When Do Vitamins Start Becoming Less Personal

When we look at the marketplace of what's hot in holistic medicine, brands that pack more and more into a multivitamin package are enticing consumers with a better value.

One might think that taking a vitamin with more stuff has to be healthier than taking a special vitamin or one that only addresses your core needs.

Yet, research finds that most Americans receive their fair of nutrition from their daily diet and are only lacking in specific vitamins. The rest may either lead to toxicity if they overdo it or, in the case of water-soluble vitamins, are simply flushed down the urinal.

What Are Vitamins?

Vitamins are those essential nutrients that our body needs for major bodily functions and cannot adequately produce on its own if at all.

Although we may be able to produce our own reserves of Vitamin D by exposure to sunlight, Vitamin D is one of the leading deficiencies in the United States.

Furthermore, there is some debate about how readily vitamins are absorbed.

Although you may be able to obtain vitamin B-12 from milk, eggs, and meat, many researchers believe that most people have a mutated gene (allele) that prevents proper absorption. It is also believed that calcium is difficult to absorb.

Off-Label Uses of Vitamins and the Value of Trace Minerals

Vitamins are peculiar indeed. High doses of Vitamin B-12 can potentially reverse cyanide poisoning, while high doses of iron were a leading cause of death in children under the age of 6 for many decades.

Yet, not all dietary multivitamin supplements contain just vitamins. They may also contain trace minerals like selenium, copper, manganese, and others that have an unclear relationship in our continued health.

Iron is technically considered a trace mineral although it is an essential mineral that we need in our diets. If not, we can develop a special kind of anemia that causes fatigue and malformation of red blood cells.

What May We Need Beyond Vitamins?

When we start looking at what all we need beyond vitamins, the list becomes exhausting. Doctors recommend probiotics for good gut health, electrolytes for energy, and alkalines for an anti-inflammatory pH balance.

Medical science also recommends many other supplements to solve a variety of ailments such as milk thistle for liver inflammation, cat's claw for pain, CBD for pain and inflammation, and chondroitin and glucosamine for joint health.

And the list goes on because every type of supplement out there boasts of some special quality to find its way onto Mother Nature's medicine cabinet.

Are Multivitamins More of a Marketing Ploy than Medicine?

As stated, Americans are obtaining most of their nutrients through their ordinary diets. Not including fortified breakfast cereals and breads, Americans have access to a broader array of foods than any nation on the planet.

In fact, the United States is the supermarket of the world. We are the ones who are farming more than the average obese American can even eat and shipping the excess overseas.

It is no wonder why the portions are so large in the USA and why obesity-related diseases are the second-highest cause of preventable death after tobacco. Although countries like China (1,433,734,897 residents) and India (1,350,438,098 residents) may produce more food in general, their populations are huge in comparison and consume most of it.

When we look at the weightier issues, Americans are penny-wise and pound-foolish when it comes to eating healthy. All the vitamins and minerals in the world aren't gonna save them from a triple bypass if they are carrying such extreme weight.

You will find that it is simply too expensive to live on an American-size diet overseas. Go to Israel and expect to spend over $100 a day even if you try to eat economically in USA portions. Having 3 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and multiple meals after that throughout the day is not uncommon for a hungry American.

Because bigger is better in America, multivitamins do appear to be a deceptive marketing concept. Although they may be a convenient and inexpensive way to ensure that you are not totally vitamin deficient, experts agree that their true value is nothing more than expensive piss.

Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat-soluble vitamins. These vitamins build up in your system and can become toxic in high doses. Yet, most Americans are, nevertheless, deficient in A, D, E, C, magnesium, and calcium.

Depending on where you live, Vitamin D may be the most prevalent in your region. Because your body needs at least 20 minutes of exposure to sunlight every day to maintain natural Vitamin D levels, people who live in cold overcast climates are most at risk of a Vitamin D deficiency.

Specialized Vitamin Formulas

Several companies have now come to the market that offers a vitamin, mineral, supplement deficiency assessment. Then, once they know what you are lacking in anything from DHA to probiotics to Vitamin D, they can formulate a special packet of vitamins for you to take on a daily basis.

This seems like it is targeted at effectively eliminating the waste of broad-spectrum multivitamins and pinpointing what we truly are lacking.

Although some consumers may be speculative about the methods used to assess a deficiency and how important various supplements may be, specialized formulations seem like they are the logical choice.

Because no calibration and testing method would be perfect for everyone's needs, a personal assessment and screening is a more effective method. Julia Baum, the author of MBSF Health, which has a list of the top-rated custom vitamins says, "The discovery of vitamins revolutionized the sciences of diet and nutrition but failed to introduce any methodology for attaining the full benefits of this knowledge."

And that is exactly the current state of affairs. The majority of the world has still not woken up from that spell of taking mass-produced multivitamins like some sort of protection amulet.

The popular belief is that water-soluble vitamins are safe to take in any doses and that using a shotgun can be just as effective as a dagger.

But when we consider how 99 percent of the defenses that we are using are effectively useless, it makes sense to consider all our nutritional needs on a personalized basis.