As you know, not all vitamins and supplements you find in stores are created equal. Walk into any vitamin or grocery store and you are confronted with a staggering selection. Where do you even begin?
Here's a hint: turn the bottle around and look at the ingredients. Anytime you see a vitamin listing followed by parentheses saying "(as... bla bla bla) it's your clue that you're looking at a fractionated vitamin. Below is a common example of a label for a multivitamin. Take vitamin C as an example. Most of us have heard of ascorbic acid.
Is that really vitamin C ?
Ascorbic acid, commonly referred to as vitamin C, is a fractionated vitamin. The truth is, ascorbic acid is only the outer protective shell of the entire vitamin C complex. What's missing are all of the necessary enzymes, co-factors, trace minerals, synergists and other unknown components as found in nature. So it would be much like eating an eggshell and expecting the same benefits of eating the egg. Furthermore, ascorbic acid as found in most vitamins is a synthetic molecule made cheaply in a laboratory.
Although in the beginning taking enough of this "vitamin" may appear to be beneficial, what is really happening is that molecule is likely robbing the body's tissue reserves of all of those missing components in an attempt to make the ascorbic acid molecule into something the body can recognize and use. Over time however, your body's reserves will begin to deplete. Now the "vitamin" is working against you and starving you of vital nutrients!
Potency does not equal quality
Unfortunately the general public is not aware of this fact. The government mandates that the potency of any vitamin is calculated by measuring a particular fraction of the entire vitamin complex. So when you see "high potency" vitamin C what that usually means is that the vitamin company has packed as many single molecules of ascorbic acid that they can into their product. The problem is you're not getting vitamin C as intended by nature. It's not food. And it's why most vitamins not only get flushed from the body as expensive urine, but may actually be causing harm.
Are all vitamins and supplements bad for me?
No. Fortunately there is a class of vitamins and supplements, though much more rare, that are derived from actual food. When a body is given vital nutrients in their natural form, amazing healing can occur. As Hippocrates stated so long ago, "let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food".
Whole food supplements will have listed in their ingredients the food sources used. Even still, the method of extracting nutrients from food is critical. A fractionated vitamin may be synthetic or it may be derived from food sources. If from a food source, it has been exposed to high heat, powerful chemicals and solvents, and other processes to distill the desired fraction of the nutrient to the target potency for marketing. All of the other micronutrients have essentially been obliterated in the process. You can only imagine what you're left with. It's certainly not very appetizing, nor is it what your body is starving for. Real nutrients missing in a lot of today's food.
But watch out for labels
This is where it can get tricky. Manufacturers can legally label products as natural (because chemicals after all come from nature, right?), organic (because even a synthetic substance contains a carbon molecule... nothing to do with organically grown or chemical-free!), from natural sources (as explained above), or even labeled as a vitamin complex (if they add back in one or two other fractionated substances).
Remember, generally a manufacturer will list all of the food sources if they are providing a true whole food supplement. Not just the chemical name. Also, those nutrients will be preserved in their natural form with nothing added or altered with high heat or chemicals. So you may need to investigate the form of extraction of the nutrients to be certain you are getting what they claim. True vital nutrients with the power to heal.