Pros & Cons - Natural vs Synthetic What Gives

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http://www.doctoryourself.com/synthetic.html

 

What’s the Difference Between Natural and Synthetic Vitamins?

Nobody really likes what I have to say on this subject. Vitamin salespeople

think it’s too medical, and medical people think it’s too quacky.

 

And, to be fair, the answer is an inherently awkward one.

 

Most vitamin products, even those sold in health food stores or by distributors,

contain synthetic vitamin powders. There are only a few manufacturers of vitamin

powders, and they are almost always large pharmaceutical companies. Generally,

 

a) Laboratory-made vitamins are far cheaper than whole food concentrates;

b) Synthetic vitamins USUALLY work quite well,

c) High potency can be achieved with a nice, small tablet size.

 

One of the chief differences in “health food storeEvs “drug storeEbrands is

what is NOT in the tablet. For example, the natural brands leave out artificial

chemical colors, which is a good thing to do. Just about all brands contain

tablet fillers and excipients, needed to physically hold the pill together.

Since these will vary, the only way to find out exactly who uses what is to

write to the company and find out.

http://www.doctoryourself.com/labels.html

 

Some tableting ingredients are pretty standard, such as magnesium stearate or

stearic acid, sodium citrate, dicalcium phosphate, cellulose and silica. I

consider these harmless fillers to be " natural enough " for me.

 

Vitamins can legally be called “NaturalEeven if made in a laboratory. You

would not think so, but it is true. Vitamin C, for example, is factory-made

from starch. Starch is certainly natural, so the product can be termed

“Natural.E Is this starch-based vitamin C identical to orange-juice vitamin C?

Most biochemists say yes, because

 

1) vitamin C in animal bodies is made from carbohydrates anyway, and

2) the product is clinically effective.

 

But the actual molecular construction process is NOT identical. Factories do

not use L-gulonolactone oxidase from animal liver to make vitamin C. Nor do

they copy the orange tree’s plant metabolism. Can one get an identical product

from a different process? Probably; there is more than one way to skin an

enzyme. But the real test must be, does the vitamin in front of you prevent and

cure disease.

 

Drs. Linus Pauling, Ewan Cameron, Robert Cathcart and others have established

that very high doses of factory-made ascorbic acid vitamin C work just fine

against viral and bacterial illness. It is possible that food concentrate

vitamin C may be superior. Let’s say it was twice as good. But to use 40,000

milligrams (mg) of orange juice C, instead of 80,000 mg of synthetic ascorbic

acid, is impractical, bordering on the impossible. It would be too expensive,

either to manufacture all this from oranges, or to eat from the oranges. It

would take roughly 600 oranges to obtain 40,000 mg of vitamin C. Even if

natural C were TEN times as effective, which I sincerely doubt, it would still

take well over 100 oranges a day to do the job.

 

My recommendation? When you are sick, eat as many oranges (and other vitamin-C

rich fruits) as you can, WHILE YOU ALSO TAKE tens of thousands of milligrams of

cheap, supplemental ascorbic acid vitamin C.

 

In some cases, the natural form of a vitamin IS clearly superior to the

synthetic form. The best example is vitamin E. The natural form of vitamin E is

called " D-ALPHA TOCOPHEROL, " and is made from vegetable oil. The synthetic form

is DL-alpha tocopherol. Not a big difference in name, is it. There is

considerable evidence that the natural " D " (dextro-, or right-handed) molecular

form of Vitamin E is far more useful to the body than is the synthetic. The

natural form is also more expensive, but not much more. In choosing a vitamin E

supplement, you should carefully read the label... the ENTIRE label. It is

remarkable how many natural-looking brown bottles with natural-sounding brand

names contain the synthetic form.

 

A large amount of very good information on the forms of vitamin E may be found

at

http://www.vitamine-factor.com/Choosing%20a%20product.html . My only

reservations concern this website’s “ProductsEsection. I offer neither

endorsement nor recommendation about any brand of supplement.

 

Different types (not brands) of supplements are considered at

http://www.doctoryourself.com/tabtable.html

 

“BufferingEascorbic acid is covered at

http://www.doctoryourself.com/tabtaking.html

 

and the bioflavinoids (vitamin C cofactors) are discussed at

http://www.doctoryourself.com/bioflavinoids.html

 

 

 

 

 

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