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Health supplements: Magic bullets that backfire
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Today, vitamins and other nutritional supplements are not only widely consumed, but also widely prescribed by natural health practitioners and some of the more nutritional-oriented medical doctors.
Is this natural? More importantly, is it healthy?
As discussed in another article about the mistakes of modern nutrition, nutritional science is narrow in its perspective. It looks only at what a food contains, not at what a food does to you ultimately.
This is the same approach behind health supplements. It is still a narrow approach that, while possibly producing short-term benefits, might cause long-term problems.
Nutritional supplements, when taken routinely, are thus no different from other Strange foods discussed in a 1994 issue of The Good Life.
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Vitamin pills, royal jelly, barley green, evening primrose oil, salmon oil, shark’s cartilage… all these so-called health foods share one thing in common: they promise magic.
The promise is that if you take these health supplements regularly, your health will surely improve.
Sure, it is good to adopt healthier ways of eating and living. But if you don’t that’s okay. Just take these magic foods faithfully every day. For the rest of your life.
The magic does seem to work. Many people do feel better after taking certain health supplements. They say royal jelly -- or whatever -- helps them to work a 16-hour day!
Then what? They become addicted. They cannot work without their magic foods. I’ve heard people say they cannot function with out their daily dose of vitamin pills.
Addiction -- or, to use a milder term, dependence -- is one dark side of magical health supplements.
Another dark side involves money. There is money to be made from peddling magic. So many people are drawn to this business. They earn a side income from direct sales, by introducing these products to their friends and neighbours.
This is the multi-level marketing (MLM) or network marketing industry. And it can get real ugly, as when one medical doctor once told me a whole pack of lies just to try and get me join his MLM network.
Click here to read about The doctor who prescribes MLM and about an ex-MLM agent who says: I don't want to me a legal conman.
Health “experts”
Many of these health supplements pushers know next to nothing about health. All they have are brochures boasting the magical properties of their products. They study these brochures by heart and, overnight, they become health experts. They start to dish out health advice.
Is there any harm?
The harm is not obvious. It is in giving people a false sense of security. They think they are already being health conscious. So they don’t take steps -- like changing their diet and way of life -- that would really improve their health. Why bother when there’s magic?
There is, however, a more serious danger which is only now becoming apparent. Only now can we find people who had been taking vitamins and health supplements for many years.
I’ve come across quite a few of such people. And they are not at all healthy. Instead, there is often nervousness about them. They are hyperactive, and unable to focus their attention.
Why? One reason is that supplements are very refined, very artificial foods. Pure nutrients do not exist in nature. Thus, if you really feel that you need nutritional supplements, it is best to take those that are derived from whole foods – such as ginseng, lingzhi, chlorella, etc -- rather than purified, synthetic vitamins.
An understanding of yin and yang further explains the long-term effects of purified vitamins.
(Yin and yang, in macrobiotics, refer to what is known as expanding and contracting energy. Click here to learn more about yin and yang.)
Most vitamins, especially the ever popular vitamin C, are extremely yin (strong expanding energy). So they are initially helpful -- to people who are very yang from eating lots of meat, salt and other strong contracting foods.
Vitamin C (and other yin health supplements) would also benefit those under great stress, since stress is a very yang / contractive factor -- it makes a person feel tensed and uptight. And, such supplements benefit yang-type personalities, such as those who believe in working 16 hours a day.
Over a long period, however, these substances and "health foods" begin to weaken the most yang part of the body --the nervous system. They create nervous wrecks.
Click here to read an article by macrobiotic teacher Adelbert Nelissen about why health supplements have no place in a healthy macrobotic diet.
Click below to read about the potential problems associated with:
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