vitamins and minerals, help or con? by dave turton

A recent 'revelation' by Scientists has condemned the Vitamin/Mineral Culture as having no benefits etc etc.. So how true is all the research, and where does it leave US.. the ones who advocate a degree of supplementation?

Hopefully this article will go at least a short way in redressing the balance and providing some answers.

Not because anyone reading this is unintelligent, but for the sake of 'straight-talking', I have forgone the use of 'highly technical & scientific' jargon in this article.

OK.. First what are Vitamins, Minerals and Trace Elements? .. Let's get simple here.. In essence they are chemical constituents of the food we eat. In the main, Vitamins are in the end product of a food, such as fruit etc.. Minerals are drawn from the soil and re-worked in usually the leaves and roots of plants, and Trace Elements are directly absorbed from outside influences near the plants

We cannot exist, live, grow, repair, develop, cure, or even die without the usuable chemicals in our food.

Vitamins and minerals exist in all natural food sources, and are used to promote the proper workings of the many complex functions of the human animal.

Most come from the food we eat, or rather SHOULD do.. A very useful saying to remember , when thinking about food is ..It's not just what we EAT that's important.. It's what we ABSORB

Now, without listing the various Vitamins, Minerals and Trace Elements and their functions.. (it would take a book), let's understand the following..

All our bodily functions require some, many, or all of the substances we eat, at different requirements depending on so many variables. As Martial arts type trainees our needs would be different to someone recovering from say TB.

OK.. Vitamins are roughly catagorised into WATER SOLUBLE & FAT SOLUBLE..

Rooughly speaking the Water Soluble ones should be injested daily, as they are passed out in the urine and cannot be stored by the body.. Fat Soluble ones are stored in the small yellowish fat deposits that occur naturally around the organs.. Liver, Kidneys etc etc.

The TWO Water Soluble ones are Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid), and the "B" Complex Group

The others "A" "D" "E" & "K", are stored in the Fat and need less replenishing.

Most original studies of Vitamins and Minerals were on what DEFICENCIES caused.. One of the first was on the Scruvy that early Sailors were prone to.. This was caused by a lack of Vitamin "C"

The cure in the early Sailing ship days was to carry LIMES (the lasted longer than lemons), the British Navy was the first to 'cure' the disease by giving sailors daily limes.. Hence the nickname by the Americans to the brits of "LIMEYS".

Now this was a deficiency disease.. (Disease means the DIS-EASE of the bosy's functions)

There are scores of deficiency diseases.. and it is the main reason for the surge in the use of vitamin and mineral supplementation.

Because of the general way we lived in Victorian and early Edwardian days, many of the populace suffered from deficiency diseases.. Rickets, etc etc..The 'cures' were often just better diet.

People who ate better didn't develop many of the 'poor' people's problems.

Studies were nearly always on what lack of nourishment CAUSED.. NOT WHAT EXTRA VITS ETC WOULD DO.

Further studies by the medical men of their days showed it was the minute traces of vitamins, minerals and trace elements that were vital (VITA-l MIN-erals.. get it)

But those who understood food intake realised that there was a case for ensuring sufficient intake of these vital subtances, and originally Trainers encouraged the intake of certain FOODS to ensure

enough of these substances.

Extra Fruit,, veg, etc etc.. It actually was a better approach than nowadays.

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OK enough background.. let's talk what we need in OUR times....

Those who advocate that a perfect diet with X number of pieces of this that and the other are sufficient to get all the vits etc we need, are actually not too far from the truth.. Th eproblem though is in the following THREE aspects.

OUR FOOD INTAKE .. OUR LIFESTYLE .. OUR PERSONAL REQUIREMENTS.

FIRST . FOOD INTAKE

OK.. we all maybe think we are eating well etc.. BUT, we have no methods of testing just what is in the food before we eat it. Lets take say Oranges and Vitamin "C"..

