GROW YOUR OWN VITAMINS?
From: The Best Supplements For Your Health
by Donald P. Goldberg, R.Ph., Arnold Gitomer, R.Ph., and Robert Abel, Jr., M.D.

            Watch out for people who can turn lead into gold. There are some companies that sell products containing vitamins that are supposed to be different from others. These vitamins have been somehow grown or cultured with food or yeast, and incorporated into these organic plant cells. And as a result of this, the vitamins are supposedly changed, altered in some way such that they are no longer the same as “regular” vitamins. They are better, more potent, better assimilated, more politically correct.
            In chapter 2 we explained the ploy used to “fortify” brewer’s type-yeast. B vitamins would be dumped into a yeast culture and the resultant mixture of yeast and B vitamins would be co-dried. The product would be called fortified brewer’s-type yeast and have a very high potencies of the various B vitamins. The high potency, of course, was due to the added vitamins. Companies would put this “yeast” into their vitamins and mention only “yeast” on the label’s ingredient label. But they would list the high potencies of the B vitamins. The consumer would be misled into thinking that the vitamins came from the yeast, rather than from the regular, synthetic vitamins that were added to the yeast.
             The “food-base,” “cultured,” or “grown” vitamin supplements are variations of this same approach. That’s OK up to a point. We firmly support the inclusion of as much natural food concentrate and food isolates as possible into a supplement program. Foods, especially fruits and vegetables, are rich sources of beneficial phytonutrients-flavonoids, polyphenols, etc.- and the more the better.
            But that is all these products are- mixtures of regular vitamins and minerals with the yeast or other food concentrates. The vitamins have not been altered in any way.
            This culturing process does not change the vitamins. The vitamins are not incorporated into the yeast or food cells and somehow made more potent. A mixture of food concentrate and vitamins is formed, dried, and incorporated into the supplement. That’s all. And as long as we except that for what it is, no harm is done-except remember that there is only so much space in a tablet or capsule. The more of that space that is taken up by the food concentrate, the less the space that is available for the actual vitamins and minerals. It is difficult if not impossible, then, to have a high-potency vitamin or mineral supplement of this type.
            There is an exception to this situation. Certain trace minerals can indeed be assimilated by plant cells In higher than normal levels. Perhaps the best example of this is selenium. A selenium-enriched yeast culture has indeed been developed and commercially produced. This is an exception, as plants usually are genetically limited in how much of a given nutrient they can utilize.
             Our main concern regarding these types of products is that there is a tendency to mislead consumers into thinking they are getting more than they really are. Overspending is one thing, but if a woman takes one of these “food-grown supplements” with only 75 milligrams of calcium, for example, thinking that this will have the same effect as 1,000 milligrams of regular calcium, there is a serious problem. As we said before, food concentrates are fine. But they should be taken as an adjunct to an appropriate nutrient supplement, not as a replacement for it.

From: The Best Supplements For Your Health
by Donald P. Goldberg, R.Ph., Arnold Gitomer, R.Ph., and Robert Abel, Jr., M.D.

This book is recommended for the easily understandable quality nutritional science it presents in its recommendations for dietary supplements. Donald P. Goldberg and Arnold Gitomer own and operate Willner Chemists, the oldest and largest nutritionally-oriented pharmacy in North America, located in New York City.

Michael Mooney
www.michaelmooney.net