Supplements and Vitamins,Do You Know What You're Getting?

Even if the best materials are used the product can be inferior because of a poor manufacturing process and incorrect storage. For example, some of the raw materials that are used are sensitive to temperature, humidity, and light, just to name a few factors.

Some of these raw materials are pretty expensive. For instance, companies that make coenzyme Q10 (which is an antioxidant), and coenzymes that helps the cell to produce energy, can cost as much as $2500 a pound for the good stuff.

To widen their profit margins some manufactures when producing supplements and vitamins use less of the good materials and pad the rest with fillers. In fact, sometimes 50% of the product's weight can be fillers, lubricants, binders and artificial flavours.

More Complicated Than You Might Think

Making vitamins and supplements is a very complex procedure and sometimes even if the right components are present what we thought was good for us can be toxic.

For example, a lot of the time vitamin E contains alpha tocopherol but there is some evidence that suggest that it might be harmful if it isn't combined with gamma tocopherol; that's how easy it is for something potentially good to become toxic.

"Many of the products out there are less than 50% effective."

Another example is vitamin C, which is basic to good health. It acts as an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antibiotic, anticancer compound. The bad news is that many of the products out there are less than 50% effective, and some of them can even be harmful. The problem again is how it's produced.

If it's been exposed to oxygen it can contain oxidized vitamin C, which can hurt the body--not to mention that many brands use fillers and additives which can cause the product to become unstable. When looking for vitamin C look for a product that doesn't have corn in it because this can be an allergen.

To fully protect yourself try to use fully reduced 100% L-ascorbate, which means you'll have to check the label to see what you're really getting.

"I really never gave a lot of thought to the possibility that the vitamins I was taking could possibly be bad for me."

Most vitamins are synthetic, meaning that they're made from petroleum based chemicals. Why? Because it's cheaper . Apart from just sounding bad these products can be different at the molecular level as well.

These petroleum based products are lacking in certain molecules found in real food, but even worse, these molecules are even shaped differently because there mirror images, not exact images.

Think of your right and left hand: they're the same yet fundamentally different. And remember, it's the shape of the molecule that lets your body know what to do with it.

Do Your Homework

Now I don't want you to get the idea that all products on the market are bad for you and you're probably thinking by this point are vitamin supplements really necessary? . To be honest with you I really never gave a lot of thought to the possibility that the vitamins I was taking could possibly be bad for me.

Like most of you I trusted the manufacture to give me a product that would improve my quality of life because that's what these kinds of products are supposed to do.

But like anything else that you put into your body you have to do some of your own research; whether you're looking for the the right training regiment or vitamins it's no different.

We tend to jump to the conclusion when it comes to supplements and vitamins that because something is supposed to be good for us that it is good for us and we fail to take into consideration how it's made.

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