The RDA (Recommneded Daily Allowance) of Vit "C" for PREVENTION of deficiency diseases is as low as 60mgs.. The 'average' Vit C content of one large orange is usually 60mgs...

Logic says one orange a day NO deficiencies Right? .. WRONG..

A test carried out in 1988 on 100 oranges bought from different sources showed that the average Vit "C" content was 58mgs..near enough you'd say..HOWEVER.. 11 oranges had NO vit C in them.. 8 had under 20mgs.. 15 had 100mgs.. However the smell, taste and look of all 100 oranges were the same.. Which one did you eat.. So did you actually get the 60mgs of Vit "C" you thought you were getting?..

Take these oranges (again).. OK Spanish Oranges presumably come from Spain (told you I was clever didn't I?).. Let's take a genuine look at these oranges..

OK Grown in Saville, they are picked on say a Tuesday in one week.. stored in a barn until Thursday, packed and delivered to the docks by Saturday, shipped on a Sunday, arriving in Britain Monday morning.. cleared by customs for Tuesday.. shipped out to Tescos HQ by Wednesday.. in the shops by Thursday, bought by you on Fridays, (you buy 7 for one a day) left in your fruit bowl until the NEXT Friday until you eat the last one... The last one would be eaten 17 days after it was picked. Given that oranges lose between 5 & 10% of their Vitamin "C" content for each day they are detached from the tree.. Then how much Vit C is left in your last orange.

ALL foods, especially fruits and vegs LOSE their Vitamin and Mineral content due to storage, cooking, the untensils they are in etc etc etc.

Without listing ALL the 1,000,s of vitamin THIEVES that exist.. it is paramount that you realise that the original 'goodness' of 99% of the foods we eat has been interfered with in one or more ways.

So you have absolutely NO way of knowing what you are injesting in your food.

The odd Pizza Big Mac etc, will do no real harm.. but every meal you eat that has highly processed food will rob you of nutrients..

That's as deep as we need to go on the first topic.

YOUR LIFESTYLE

Right the way we 'live' also as some degree of influence on the amount of Vits etc we need...

Again without getting TOO deep into it.. if you smoke (Naughty if you do).. then you burn up 15mgs of Vit C with each fag.. You therefore need (on 20 a day) 300mgs EXTRA just to combat the fags theft of your Vit C.

Do you drink alchohol.. Then alchohol uses up Iron, B12 B6 and potassium in it's absorbtion.

Are you pregnant? .. Are you of an Ethnic group that decries certain foods etc etc etc.. Do you work manually as well as train hard.. do you work in a chemical environment that robs you of nutrients etc

It ALL matters in how much you personally need of any given substance.

I can go a lot deeper on this aspect if wanted.. but we are all unique and ONE method will not be suitable for ALL...so If you are worried, then drop me a line and I'll sort out your needs.

It is enough to say that the way we live alters the needs for various substances.

YOU PERSONALLY

If you and best friend both work the same, train the same and weight the same etc etc,, and both of you take say 200mgs of Vit "C" a day, one of you could be producing vitamin rich urine, the other could be deficient.

Without a skin, nail, hair, and blood test breakdown, you have NO way of knowing YOUR personal Vit/Min requirements.. Everything is in averages.

But if the average shoe size for men is a size 9, and all shoe manufactors made ONLY 9's.. most would be OK , a great many would be barefoot.

YOU are unique, and your needs are also unique.. Diabetics, Sickle Cell sufferers, etc etc ALL have differing needs.. How can we know we are getting either too much or too little?

Not easy.. so we err on the positive side. That's the answer.

Right one last thing to understand isn't about just Vits etc, but about the 3 KILLERS in your diet.. The Three WHITE Killers are .. WHITE SUGAR .. WHITE FLOUR AND WHITE FAT.

Get rid of these as best you can and you are well on your way to a better diet.

White sugar is only calories with NO goodness, as much use as a dinasaur trap in the artcic.

Get rid of white sugar NOW!

