This view is summarised in the words of Prof. Rory Collins from the University of Oxford. He studied vitamin consumption in 20 000 people over 5 years and concluded that, "Vitamin pills are a waste of time. Over 5 years we saw absolutely no effect".
Disagreeing with that conclusion, the Health Supplements Information Service said: 'This study was carried out across a narrow group of people who had conditions putting them at high risk of contracting heart disease, such as diabetes, and over a relatively short period of time.
Antioxidants have widely proven benefits when taken by the general population as a supplement to a balanced diet or when a person's diet does not contain enough nutrients. They are not intended to be used for the treatment or prevention of serious illnesses such as heart disease or cancer.”
Similarly, many reputable studies like that of the Lewin Group, shows how spending pocket change daily on supplements boosts your health, and can reduce healthcare expenditures by $24 billion over five years.
Who is Right?
To answer this let’s look at the facts as they apply in the USA:
The Conventional Doctors are right about supplements being pointless. IF:
- You eat wild, fresh, organic, non-genetically modified food grown in virgin mineral and nutrient rich soils. Food not transported across vast distances and stored for months before eaten.
- You breathe fresh unpolluted air, drink only pure, clean water, sleep 8 hours a night, exercise daily, and are free from chronic stressors and exposure to environmental toxins.
If that sounds like your lifestyle, you don't need supplements and we would love to hear your secret!
For the rest of us, (according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, that’s at least 92% of us), we don’t live this way.
We are deficient in at least one vitamin or mineral at the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) level. Indeed, one survey showed that 37 % of Americans don't get enough vitamin C, 70 % don't get enough vitamin E, almost 75 % don't get enough zinc, and 40 % don't get enough iron.
Indeed as JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) concludes: “All adults should take vitamin supplements to help prevent chronic disease....The daily use of a multi-vitamin can be a potentially powerful way to improve one’s health.”
Critical Factor
There is, however, another critical factor that needs to be considered in this debate: that of the quality i.e purity, potency and effectiveness of supplements.
To some extent many conventional doctors are correct in saying that supplements are full of filler, binders and cheap ingredients which simply go straight through you without being absorbed. By contrast, effective supplements are absorbed into your blood stream.
That’s why you need to choose your supplements very carefully!
Specifically when selecting supplements please ask yourself:
- Is there proof that the ingredients are natural?
- Are there independent studies published in independent medical journals about the efficacy of the Ingredients?
- Is there proof that the supplement has undergone the latest disintegration test/protocol to ensure it gets absorbed into the bloodstream and not just passed into your urine?
Sadly, few supplement companies meet all these criteria.
How does Xtend-Life Stack Up?
Please decide for yourself by checking out the following links:
- For proof of our ingredients composition click on any product ingredient and see ‘Clinical studies’ and ‘References’...
- For independent studies click on ‘Clinical Studies’ under “About us’ on our web site...
- Discover more about the unique nature of our supplements...
By the end of this year we hope to have a video of exactly how our products are manufactured. This will follow the path from sourcing of the raw ingredients, to how we prepare our specifications, to how they are handled in the store, to how we take samples of each ingredient for ID purposes, and to how we send samples to an independent lab to be assayed to ensure that they meet our specifications.
So, do our supplements lead to “expensive urine”? Perhaps that’s best answered by our delighted customers
Thank you for your question and positive feedback Tim
Autoimmune diseases are multi-causal with environmental toxins being just one cause and trigger.
This is explored in depth by Donna Jackson Nakazawa in her book: The Autoimmune epidemic. She proves how heavy metals, toxins, pesticides, viruses and chemicals in the air, water and food we eat can cause our immune systems to go haywire.
So yes, it is very possible that the BP oil spill may affect humans negatively over time. Though it will be very hard to prove that an individual autoimmune case is directly linked with the spill.
As you say, prevention is key by strengthening your immune system internally. You can do this with the right diet, exercise and stress free lifestyle. To boost your immune capacity further you may wish to consider our Immu-Stay.
Regarding the Swine flu episode this, thankfully is now being recognised for what it was: a multi million dollar fiasco by Big Pharma to encourage unnecessary vaccination.
Xtend-Life Expert June 22 2010