Supplements
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Supplements - Editor's Choice

| Modified on Sep 22, 2022
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The nutritional supplements industry has become enormous and complicated. It offers safe, effective natural remedies for innumerable health conditions, but at the same time there is a lot of hucksterism and overblown claims about medical benefits that may not be true. Worse, some nutritional supplements are prepared without safeguards or sufficient study behind them, so that poisonous contaminants and dangerous side effects are a possibility.

We believe that most supplements are safe for most people, but we all need an unbiased place where we can discuss supplements and their makers so that we can find the safest and most effective nutritional supplements.

Read Earth Clinic user advice on how to ensure supplement safety and which side effects to look out for when treating illnesses or looking to improve your overall health.


The comments below reflect the personal experiences and opinions of readers and do not represent medical advice or the views of this website. The information shared has not been evaluated by the FDA and is not intended to diagnose, treat, or prevent any disease or health condition. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional for medical concerns.

Supplement Advice

Posted by Bill (San Fernando, Philippines) on 01/25/2010

Editor's Choice

I've given up taking many supplements long ago -- I always try and take the natural form if possible, and completely agree with Ted's low opinion of multivitamin supplements particularly being insoluble and not capable of being digested.

I read an article not long ago(sorry, can't remember the website) where the article author was analyzing the usefulness, efficacy and safety of supplements. So he went to a city sewage complex and questioned the sewage manager, the main man who dealt mainly with human sewage. On questioning him, this sewage manager freely admitted that, everyday, when he inspected the human sewage, he saw thousands upon thousands of multi-coloured pills in the faeces, which could only have been multivitamin pills and other supplements. All undigested.

So what Ted says about pills being insoluble and therefore useless is entirely correct.

Whenever I do take any form of pill supplement -- such as simple Ascorbic Acid -- I always pulverize it into a powder first and then dissolve this in a glass of water before I take it(as per Ted's advice). With Ascorbic acid, I also add baking soda to the solution to create the much friendlier and absorbable alkaline form of vitamin C -- Sodium Ascorbate. And even when I do this alkalizing procedure I have to scrape off the strange scum that forms on the surface of the water(caused by the strange binding agents and additives in the pill).

Most vitamin and multi-vitamin manufacturers don't give a tinker's cuss whether their products are in the right form for your body or not, they just produce a bright shiny-coloured pill that looks nice, that puts you into a trusting comfort zone, and yet does nothing whatsoever for your body.

The supplement pill is usually packed with strange binding agents like magnesium stearate, stearic acid, micro-cellulose agents, starch etc. In other words, if your are convinced by the advertising then you've been emotionally suckered by the supplement pill manufacturers and you may be buying something that is completely useless and not so body-friendly.

So the only way is to educate yourself. Anyone who comes to this Earth Clinic site will soon learn more about herbs, body-friendly chemicals and natural medications than at any other website I know. Here, they show both sides -- the yeas and nays -- of a protocol. Better than any expensive, double-blind placebo, FDA steered wacko research anyday. And the part I love about this site is that everyone tries to genuinely help each other. There is no more honest and better way.