Chiropractor in Crofton Explains Which Vitamins You Should Take

By Dr. Nicholas A. Grande

Lynn told that she and her husband once had some house guests stay at their house for the weekend, and they brought a suitcase full of vitamins.

It was a carry-on size. Lynn asked them how many of those vitamins they took. They said that they took all of them every day.

She just about gagged. Right there and then Lynn decided to stop taking her daily multi-vitamin she had just started taking. She was afraid she’d start taking more and more vitamins like her friends did.

My patient Lynn’s reaction seemed reasonable to me, but unfortunately it stopped her from using vitamins as part of her health regimen.

I Thought About It

As I thought about it later, I wanted to come up with something to tell someone like Lynn. But first I had to ask a myself the question, “what’s the goal of taking vitamins?”

“What is the Goal of Taking Vitamins?”

That’s what this post is about. Whether you’re taking a suitcase of vitamins or not, I just wanted to lay down the how and why for taking a basic set of vitamins. A starting point for someone who doesn’t want to take a lot of vitamins, but wants to get some benefit by taking them.

TV shows and the internet are always selling me a drink or a pill that gives lots of nutrients with impressive-sounding names like “phyto-chemicals”, “phyto-nutrients”.

All of that advertising and promotion can be very confusing to someone who wants to take vitamins for health. Once you start adding one vitamin you heard about it’s easy to start adding stuff willy-nilly.

So, what is the goal of taking a basic set of vitamins?”.

The Answer

Here’s the answer. The goal of taking a basic set of vitamins is to produce good cells and good bacteria.

You take vitamins to support a few foundational body functions, namely you take vitamins that will help create the healthiest cells and the healthiest bacteria you can.

We need healthy cells to make new healthy cells to continuously re-build and protect us. If cells don’t do this well, we slide into poor health and sickness.

Bacteria?

In the last 20 years there has been a revolution in science’s understanding of the body. Scientists found out that our health is determined not just by the cells we make ourselves, but by the interplay of our own cells with the bacteria that lives inside our bodies. We get bacteria mainly from digesting vegetables in our small intestine. But often that’s not enough. So we get it from outside, that’s what pro-biotics are for.

It is just as important to have good bacteria inside us as it is to have healthy cells.

The 4 Basic Vitamins

Start by taking these 4 basic vitamins: 1) multi-vitamin with minerals; 2) Vitamin-D; 3) Omega-3; 4) Pro-biotic.

What does this do for you?

• Multivitamins and minerals. Everything that is us, is made of cells. Multivitamins and minerals provide ingredients that fire the chemical reactions inside and outside the cells. These chemical reactions maintain our healthy bodily processes and are needed to manufacture new cells.
• Vitamin-D is needed in every cell, all the time every day. Without it things get bad.
• Omega-3 fatty acids are oils needed to help make sure each cell has a healthy, functioning outside layer which is used to keep the wrong stuff out of a cell, and to let the right stuff in and out of a cell.
• Pro-Biotics. Your health is determined in large part by the interaction of the cells and genes your body produces with the cells and genes of the good and bad bacteria inside your body. Pro-Biotics are good bacteria. They help us to increase the amount of good bacteria in our bodies.

What About Just Eating Right?

You may ask, “why not just use food to get all these vitamins?” Well, maybe you can. But for a long time, the received wisdom in health care has been that it’s hard to cover all 4 bases just with food.

That’s mainly because of the harmful effects of decreased nutrition in packaged foods, the degradation of soil nutrients, and the presence of toxins like pesticides and plastics in the food supply. Taking vitamins is a way of stacking the odds in favor of good health.

But you still need to eat the best food you can. For instance, we get good bacteria naturally from digesting green vegetables in our small intestine, so eat your vegetables!

Supplements vs. Vitamins

In the interest of making this blog post a quick-read I just used the commonly used term “vitamin” to refer to all supplements including the real vitamins. Technically, only Vitamins A, B, C, D, E, and K are really referred to by scientists as vitamins. Those real vitamins and any other nutritional products you take are called “supplements”.  There are more semantic distinctions that could be made here, but they are not important to what this blog post is about.

Yours in Good Health,

Dr. Nick Grande of Grande Family Chiropractic