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The fierce rivalry these days in the vitamin supplement business is a war between retailers who struggle to differentiate themselves through style rather than substance. Mainstream brand name vitamin supplement companies usually assert that their products are vastly superior to their competition, with superior ingredients used to manufacture their products.
But in reality, these mainstream vitamin supplement companies all purchase their essential ingredients from a core group of wholesale sources that operate behind the scenes and are generally unknown to the public. So while there may be hundreds of vitamin and supplement companies, there is really a relatively small number of primary sources manufacturing the critical nutritional ingredients. In short, most vitamin and supplement companies purchase from the same source. They amount to the same product in different packaging.
This is common in the retail industry. General Motors, the once great American car company, has subdivisions like Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac, and used to have Oldsmobile (not your parents Oldsmobile). Many people who drive Chevys don’t know that the guy driving the Cadillac next to them is driving a car made by the same company. These private label manufacturing companies often supply the packaging and [...]
For over thirty years, doctors have been extolling the benefits of super fruits, especially red grapes and blueberries because of the high levels of antioxidants found in them. Acai berries have over 30 times more antioxidants than blueberries or red grapes! One would have to agree that the acai fruit is the single-most antioxidant-rich food on earth. [...]
Vitamins are an essential part of nutrition and vital for the proper functioning of our bodies. Vitamins play an important role in most body processes and other essential molecules and nutrients are derived from vitamins or produced by using them. Vitamin K is one of the most important vitamins in the body, and it is necessary to get adequate quantities through our diet and supplementation.
Vitamin K was discovered by Henrik Dam in 1929 when he realized that a compound in cholesterol could prevent bleeding. Vitamin K is “fat soluble”, which means that it is better absorbed when ingested with fat. The “K” is derived from the German word “koagulation.” Coagulation refers to the process of blood clot formation. While a normal healthy body can produce vitamin K, supplementation is advised for those with poor diets or as a general insurance.
When vitamin K deficiency does occur, it is most likely to happen in newborns, especially if they are premature, breastfed, or their mother was taking anticoagulant medication. Babies are born with sterile intestines; therefore, there’s no bacteria in the gut to produce vitamin K2, making them more susceptible to vitamin K deficiency if their diet has inadequate amounts.
Deficiency [...]
Great news for you vitamin lovers.
A new study published in the International Journal of Cancer by researchers from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center found that higher levels of the alpha-tocopherol form of Vitamin E resulted in a 53% reduction in lung cancer. Cancer of the lung is the most common and deadliest form, from which more people die than any other type. Only 25% of people diagnosed with lung cancer live for more than a year.
There are two main groups of vitamin E – tocopherols and tocotreinols – both of which contain the 4 varieties alpha-, beta-, gamma- and delta. This study examined the tocopherol group. Unlike alpha-tocoferol, the beta-, gamma- and delta-tocopherol forms of vitamin E failed to show significant benefits when considered by themselves.
This is thought to be the first study of its kind to distinguish between the different forms of Vitamin E with respect to lung cancer. This is important as most people don’t realize there are so many different forms of vitamins, including natural vs. synthetic. Many studies of vitamin E, for example, may only use one of the sub-optimal or synthetic forms and then generalize the results to all [...]
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As you may know, Vitamin D has been making headlines lately, and for good reason. Scientists are beginning to discover the tremendous health benefits of this long neglected vitamin, and unfortunately, how deficient most people are in it.
If you don’t get much sun, odds are you don’t get enough vitamin D.
African-Americans and others with dark skin, as well as older individuals, have much lower levels of vitamin D due to less creation of the vitamin from exposure to sunlight. A normal African American with dark skin color has a sun protection factor of 15-30. They can stay out 15-30 times longer in the sun, but the downside is that an African American who is dark skinned would need approximately 7-10 times the amount of sun exposure as a light skinned person. If you put a sunscreen on with an SPF of 8, it reduces your ability to make vitamin D in your skin by more than 95%. A sunscreen of 15 reduces vitamin D production by an astounding 98%.
Worldwide, it is estimated that more than 1 billion across all ethnicities and age groups have insufficient amounts of vitamin D in their blood. In [...]
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