors and vitamins will continue to improve as there is a shift in thinking and an increase in education of the general population in nutritional supplements.
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