Basic Supplements

This article covers two major categories of supplements: macro nutrients and minerals. It shows which ones are critical, and why they to be supplemented to ensure optimum health.

Macro Nutrients

Macro nutrients are things your body needs in large quantities. The typical macro nutrients listed in university nutrition textbooks are protein, carbohydrates, and fats. Micro nutrients are needed in minute quantities. Most vitamins fall into that category.

There is one category of vitamins that fall into the macro nutrient category, however. In many parts of the world, people get them from their foods. But most people in industrialized nations don't get enough, because the nutrients are so volatile that very few survive harvesting, storage, and processing.

Those nutrients are the building blocks that make up the body's tissues--the skin, bone, tendons, cartilage, and muscle. Needless to say, they're very important. They are:

Vitamin C
MSM
Phytochemicals

Unfortunately, those nutrients are hard to come by in the food supply. They're in all our fruits and vegetables, but they're volatile, so they rapidly begin to deteriorate when the foods are picked. Many are lost when during transportation and storage, and many more are lost during processing. And in the case of phytochemicals, most are formed in the final stages of ripening--so foods that are picked green tend to be deficient.

Note:
The folks at the Colgan Institute in San Diego had some interesting comments on the quantity of vitamins in the American food supply. Dr. Michael Colgan and his colleagues have been nutritional and fitness consultants for dozens of world-class athletes, so they know more than a little about the subject of nutrition. According to them, the problem is not so so much that our foods have no nutritional value at all, the problem is that the nutritional value is so inconsistent, there is no way we can depend on our foods to meet our nutritional foods. They said the could test one orange from a supermarket and verify that it had it's full nutritional complement of Vitamin C, while the one right next to it had none at all. After extensive testing of that kind, they decided that they simply could not depend on the food supply for vitamins and minerals. So they supplement everything. (Of course, they're dealing with world-class athletes, so they have no margin for error. I figure that the foods I eat give me some of what I need, and I supplement for the rest. But the important point is that supplements are necessary.)

One important lesson in all this is that canned and frozen foods are often better for you than the "fresh" foods in the supermarket. Canned and frozen foods tend to ripe when picked, rather than green, because they don't have to spend several days being carted around in a truck and sitting on a supermarket shelf before they're sold. They're then flash frozen and packaged to preserve their nutrients.

Vitamin C

Most vitamins are catalysts. They initiate chemical reactions, but don't participate in them, so they can be reused over and over. Vitamin C is different. Unlike other vitamins, Vitamin C goes into the construction of connective tissue. So, where most vitamins are only needed in minute quantities, large amounts of vitamin C are required.

Vitamin C is also an important part of the immune system. When you're not getting enough, your immune system suffers. That's the major reason that strenuous training tends to reduce your resistance to colds--because the vitamin C you need to combat them has been used to rebuild and repair the body's tissues after training. So it's important to get the amount you need, especially when you're training.

Finally, Vitamin C reconstitutes Vitamin E, after Vitamin E has sacrificed itself to keep cholesterol and lipids (fats) from oxidizing--which prevent coronary artery disease. So you can see why we need a lot. Vitamin C plays many important roles!

For the amount, it is best to follow the advice of veterinarians, rather than doctors. Zoo animals are hard to replace and expensive. So they are kept as healthy as possible. The standard rate for a primate is 1.5 GRAMS (not milligrams) of Vitamin C per 100 lbs of body weight, per day.

For a 200 lb guy, that's 3 gms per day. Even if you assume 1 gm per day in the food supply, which is being charitable, supplementing to the tune of 2 gms per day is a good idea. (Worst side effect of too much would be a case of the runs. In that case, cut back. But it usually takes 10 times the recommended amount before that happens. When you're ill, you can burn up 100 times the recommended amount before you've had enough.)

Unlike other mammals, primates shed the ability to manufacture our Vitamin C. Horses and cows can, but it takes a lot of metabolic machinery to do so. Getting rid of all that machinery made primates lighter and more mobile. That was good. But it also made us dependent on foods that contain Vitamin C (like fruits, for example). Unlike a horse, we can't simply eat any vegetation that happens to be handy, and manufacture it ourselves. So we have take it in when we eat.

The problem, of course, is that we can't count on the American industrial food supply to supply any at all! It undoubtedly supplies some, but the amount we regularly get is undoubtedly far less than the amount we really need. So we must supplement.

MSM

Methyl-Sulphonyl-Methane, or some such like that. Naturally occurring form of sulphur. In every plant and animal cell. Needed to produce flexible connective tissue. (Otherwise, stop gap repairs are made with scar tissue, which feels fine when you're not active, but which tears immediately when stressed.)

No more toxic than water. In other words, you have to drown yourself in it to do any harm. Take 1:1 with Vitamin C.

In addition to the internal supplement, these days it's available as a cream in the health food section of supermarkets. Horse trainers use it to rub down the legs of their million-dollar racehorses, so you know it has to be both effective and safe.

