Nutritional Supplement Questions Answered!

I read an article not long ago(sorry, can't remember the website) where the article author was analyzing the usefulness, efficacy and safety of supplements. So he went to a city sewage complex and questioned the sewage manager, the main man who dealt mainly with human sewage. On questioning him, this sewage manager freely admitted that, everyday, when he inspected the human sewage, he saw thousands upon thousands of multi-coloured pills in the faeces, which could only have been multivitamin pills and other supplements. All undigested.

So what Ted says about pills being insoluble and therefore useless is entirely correct.

Whenever I do take any form of pill supplement -- such as simple Ascorbic Acid -- I always pulverize it into a powder first and then dissolve this in a glass of water before I take it(as per Ted's advice). With Ascorbic acid, I also add baking soda to the solution to create the much friendlier and absorbable alkaline form of vitamin C -- Sodium Ascorbate. And even when I do this alkalizing procedure I have to scrape off the strange scum that forms on the surface of the water(caused by the strange binding agents and additives in the pill).

Most vitamin and multi-vitamin manufacturers don't give a tinker's cuss whether their products are in the right form for your body or not, they just produce a bright shiny-coloured pill that looks nice, that puts you into a trusting comfort zone, and yet does nothing whatsoever for your body.

The supplement pill is usually packed with strange binding agents like magnesium stearate, stearic acid, micro-cellulose agents, starch etc. In other words, if your are convinced by the advertising then you've been emotionally suckered by the supplement pill manufacturers and you may be buying something that is completely useless and not so body-friendly.

So the only way is to educate yourself. Anyone who comes to this Earth Clinic site will soon learn more about herbs, body-friendly chemicals and natural medications than at any other website I know. Here, they show both sides -- the yeas and nays -- of a protocol. Better than any expensive, double-blind placebo, FDA steered wacko research anyday. And the part I love about this site is that everyone tries to genuinely help each other. There is no more honest and better way.

12/20/2006: Linda from Higbo, MO writes, "Just found your website so this question may have already been answered. If your daily vitamin doesn't dissolve completely in water within 15-20 minutes will it work to wait until it dissolves (or to pulverize it) and then drink it?"

Twenty some years ago I was doing some colonics to remove old mucus from my colon. I found the un-disolved tablets of supplements I had be taking in what came out of me. The enteric coating of some the suplements were still intact. That means that the supplement went completely through me with out disolving and therefore I did not absorb any of the supplement. The problem with tablets is that some of the fillers used in them are binders and when the manufacturer compresses them they become rocks and never dissolve. This is why it is better to buy supplements in capsules which have less fillers. It is even better to buy them in powders that have no fillers. Some fillers can cause bad reactions in some people and can interfer with the absorption of some supplements. If you can't take the taste of the supplement then cap them yourself otherwise you are just wasting your money and not getting the benefits of the supplements you are taking. There are some manufacturers that are mindful of their customers and make tablets that dissolve. You will find that these tablets disolve in the mouth if you leave them there 2 or 3 minutes. This is a subject that everyone should keep in mind when buying supplements in order to get maximum potential from them. It is also thoughtful when leaving posts here at EC that one would consider using a supplement with maximum absorption vs leaving a post on a supplement which will give no benefit because it cannot be absorbed.

For decades I have purchased hundreds of vitamin and supplements from Swanson and had always been happy with them and recommended them frequently to others. I felt they offered good products at reasonable prices with very good service. Unfortunately it is now my opinion that they are no longer "that company" which I trusted to get almost all of my supplements from without even considering other supplement suppliers unless Swanson did not stock what I was looking for!

In recent years, I feel their customer service is down to poor at best. They continue to raise their prices on most of their products at what seems to be faster than what I see from other suppliers. Yes, I am now using other suppliers and Swanson much less than I used to and until they show me otherwise, that is how it will remain! I will no longer recommend them and will continue to purchase more from other suppliers and much less from them. I also notice that where they used to consistently offer the lowest prices on supplements, that is no longer the case and I am seeing other suppliers who are starting to come up with better prices than them or offer products that they don't even carry.

This week, they sent me an email which asked me to review a product that I had recently purchased, eye drops. I bought these eye drops to compare them to many other eye drops I have purchased before. Well I wrote out a review as they had asked and filled in the information they had asked me for regarding the product and what I thought of it. Having purchased many other eye drops before, I felt I had a good basis for comparison. My review was negative because in my opinion, the eye drops were much less desirable than the others I had tried previously and these eye drops had two main drawbacks that I considered to be very significant. Here is a copy of my review as sent to Swanson:

A waste of money
I bought this to compare to many other eye drops I have used previously and though the drops are helpful, they are not as good as others I have tried. What was more of a disappointment was that the package says to discard the bottle 30 days after opening whether it is empty or not! I don't like the dispensing system that requires you to squeeze the dropper neck instead of the bottle, which I found to be inconvenient and seems like an easy way to contaminate the contents as it requires you to put two fingers very close to the outlet tip, leaving germs in an area where they could potentially get into the bottle!

Here is their reply:

Our staff has read your review and values your contribution even though it did not meet all our website guidelines. Thanks for sharing, and we hope to publish next time!

Thanks again,
Swanson Health Products

I feel that I gave an honest review based on my experience, but apparently, because it wasn't positive, they are not going to post it as a review on their website. I get that some companies will try to control reviews in one way or another, but I thought Swanson was above this tactic. They asked me to review the product and then when I gave my review, they say it does not meet their guidelines. How blatant is that? They have never turned down any "good reviews " I have done in the past, but this is at least the third time they have turned down a review I have sent in that was less than glowing. I guess they think a negative review will hurt their sales and that may be true, but if you only want positive reviews, then you might as well just say that when you ask for the review. I consider this to be a form of deceit on their part because they are not letting their consumers see "all of the reviews", both good and bad. To me, that tactic is a major strike against them!

The bottom line for me is that I will no longer recommend them and will use them less and less and hopefully get to a point where I will no longer use them at all! Oh, and I will no longer be giving them any more reviews either! In my opinion, Swanson is no longer the company they used to be that I trusted to get almost all of my supplements from!

Art