Vitamins...Natural vs. Synthetic??

Did you know that most of the vitamins and nutritional supplements you find on the shelves of drug stores are made synthetically through chemical processes, rather than derived directly from plants or other natural materials?

Some health authorities claim that these synthetic vitamins are useless and ineffective. If your body cannot absorb the nutrient, it becomes toxin in your body and later excreted. However, there are some orthodox doctors who claim that synthetic vitamins have a molecular chemical structure identical to the natural vitamin and that they are just as effective. So who’s telling the truth?

First of all, it is tricky to define what a “natural vitamin” is but it is usually defined as “a concentrated nutrient derived from a quality natural source. The key is maximum retention of the natural material; no artificial colors, sweeteners, or preservatives should be used. Nutrients are concentrated from its natural source as carefully as possible. (This is where the patented technology of each manufacturer will become a crucial factor!) No extreme heat, pressure, or possibly toxic solvents are used. There are no sugar or chemical tablet coatings. The nutrients are prepared from high quality raw ingredients and no artificial chemicals are added.” So, processing is limited in order for natural ingredients to be retained.

On the other hand, synthetic vitamins are made in a lab setting from coal tar derivatives. Most of the food supplements sold on the market today are synthetic and often cheaper to produce than natural vitamins. So the key issue here is…is the molecular structure of natural vitamins altered by the synthetic process or not?

My anti-aging advisor, Dr. Andrew, the other day revealed to me that our cells are pretty smart. Even if synthetic supplements have identical molecular structure as its natural counterparts, somehow our cells can detect the difference!! “They will reject anything synthetic…”, he says.

So are all so-called “natural vitamins” equally effective? The downside of “natural” supplements is in its lack of dose consistency. In nature, one orange might contain 100 mg of vitamin C and in another, only contain less than 20 mg. The retention of natural ingredients depends on various conditions like time of harvest, climate, storage conditions, etc. So the manufacturer will have to invest a lot of money to standardize and manage quality in such a volatile environment. This is really costly for the manufacturer and that is why most of the supplement products you see in the market are synthetic. We need more information on manufacturers that have R&D capabilities to provide quality vitamins at affordable price for consumers.
Quality in vitamins and nutrients is extremely hard to quantify especially when one cannot simply trust that what you find inside the bottle is what is written on the label. So what do I do? Well, supplements are called supplements because they are supposed to supplement the nutrients you gain from eating healthy food. However, with most of the vegetables and fruits (in Japan) made in hot houses these days, the amount of nutrients you find in there are much less than what were found decades ago, so I definitely think there is health benefit in taking supplements.

My anti-aging doctor recommends multi-vitamins from companies like Pharmanex. Otherwise, I would purchase supplements from pharmaceutical companies that are known for outstanding R&D technology. My recent health “fad” has been to eat lots of pistachio nuts and dried fruit because they are after all great “natural supplement sources.” Will talk about that in another post.