Posted by Larry Hoover on June 10, 2005, at 9:52:17
In reply to Re: Okay, Totally Confused Synthetic vs Natural Vitami » Phillipa, posted by Jakeman on June 7, 2005, at 14:48:57
> > Now I'm really confused. For years I took Shaklee products. I was told that they weren't vitamins but were extracted from natural plant and food sources. I recently started taking Melaleuca vitamins. The label lists synthetic ingrediants. So, are there really natural vitamins and minerals or are they all synthetic. If you do a Natural Vitamin and Supplement search Shaklee and others pop up but Melaleuca. What is the best Natural Vitamin and Mineral Source besides food. Thanks, Phillipa
>
> Good question. I started taking Ester-C because of some studies showing it to be more bio-available. But many people assert that the cheaper ascorbic acid form is just as good or better.An ester is simply an acid reacted to an alcohol. Some acids irritate the stomach, and ascorbic acid is one of those. Not because it's an acid. Lord no. It's a very weak acid, way weaker than the hydrochloric acid (muriatic acid, the stuff used to clean concrete) that your stomach pumps out. No, ascorbic acid is part of the signalling cascade in the stomach, and some people are more sensitive to the signal than others. Ascorbic acid can cause dyspepsia in sensitive individuals. The ester bond on the acid is like putting a knife in its sheath. There's still a knife, no doubt, but for the moment, you need another step to put it into action. Ester-C is *buffered*. Slow release. Nothing more. On a gram for gram basis, you get more bang for your buck with pure ascorbic acid, because you're not paying for the mass of the ester. However, to accomodate that distortion in mass balance, most products would say something like "Each tablet provides 1000 mg vitamin C, as ascorbate", i.e. after the ester bond is broken, the ascorbate is what is left.
> Then there are brands like Natures Way Alive multi-vitamins that contain powdered foods and digestive enzymes.
When you get into the realm of vitamin C and the bioflavonoids, then maybe natural beats synthetic. There are other things in fruit other than vitamin C that are good for ya. When they extract vitamin C from citrus waste (a very common source, from the juice industry), they get a lot of other crap too. That crap is called coextractives. Turns out those coextractives are also good for you, and marketing people turned around and said "Looky here, we got extra fruit gunk in with our vitamin C", when actually it was an impure vitamin C extract to start with. So they started charging extra for a poorer quality product. Ya see how this works?
Vitamin C with bioflavonoids *is* better than vitamin C alone, but it isn't because the vitamin C is natural.
> And some people swear by the liquid formulations but I've not seen any evidence that they are better. Also the labeling is tricky so it's hard to tell what's your're getting.
>
> best regards ~JI'm a geek and I still get tricked. Most of the time, a simple rule holds true. The stuff is better in you than sitting on the shelf, not swallowed. Arguing whether one product is better than another gets into some very unscientific territory, even though there may be some scientifically discernable differences between products. Are those differences enough to justify the price differential? Etc.?
<shrug>
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:508868
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20050510/msgs/510488.html