What are our choices for nutritional supplements?
Many modern scientists believe nutritional deficiency is a major cause of today’s chronic degenerative diseases (heart attacks, heart failure, strokes, cancer, osteoporosis, arthritis, emphysema). The aging process is accelerated. For most people it is acceptable to die of a heart attack or cancer in your 90’s, but not at 40-50 years of age, something which is common in today’s world. With inadequate nutritio, our bodies degenerate faster than they should.
We can choose:
1. To accept this current situation. This means conceding that today’s chronic degenerative diseases and premature ageing are inevitable.
2. To find top quality food – preferably grown organically, from soils containing all the nutrients we require; food, picked at its prime and eaten before any nutrients are lost by storing or cooking. A complete selection of such foods needs to be very carefully chosen to provide all the nutrients we require. There are not many places on this planet where this is now possible.
3. To eat as well as possible but in addition take a good quality nutritional supplement. This allows the body to select the compounds and nutrients it requires, from both food and supplement. The body’s larder is complete and the cells can work optimally. When cells are replaced, all the building blocks for creating perfect new cells are available.
Quality nutritional supplement – the choice of supplement is also very important. The supplement should
• Contain all the many nutrients required in the correct amount.
• Contain NO nutrients which might build up in the body and cause damage, such as iron and vitamin A.
• Be in a formulation which is easy to digest and absorb (bio-available).
• Be easy to eliminate if surplus to requirements.
This means that the supplements must be carefully chosen, and few people, including health professionals, are in a position to advise on these.
Many people take a range of supplements made by a number of different companies. The risk in this is that some supplements may overlap and other nutrients could be left out completely. Many supplements work synergistically, where the sum of the whole can be greater than when using individual ingredients. (For example, vitamin E is a fat- soluble antioxidant, and removes free radicals from fat in the artery walls. But it requires vitamin C and selenium to eliminate the free radicals from the body).
We have to rely on the supplement manufacturers to do this for us. Much of the professional resistance to the use of dietary supplements results from the use of poor quality supplements. Consistently high quality supplements, like USANA Vitamins manufactured by USANA Health Sciences, are now available and these should make a real difference to health and recovery. Perhaps the best independent review is by scientist and ex-Canadian parliamentarian, the Hon L. McWilliam.
The medical literature on disease reduction
The medical literature contains many excellent articles in peer-reviewed, top-quality journals which confirm that people who take adequate or additional doses of nutrients and supplements can greatly lower the risk of developing disease, and can aid recovery from illness. The tragedy is that medical bodies and governments take so little notice of these data – while at the same time they struggle under the enormous financial burden that disease is costing their countries.
In the USA in 1977:
Heart disease cost $58 billion
Cancer $46 billion
Diabetes $10 billion
High blood pressure $18 billon
Stroke $16 billion
Osteoarthritis $16 billion
Now, if eating a good diet and taking good nutritional supplements could reduce the incidence of these diseases, most countries could save a fortune.
USANA’s Digestive Enzyme supplies supplemental enzymes that support the breakdown of dietary carbohydrates (including sugars and starches), fats, and proteins. It encourages more complete digestion and absorption of nutrients while supporting the body’s natural detoxification processes.