Phytochemicals

Antioxidant compounds that plants form to protect themselves against sunlight. We know of 2 thousand. We understand about 2 hundred. The potential mathematical combinations of their constituent parts is about 2 million. So there is a heck of a lot we don't know.

What we do know is that they offload a lot of the antioxidant work that Vitamin C does, leaving Vitamin C free to go into connective tissue. Take 1:1 with Vitamin C.

Many, if not most, phytochemicals are formed in the late stages of ripening. They give the fruits and vegetables they're color. Since they deteriorate quickly, the only way to get them from the food supply is to eat foods right off the vine. That's one reason that a home-grown garden is such a good idea.

Lacking the ability to eat off the vine, the next best thing is supplements made from foods that are preserved immediately after they're harvested. I like Food For Life, which is essentially ripe vegetables that have been freeze dried and compressed into a pill. Barley Grass Powder and other such wonder foods are another alternative, if you don't mind the taste.

Minerals

In addition to the macro nutrients, there are several minerals that need to be supplemented, given the American food supply:

Chromium
Selenium
Zinc
Magnesium/Potassium

Chromium

Chromium is needed to activate insulin, which metabolizes sugar. But refined sugar has had it's chromium removed, along with other minerals. So the chromium we need to deal with all the sugar we're ingesting isn't being supplied along with that sugar. We therefore need to take in additional chromium from other sources.

But chromium is deficient in most U.S. soils! (See Colgan's book for references.) So you're using it up in fairly large quantities, depending on how much sugar you eat, and you're not taking it in from most anything you eat. Under those conditions, deficiency is inevitable.

Note:
Adult-onset diabetes (Type II diabetes) is also inevitable, under those conditions. Adult-onset diabetes is a condition in which the body doesn't appear to manufacture enough insulin to deal with sugar. But diabetes can be reversed! For more information, see Reversing Diabetes.

To make sure you get the chromium you need, supplement 100 micrograms per 100 lbs of body weight.

Selenium

Like chromium, selenium is deficient in the majority of U.S. soils. But it's very important, because it's needed to create glutathione peroxidase. Glutathione peroxidase is important, in turn, because it reconstitutes Vitamin C after it breaks down--especially in the eyes.

Vitamin C protects the eyes against cataracts by acting as an antioxidant. It breaks down in the process, but it gladly does so to prevent the eye from being harmed by the sunlight, fluorescent lights, X-rays, computer terminals, and TV screens to which it is constantly exposed.

If Vitamin C is the soldier who has sacrificed itself in battle, then glutathione peroxidase is the emergency ambulance that rescues the soldier--and selenium is the medic that does the work. Without selenium, the battle is very costly. The Vitamin C is used up, and you don't have it in the quantities you need to fulfill its other roles.

Glutathione peroxidase has other functions as well, but it is vital to the immune system, if only because it protects Vitamin C. And selenium is needed for glutathione peroxidase to work.

The amount, like selenium, is 100 micrograms per 100 lbs of body weight.

Zinc

Like Vitamin C, Zinc plays an important role in the immune system, protecting the body against colds and infections.

Amount: 15 milligrams per 100 lbs of body weight. (It begins to become toxic at 500 mg/day.)

Magnesium/Potassium

These nutrients generally come together in a single supplement, so I'll discuss them both at the same time.

Magnesium is needed to absorb calcium, and it's also important for the operation of the immune system. Magnesium is used up by refined foods, acidic foods, caffeine, and sugar--generally, anything that creates an acidic internal environment. Magnesium is known as a "muscle relaxer", because it relieves the stress and tension that's produced in those circumstances. It's found in whole grains, but it's refined out when the flour is processed, and it's not added back when the flour is "enriched".

Potassium deficiency has been implicated in arthritis and inflammation. More work needs to be done in this area to create a full understanding, but in the meantime supplementation appears prudent. Natural foods have more potassium than sodium, but most of the processed foods we eat have the reverse ratio, which creates a potassium imbalance.

Amounts: I'm currently taking 250 milligrams of magnesium per 100 lbs of body weight, and 50 milligrams of potassium, but that doesn't appear to be enough. Colgan (p. 197) recommends 100 to 500 milligrams of potassium per day, depending on the athlete. The low side of that range works out to about 100 mg of potassium per day per 100 lbs of body weight. His athletes also get 400-1200 milligrams per day of magnesium (p. 194). Going with the low figure gives 400 mg per day per 100 lbs of body weight.

Summary

Like MSM and phytochemicals, Vitamin C is needed in large quantities. But none of them are present in foods that have been stored or processed. So unless you're eating straight off the vine, you're not getting enough of them. For optimum health, you need 1.5 grams per 100 lbs of body weight. Chromium, selenium, zinc, magnesium, and potassium should also be taken as supplements. Although they're not needed in such large doses, they're generally absent in our foods, and our diet of refined foods creates a need for them. A daily dose of 100 micrograms per hundred pounds of body weight is generally sufficient for chromium and selenium. For zinc, 15 milligrams per 100 lbs, 100 milligrams for potassium, and 400 for magnesium.