The Expensive Urine Myth What About Those Wasted Vitamins?

[Guest guest]

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, November 10, 2008

 

The " Expensive Urine " Myth

What About Those " Wasted " Vitamins?

_http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n21.shtml_

(http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n21.shtml)

(OMNS, November 10, 2008) Ever heard this one before? **Your body doesn't

absorb extra vitamins. All you get from taking vitamin supplements is expensive

urine.** Sure you have. And you still will, at websites such as

_http://www.dietitian.com_

(http://www.orthomolecular.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=103 & e=MjY2MDA= & l=http://www.d\

ietitian.com) and

_http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/67769_

(http://www.orthomolecular.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=103 & e=MjY2MDA= & l=http://www.a\

mericanchronicle.com/articles/67769) . Even the BBC has reported

it _http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/109881.stm_

(http://www.orthomolecular.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=103 & e=MjY2MDA= & l=http://news.\

bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/10988

1.stm) . Some people will tell you that any vitamin consumption higher than

the lowly RDA is simply a *waste of money.*

**Expensive urine.** It is an old saw, and one terrific sound byte. Too bad

it is also false.

Urine is what is left over after your kidneys purify your blood. If your

urine contains, say, extra vitamin C, that vitamin C was in your blood. If the

vitamin was in your blood, you absorbed it just fine. It is the absence of

water-soluble vitamins in urine that indicates vitamin deficiency. If your body

excretes vitamins in your urine, that is a sign that you are well-nourished

and have nutrients to spare. That is good.

Here's another way to think of it: Standing at the base of the Hoover Dam

looking up, you cannot tell how much water is behind it. However, by observing

the overflow spillway, you can tell. If the spillway is dry and dusty, full

of tumbleweeds and foxes are making their dens, there has been a drought for

some time, and the water level in the dam must be low. If water is pouring

down the spillway, the dam must be full. *Waste* indicates fullness, just as an

overflowing cup is unmistakably a full cup. Urine spillage of vitamins

indicates nutritional adequacy. A lack of water-soluble vitamins in the urine

indicates inadequacy.

**Expensive urine,** writes veteran nutritional reporter Jack Challem, is

**a bizarre argument because a $50 restaurant meal and a bottle of fine wine

also lead to expensive urine, but no one seems to be complaining about those

things. Numerous studies have shown, however, that vitamin supplements do

increase people's blood levels of those nutrients.** (1)

Former faculty member at the University of Auckland Michael Colgan, PhD,

measured how much vitamin C is actually used with increasing daily doses. He

found that **Only a quarter of our subjects reached their vitamin C maximum at

1,500 mg a day. More than half required over 2,500 mg a day to reach a level

where their bodies could use no more. Four subjects did not reach their

maximum at 5,000 mg.** Indeed, says one commentator, **Increasing vitamin C

intake

from 50 mg to 500 mg tends to double serum vitamin C levels. Increasing

intake to 5,000 mg a day will double serum levels again.** (2)

Time for a Second Opinion?

Thomas Levy, MD, JD, a board-certified cardiologist, says **There's a

popular medical view that taking vitamin C just makes expensive urine. Some of

it

is lost in urine, but the more you consume, the more stays in your body.** (3)

 

William Kaufman, MD, a physician with a PhD in nutritional biochemistry as

well, wrote: **Those who believe that you can get all the nourishment

including vitamins and minerals you need to sustain optimal health throughout

life

from food alone can be very smug. They have the equivalent of an orthodox

religious belief: *food is everything.* They don't have to concern themselves

with

the fact that the nutritional value of foods their patient eats may be

greatly inferior to the listed nutritional values given in food tables. . . The

two-liner *We get all the vitamins we need in our diets. Taking supplements

only gives you an expensive urine* completely overlooks the benefits vitamin

supplements can produce in our bodies before being excreted in our urine.** (4)

Expensive Breath

We all know that we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. We

also breathe out oxygen, and quite a lot of it, too. Inhaled air is about 21%

oxygen. We typically consume only about a quarter of that. So exhaled breath is

approximately 15% oxygen. (5) Exhaled breath has enough oxygen for CPR to

save lives. That also must mean that scuba divers have **expensive breath.**

For that matter, oxygen-tent patients from preemies to geriatric patients, and

those receiving surgical anesthesia all receive far more oxygen than their

bodies can actually use. We do not consider that a waste; we consider that a

good idea. Abundance is not a bad thing.

Expensive **Drug Urine**

**When it comes to really expensive urine,** says one editorial, **doctors

fail to look at the cost of all those pharmaceuticals and chemotherapy drugs

they're shoving down the throats of patients. Those drugs are excreted through

the urine, too, and when you add up the cost of those, just the financial

cost, not even counting the cost in devastating side effects, they far outweigh

the cost of eating healthy foods and taking supporting supplements.** (6)

Dr. Kaufmann adds: **During the early part of World War II, GI*s treated

with penicillin had to save all their urine so that the penicillin which had

been excreted in their urine could be recovered and then used to treat other

GI*s with life threatening wound infections. If one only considered the

penicillin that was excreted in the urine and not the benefits that the GI had

in

having his infection cured by penicillin, one could sneer that penicillin*s

only

function was to give the GI expensive urine. If one considered only the

function of penicillin in the GI*s body, one would have to marvel at the miracle

of its curing a potentially lethal infection.** (4)

Good nutrition saves lives. The therapeutic use of vitamin supplements, to

both treat and prevent serious diseases, has tens of thousands of scientific

references to support it. (7) Can all of those researchers and physicians be

dumber than the reporter you may have just have heard intone that **vitamins

just give you expensive urine**?

