Ditch and Switch: Synthetic Vitamins for Food and Plant-Based Vitamins

For today’s Ditch and Switch, let’s chat about ditching synthetic vitamins – pretty much all of the vitamins you would find on a shelf at your local drug store – and switching to vitamins and supplements that are food and plant-based.

I’ve had a lot of vitamin questions lately.

Let me start with this. Even as a pharmacist recommending and helping patients find OTC products, I did not know this mattered for several years after graduating from pharmacy school. This is not information taught to us, and I would venture to guess, in most other medical professions, it’s not either.

I can’t even begin to tell you how dumb I felt when I was working in a retail setting and a patient asked me to help her find some OTC vitamins that were not synthetic. I looked at her completely lost as to why she would be searching for supplements like this.

Unless you purchase whole food or plant-sourced vitamins, you get synthetic products made artificially with chemicals. Synthetic vitamins are not absorbed or used by your body the same way as their natural counterparts, and some potentially do more harm than good.

For example, ascorbic acid, or synthetic vitamin c, is one we’ve gotten very familiar with over the years. This is what you will find in almost all vitamin c supplements. Ascorbic acid is almost always derived from GMO corn and is not near as absorbable as naturally-derived vitamin c.

Among other side effects, a study showed the increase of arterial plaques in patients taking 500mg daily, increasing their risk of heart disease, heart attack, and high blood pressure.

Many kids’ vitamins include added sugars and artificial dyes. When we try to ensure our kiddos are getting all their nutrients, we may be making things worse.

Ideally, we should be getting vitamins through our diet, but in real life, most people are not getting what their body needs to function optimally from our diet. The decline in nutritional value in our foods now adds to this problem.

Switch! If you want to make sure you’re taking vitamins/supplements that are absorbable and nourishing your body, be sure to check the labels for whole food sources. Many times, these must be found online or at health food stores. These are almost always more expensive because they are not synthetic chemicals made in a lab but 100% worth it for your health.

I have been taking the Doterra Life Long Vitality vitamins for several years. These are jam-packed with bioavailable nutrients and antioxidants for general wellness, bone, hair/skin/nails, eyes, stress, cardiovascular, liver, respiratory, digestive, and liver health. Ask me how to get these too!

For kids, Doterra and MyKind Organics are my favorite.

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Ditch and Switch: Inflammation and NSAIDS for Natural Anti-Inflammatories

Inflammation. Your body’s process of fighting against things that harm it, like infections, injuries, and toxins, in an attempt to heal itself. However, it is a word I am hearing more and more these days from the clients that I work with. I’m talking about chronic inflammation more so than acute.

Chronic inflammation can be caused by many different factors, but some major culprits are:

1. Diet (Probably the biggest factor)

2. Proinflammatory dysbiosis (I see this a ton on GI-Map tests)

3. Food sensitivities

4. Lack of sleep

5. Mineral deficiencies (especially magnesium)

6. Stress (leads to magnesium deficiency)

7. Dehydration

8. Toxin exposure

Most people (including doctors and pharmacists) reach first for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (more commonly known as NSAIDs) for relief. The most common of these are ibuprofen (Advil and Motrin) and naproxen (Aleve). When utilized in the short-term, NSAIDs can be extremely helpful. However, long-term usage can damage your gut lining and cause ulcers, gastritis, GI bleeding, edema, and increased cardiovascular thrombotic events.

Don’t get me wrong. On occasion, when I need some quick pain relief, I take ibuprofen too. Thankfully, this is a rare occasion now and not near as frequent as it used to be. I want to stress that this should not be a long-term solution for inflammation though. I have found that most people over the age of 30 are having some sort of inflammatory issues regularly. That’s why it is so important to be PROACTIVE (living a more healthy lifestyle) instead of REACTIVE (relying on NSAIDs).

As I mentioned, the first thing we can do to prevent inflammation is through our lifestyle choices:

• What we eat

• Quality and amount of sleep

• Reducing our toxin exposure

• Addressing and reducing stress

• Making sure to hydrate

We can seek to find some root causes of inflammation like gut testing, food sensitivity testing, and getting mineral levels checked. We can also use natural herbs and plants with anti-inflammatory properties that pack many other health benefits as well, some of which include:

1. Turmeric

2. Quercetin

3. NAC (N-acetylcysteine)

4. Tart cherry juice

5. Polyphenols

6. Omega 3 fatty acids

7. Therapeutic grade essential oils (Black pepper, Copaiba, Frankincense, Ginger, Cinnamon, Turmeric)

All of these can be found in food sources or high-quality supplements.

What other natural anti-inflammatories do you love?

Category Archives: Natural Remedies