White flour is what's left when good flour is processed.. it's the residue really.. Test on Lab Rats showed that even these hardy survivors can't live on white flour .. they died.

The bread that tells you it's long life, is long life for one reason ADDITIVES. Now not to frighten you off, but the stuff they strick in white bread so it doesn't go off is the same chemical make up as.. wait for it .. EMBALMING FLUID.. Yes the stuff they use to stop cadavers from rotting is the same stuff you are eating in long-life bread.

Go on go to your bread bin, take a slice of white bread, take the middle out of it and squeze it for 20 seconds.. what have you got YES .. Dough!

It isn't cooked because the long life chemicals prevent proper cooking.

Bread and in fact all good fooods SHOULD go off quickly .. Take pure wholemeal flour.. buy a wholemeal loaf and in one day it's already going hard and off.. This is bad yes? .. NO!, it's good. No self respecting bacteria wants to try and exist on the rubbish white flour, but makes a bee-line for the good stuff.

Now WHITE FAT.. There is so much rubbish talked about Cholesterol.. To put it simply we NEED it, the body MAKES it if we don't eat it.. However, there are two types LDL's & HDL's

(High and Low density Lipo-proteins).. These are the 'Good and Bad' types.. eat more of the good and less of the bad and all is hunky-dorey. FULL STOP!

Now take fats... Take some lard, melt in on a gentle heat and pour a little on the back of your hand.. 10 minutes later your body temperature has returned this liquid back to a solid.

Now freeze some Sunflower oil, and put the frozen piece on the back of you hand.. 10 minutes later your body temperature has returned this solid back to a liquid.

Eat some melted lard on your chops, and by the time it has been in your stomach 10 minutes it's back to a solid.. So which is most harmful.. easy isn't it?

WHAT TO DO?

The following are my personal recommendations as far as taking vits etc are concerned.

First remember they are SUPPLEMENTS, they ADD to, not replace food..

I use them for the 3 following reasons..

ASSURANCE .. INSURANCE .. & ENSURANCE.

I am assured that I am not deficient by what I take... I take them as a form of Insurance against problems.. I Ensrure I am getting what I want.

After all a tablet that tells you it has, say 300mgs of Vit "C" will HAVE 300mgs of "C".

Remember the oranges earlier?.. A tablet lets me know I have actually injested what I wanted to injest.

So what to take..OK there are TWO points here.. First a general overall intake.. then a personal extra intake..

As a general bit of advice.. Take a GOOD MULTI VITAMIN/MINERAL TABLET.. Not the cheapest you can buy but the BEST.. There are some very good ones, and some garbage ones.. so READ the labels.. No point paying say £2 for rubbish when £3 will get you the Rolls Royce.

I like QUEST but they are expensive..

So take an allround one once a day with brekky.. preferably a chelated and/or time release one.

It should have lots of vits and mineral in it.. the longer the list of the ingredients the better.

Next take a Vit "C" supplement .. 500mgs to 1,000mgs is enough.. I take a soluble one in my fresh orange juice.. This way I get the best of both worlds..However make sure that your Vit C tablet has Bioflavonoids in it.. You can't absorb Vit C without Bios OK.

Next take a "B" Complex tablet .. A good one again please .. no cheapos..

That's your basic intake... anything extra will depend upon your personal circumstances.. So I can't advise here...Also remember to truy an make your diet as healthy as you can...this is more important than eating Macs and Fries, drinking Coke and Coffee, and popping a few vits tablets.

Other stuff like Garlic, Ginseng etc etc are all specifics, and would need a seperate article.. However, if you DO go on Ginseng, a couple of bits of advise.. Korean is the best, Chinese 2nd

Also drink a Ginseng TEA rather than the tablets if you can stomach the taste. Finally take Ginseng for 21 days, then STOP.. don't take it again for a couple of months.

That's it for now.. if you want more just ask

All the Best .. Dave Turton

You can contact Dave Turton on the SFUK Forum or via email

7 July 2002

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