Food Supplements

[McKinney, Pat]

Let's get this right.  Food Supplements are unregulated so organic or
otherwise is irrelevant. They do not need to be tested for safety or
efficacy. For a good source of information go to www.quackwatch.com and read
the articles on food supplements.

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Heltman [mailto:bobh at ioa.com]
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 11:53 AM
To: Public Health Nutrition Discussion and Information Group
Subject: Food Supplements


Dear Health Firsters:

There has been some recent posting activity about Food Supplements.

You experts may want to define the term and break it down into more useful
categories.

For instance, there are organic whole food supplements, like Klamath Lake
Blue Green Algae, some barleygreen powders, some wheatgrass powders, and
perhaps others.  I imagine dehydrated garlic, parsley, etc. would be in this
category too.
	Especially in this arena, there are good a bad processing methods.
The
best use dehydrating methods that do not go above about 104 degrees, so
enzymes are not destroyed.  Some use air drying, some freeze drying.  Some
bond the powders with maltodextrose or the like to assure minimal nutrient
loss, etc.

There are non-organic whole food supplements, like man made ponds with man
selected nutrient fed algae of various types, barleygreen from non-organic
farms, etc.

Then there are partial food supplements like zinc, Vitamin E, Vitamin C in
various concentrations, magnesium-calcium-zinc combinations and on and on.
Maybe some of the "health bars" with Zone mixes of
proteins-carbohydrates-etc. come in here.

	Some of these are "naturally" derived and some are produced
synthetically.
Arguments abound about the need for associated nutrients to make the prime
nutrient function properly and on and on and on.  Of course, there is the
war between "natural" and "synthetic."

Then there are powders, syrups, food bars, tablets, and capsules, and of the
capsules those that do and those that don't use animal products in their
manufacture.  And arguments about slowly dissolving under the tongue,
tablets being chewed or not, some tablets or capsules breaking down or not
breaking down in the GI tract, ad nauseum.

As I understand it, the "best" supplements are of the organic whole food
variety as they provide missing micronutrients not provided these days in
the nation's commercial food system, and they do so "in balance" which is
another key concept.  I hear that taking specific supplements can be less
healthy as it causes various "imbalances"...unless a specific need is
determined by a qualified health care practitioner and the specific type
supplement is utilized to fill the gap, temporarily it is hoped.

Then there are colon and artery cleansers, and perhaps other ingested
products for various purposes.  Grapefruit pectin is "in" lately, to clean
out the arteries.  Is it a supplement or not, especially if it is not
essentially absorbed into the blood stream?   Hmmmmmm.

As to the answer to the question "Are supplements good or bad?" the answer
clearly is "yes" and "no."
Like people; are they good or bad?   Answer: Yup.

Keep smiling.

Bests, Bob

Robert (Bob) F. Heltman
"Presenting New products to mail order catalogs & e-commerce Internet sites
across the USA and in Canada"
http://www.leadingedgepands.com