Quantum Nutrition Center

Living Food Source vs. Non-Food Synthetics
By: Robert J. Thiel, Ph.D, N.M.D.,

The Truth About Vitamins In Supplements

For decades the natural health industry has been touting thousands of vitamin supplements. The truth is that most vitamins are made or processed with petroleum derivatives or hydrogenated sugars. Even though they are often called natural, most vitamins sold in health food stores are isolated substances which are crystalline in structure. Vitamins naturally in food are not crystalline and never isolated. Vitamins found in any real food are chemically and structurally different from those commonly found in natural vitamin formulas. Since they are different, medical practitioners should consider non-food vitamins (often called natural or USP or pharmaceutical grade) as vitamin imitations and not actually vitamins.

Synthetic vitamins were developed because they cost less. Manufacturers often call synthetic vitamins vegetarian, not because they are from plants, but because they are not from animals. (Food source vitamins will list the names of the plants the vitamins are derived from on the label.)

Food source vitamins are smaller in size for better bioavailability, in chemical forms that the body recognizes, and the absorption of vitamins relates not only to the nature of the nutrients, but also their interaction with each other.

Even before there were electron microscopes, Dr. Royal Lee knew that food vitamins were superior to synthetics. Dr. Lee, like Dr. Bernard Jensen, was opposed to the use of isolated, synthetic nutrients. Dr. Lee specifically wrote,

The synthetic product is always a simple chemical substance, while the pure food is a complex mixture of related and similar materials. The commercial promoters of cheap imitation products spend enough money to stop the leaking out of this information.

Take Vitamin B for example. The body has a specific liver transport for the type of vitamin B found in food. It does not have this for the synthetic vitamin B forms. Therefore, no amount of synthetic vitamin B can ever equal food vitamin B. In fact, the body tries to rid itself of synthetic vitamin B as quickly as possible.

Certain forms of vitamin B synthetics have been shown to have almost no vitamin activity!

Look for vitamins that are 100% FOOD. The term natural does not mean pure food. Some companies try to confuse the consumer by using the term food based. Food Based vitamins are almost always USP vitamins mixed with a small amount of food that does not change the chemical form of the vitamin.

The truth is that only supplements composed of 100% FOOD can be counted on to perform the necessary functions in the body.