Don't Risk Your Health to the Uncertainty of Synthetic Vitamins
Some say that Synthetic (man made) vitamins are the same as naturally occurring nutrients! Synthetics were developed in the lab in the ‘40s. They were far cheaper and could be mass-produced. Dr. Royal Lee, Dr. Robert McCarrison, Dr. Weston A. Price and a few other pioneers of nutrition immediately determined that they were not the same and did not produce the same results and could possibly be producing bad side effects. Unfortunately much of their thoughts and studies did not come to light because of the power of money that the synthetic manufacturers had and used. They even went as far as getting the FDA to go after Dr. Royal Lee and his work. Umm does that sound familiar to what is going on today with the GMO/Glyphosate war? The funny thing about science is how skewed it can become depending on the amounts of money that is thrown at one side or the other.
Vitamins work in concert with their naturally occurring co-factors and are essential for the bioavailability (absorbance) of the nutrients. Basically your body must recognize the nutrients or they are treated as a drug or foreign substance and will try to expel them in the most efficient manner. The co-factors, some that have been identified and many others that haven’t, are as important to the body’s use of the nutrients as the vitamin itself. Some of the co-factors include phytonutrients like polyphenols, carotenoids, flavonoids, tocotrienols and myconutrients (specific to mushrooms). Synthetic vitamins are isolated and do not include natural co-factors which renders it’s usefulness as damaged our destroyed. One such instance of the incompetence of synthetics were the studies of Nobel prize winner, Dr. Gunter Blobel in 1999. His studies of intercellular communication brought him to a conclusion of understanding that naturally occurring nutrients know where to find the proper receptors in the body, to be absorbed, unlike synthetics! Synthetics can show, in some cases, a short-term benefit but the real question is what are the longer-term detriments and havoc that they can wreak on the body?!! As in many vitamin supplement studies that have been conducted, of which 99.9% of them use synthetic vitamins, the results have shown inconclusive or even detrimental effects. Well we all know that the body needs vitamins and yes it’s best to get them through your food, correct? Could it be that synthetic vitamins are not what some scientists say, “Synthetic vitamins are identical to naturally occurring vitamins?” I would have to say a big BS to that!! And maybe a What the…….? They are not the same!! As more and more of us are learning to mistrust the producers of GMO and Glyphosate we must take a long hard look at synthetic vitamins with like contempt. The mistrust of these laboratory-created, so-called nutrients have been in question since the ‘40s so let’s continue to question!
What are synthetic vitamins? They are an attempt to copy something from nature. Synthetics are made in a laboratory with base materials that can include coal tar, formaldehyde, petrochemicals, toxic cow livers, fecal mater or ground-up rocks and shells! The isolate vitamin-wanna-be does not have the complex co-factors that work with naturally occurring vitamins to produce the nutritional effects and proper absorption. They are just a shell of the complex of molecules that are in nature. Vitamins are never isolates in nature but synthetics are and they just don’t work the same! It’s the belief of many researchers that these isolates have little or in some cases no nutritional molecular activity compared to their naturally occurring superior and can actually have a detrimental effect to our bodies. Let me be clear that I do believe that synthetic vitamins in many cases have some bioactivity and at first can produce the desired effect but the question is if the bioavailability and activity decreases with time and what the long-term detrimental side effects are on the body. When you take synthetic vitamins your body will draw on it’s small reserve of co-factors (phytonutrients) to deal with the isolate at first and you might feel like they are working but once your body has exhausted these reserves the symptoms of deficiencies and imbalances will return! Over time synthetics could actually be depleting your body’s nutrients! Under a microscope synthetics don’t look the same! -Most synthetic vitamins are crystal form, the naturally occurring vitamins are not and the body has a problem recognizing them and as a result treats them as a foreign substance, excreting them with a major reduction in absorption. Another difference is something called Chiral. The vitamin isolates that are produced in the lab many times are the mirror image of the naturally occurring vitamin molecule, the manufacturer has no control. The molecule is made up of the same atoms but the structure is different, left-handed or right-handed. The change in structure makes the molecule act completely different. To try to illustrate this difference hold your hands out, palms up. You cannot superimpose your hands over each other because your thumbs are pointing in opposite directions, so the structure is different, chiral. This is a picture from americanhistory.si.edu
This picture is of mirror molecules (stereoisomers) and another example of how the structure of a molecule can completely change it’s activity and the way the body reacts with it. There are all the same atoms but different structure, one is right-handed and the other is left. The picture on the left is the molecule found in an orange peel and it is the left-handed version of the molecule Limonene. The picture on the right is the molecule found in a lemon peel and is the right-handed version of Limonene. The change in structure of this molecule makes it smell and taste completely different and so your body perceives these two molecules as being completely different even though they have the exact same atoms. So for some to say that synthetic mirror image vitamin molecules are the same as naturally occurring vitamin molecules is a bit of a stretch! The bigger questions are how do these mirror synthetic molecules work in our bodies, what is their bioavailability and what are their detrimental side effects? GO HERE to Order
This article illustrates how the body can react to chiral molecules: The Insight Team of the Sunday Times of london. Suffer the Children: The Story of Thalidomide. New York: Viking Press,1979.
We will explore these problems and uncertainties in blogs to come. Please join in the conversation!