So many of us modern-day people are deficit eaters, attempting to obtain our

vitamins from a selection of nutritionally weak foods. Foods alone cannot

meet our vitamin needs for optimum health. Vitamin supplements are the

solution, not the problem. Good health is not about the vitamins you excrete;

it's

about the vitamins you retain.

References:

(1) _http://www.thenutritionreporter.com/10_vitamin_truths.html_

(http://www.orthomolecular.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=103 & e=MjY2MDA= & l=http://www.t\

henutrition

reporter.com/10_vitamin_truths.html)

 

(2) _http://annieappleseedproject.stores..net/expensiveurine.html_

(http://www.orthomolecular.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=103 & e=MjY2MDA= & l=http://annie\

appl

eseedproject.stores..net/expensiveurine.html)

 

(3) Levy T. Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases & Toxins: Curing the Incurable.

This book is reviewed at _http://www.doctoryourself.com/levy.html_

(http://www.orthomolecular.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=103 & e=MjY2MDA= & l=http://www.d\

octoryourse

lf.com/levy.html)

 

(4) Letter from William Kaufman, M.D., Ph.D. April 7,1992. Published as

Kaufman W. [saul AW, editor]. Nutrition illiteracy and nutritional inadequacy.

J

Orthomolecular Med, 2007. Vol 22, No 2, p 83-89.

 

(5) This can be measured. _http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5069220.html_

(http://www.orthomolecular.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=103 & e=MjY2MDA= & l=http://www.p

atentstorm.us/patents/5069220.html)

 

(6) _http://www.naturalnews.com/021393.html_

(http://www.orthomolecular.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=103 & e=MjY2MDA= & l=http://www.n\

aturalnews.com/021393.html)

 

(7) Many full-text nutrition therapy papers are posted for free access at

_http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom_

(http://www.orthomolecular.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=103 & e=MjY2MDA= & l=http://ortho\

molecular.org/library/jom) . 17

extensive bibliographies of nutrition research are posted at

_http://www.doctoryourself.com_

(http://www.orthomolecular.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=103 & e=MjY2MDA= & l=http://www.d\

octoryourself.com) . ()

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight

illness. For more information: _http://www.orthomolecular.org_

(http://www.orthomolecular.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=103 & e=MjY2MDA= & l=http://www.o\

rthomolecular.or

g)

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Damien Downing, M.D.

Harold D. Foster, Ph.D.

Steve Hickey, Ph.D.

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Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D.

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[Guest guest]

http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/67769

Dr. Lanthois could have explained this better, but his premise is

correct IMHO. If you read Lanthois' bio, you can see where he is

coming from. Synthetic vitamins can actually cause imbalances and

metallic minerals are generally not well absorbed at all... but if

they are, they can actually be poisonous. Here is why:

 

Dr. Stephen West, http://www.healthalert.com/, if you read his

newsletter, will tell you that in his practice he has found that

synthetic vitamins can overload your system and actually force it to

search for a balance. To best understand his argument you need to read

his newsletter for a few issues. In it, West correctly points out that

whole food vitamins (as found in plants) are in far smaller quantities

than the synthetic quantities commonly claimed in vitamin pills, hence,

the imbalance that he has observed. It all makes sense and West

apparently learned this honestly through the hard work and observation

of his practice.

 

People absorb minerals best that have been processed by plants and these

minerals are transformed in that process. Plant sources supplements can

actually be better than some of the commercially grown vegetables in the

store... or not, according to how they are grown. This is because

commercially grown vegetables are generally grown by farmers who are

paid by the pound rather than by their mineral content for their

product. Plants absorb minerals quite well (it is their job), if they

are present in the soil. However, plants will grow in an environment

that includes only water, sunlight, potassium, nitrogen, and

phosphorous... and quite well. So only by eating vegetables that

contain a full complement of nutrients can one maintain optimum health.

Conversely, one will eventually otherwise become diseased without them.

Dr. Joel Wallach (whose background is in farming and farm animal

health) explains this best in his books. http://www.wallachonline.com/

One way to get the parts that you miss in commercially grown plants is

to correctly raise your own. Another is through organically sourced

whole food supplements. Even these miss out on the enzymes and more

volatile nutrients that science has yet to understand.

<http://www.wallachonline.com/>

 

So, if you read, understand and believe what Lanthois, Wallach, and

West (three diverse sources) are teaching, you will begin to

understand that there is a lot more to this delicate balance that leads

to optimum health than a single lifetime in farming or medicine alone

can teach you.