I'm at a loss to find out how they arrive at the 'healthy' range of a certain nutrient. Like, what is the basis???

Do they analyse the serum level of a thousand so called healthy people who are no doubt on a SAD, and then determine the range of nutrient level of those people, and arrive at an average???

If so, then the whole system is faulty, and would not apply to people who have a significantly different diet.

To analyse the serum nutrient level of one or a thousand fruitarians/vegetarians/vegans, who appear to be in perfect health, and say their deficient in certain nutrients is misleading in my opinion. For even if not actually stated, the implication is that their diet is deficient. Did they have scurvy, or some other visible manifestation of nutrient deficiency???

To my mind, a cleaner, more efficient physiology would not require the deemed 'normal' nutrient serum level for optimum functioning, and the body would subsequently adjust the nutrient absorbsion rate.

For instance, a recent (2008) journal article I read had this to say regarding the B12 serum level in vegetarian adolescents:

'Although B12 levels were lower in vegetarian children it is difficult to interpret the clinical relevance of this finding. No clinical manifestation of vitamin B12 deficiency was obvious in any of the children studied and unfortunately no consensus has been reached in the literature regarding the serum level at which B12 is considered deficient' (Grant, Bilgin,Zeuschner, Guy, et al 2008:112).

In my opinion, elements of medical science are underpinned by false premises and assumptions, a house of cards built on a shaky foundation.

Reference:

The relative impact of a vegetable-rich diet on key markers of health in a cohort of Australian adolescents
Ross Grant, Ayse Bilgin, Carol Zeuschner, Trish Guy, et al. Asia Pacific Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Southbank: 2008. Vol. 17, Iss. 1; pg. 107, 8 pgs

I'm surprised no-one here knows what the criteria is for nutrient deficiency or the healthy range. I thought at least there'd be some ideas and different perspectives since you guys have no doubt studied this stuff.

Perhaps these concepts are a little off the scale as far as the general consensus regarding the accuracy of medical science, or the whole thing has been done to death on this site already???

Well, I'm a critical thinker, and to me the points I've made are valid. At uni I have access to heaps of info, and there are many generally accepted scientific 'facts' that is really only 'suggestive', and not confirmed.

Cheers geo

I've often wondered the very same thing myself, Geo, so I've replied to help keep this top of the board. I'll do a bit of googling as well to see if I can find out anything.

Geo, I've been looking at various sources...

eg one says:

the daily intake that meets the nutritional needs of 50% of the people involved in the study and presumably in the population at large.

Looking through others, the RDAs appear to be guesstimates. I see the word 'pools' come up a few times, so I'd guess we're talking about averages.

I also saw the phrase 'of apparently healthy individuals'.

Seems to me, that, yes, they take a pool of 'apparently healthy' people (who will mostly be on a SAD diet of course) and see what levels of nutrients are present, and then come up with recommended minimums.

Now 'apparently healthy' people aren't actually that healthy. For example, it is probable that one-third of men aged 30-50 have prostate cancer and don't know it (BTW anyone who doubts that - I have a reliable source.). I've also heard that 50% of people aged 50+ have tumours (it's just that they haven't grown to a size where they're going to be noticed)- which seems plausible, etc etc. And of course 'apparently healthy' people suffer from a host of ailments that are considered 'perfectly normal', that we, as raw fooders, have seen, in the main, disappear from our lives with a change of diet.

And of course what this COULD mean is: an unhealthy pool could have 'x' level of a certain chemical in their body. It COULD actually be far too much! And then what happens of course is, as the RDA is set FROM those figures, ironically, those who eat and live healthier than the average, go and get blood-tested for this nutrient, find they're 'lacking' (of course), get all worried, then supplement to bring their levels up to the same levels of the sample. They then find, to their surprise, that their health is not improving, but the reverse...

So, yes, brilliant question, Geo. Please let us know if you find out any more.

It's been a while since studying this but it seems to me the World Health Organization goes by what level of a nutrient will be healthy for 97% of the general population. So, say, if 150 mcg of iodine, determined by studies, keeps 97% of the world population from having iodine deficiency disorders, then that becomes the minimum daily amount.

People in the remaining 3% of the population have different needs based on many different circumstances including diet.

Vegans were found to suffer from B12 related symptoms at an unacceptable rate ( or was it based on blood testing?), which prompted the Vegan Society to recommend supplemental B12, Raw vegans considered at similar risk until proven otherwise.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2009 01:13PM by loeve.

..then dietary guidelines vary by country, and within each country there may be various organizations offering guidelines. For Food Guidelines by Country:

[www.fao.org]

hope this helps

geo,

I DID read this post and thought to weigh in. But then I remembered a rather ennervating series of debates I had months ago on these boards with someone about how RDAs etc. are extrapolated and I felt exhausted and grumpy just thinking about! As debbie mentions above, and as I tried to explain way back in those other debates last year, the values for macro, and more important, micro nutrients are extrapolated; some of them decades ago, from the general population, which includes healthy people, diseased people and those everywhere else on the spectrum. So values are, shall we say, extremely relative and your estimation of what you may need will be necessarily very subjective. There should be a cogent table of values and ratios for raw foodists, but the problem with that is there is no inherent incentive in someone's compiling it. It would have to be done clinically, like at Tree of Life, but the population going through there is comparatively small and likewise varied. So it's kind of up to the individual to look at the values that have been out there for decades for "regular people," and account for the Vit C and trace mineral requirements being obsoletely low, and the protein and fat requirements being obsoletely high, for instance, and kind of intuit their needs from that data. This gray area of information has been a major bee in my [natural hemp]bonnet since I became a veg and I first started hearing I was doomed to get iron deficiency or fill-in-the-blank, and had no statistics or other data to present as a counterargument. So, yes, the values already out there for years are science's best guesstimates, and good luck to us all!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2009 03:52PM by Tamukha.

Quote

"People in the remaining 3% of the population have different needs based on many different circumstances including diet."

..so let's say one lives in the "goiter belt" in the US where the soil has a tendency towards iodine deficiency, and one decides to eat only locally grown produce, and decides against supplementation or sea veggies; their diet will tend to be low in iodine, which can lead to IDD.

---very good and timely topic and questions raised, thanks for sharing...

---IME..:

---...i once got "blood-diagnosed" with a B12-"deficiency" after being on a raw-vegan diet for many years..., a fear of eventual consequencies snieked in to my mind, and i included unvillingly some supplementary food stuff into my diet which should increase my B12-level back to "normal"..., after a month or so, my next blood-test indicated a "normal" value of B12-level going up by 80%...!

---however, despite the increased and now "normal" B12-level, i not only did not noticed any improvement of my health and wellbeing..., in contrary i experienced my health to become much worse than prior to normal B12-level period..., i got very nasty adverse reactions and diease symptoms of my body..., and the only thing left to do in this case is to "fix" the problem completely by undergoing a complete fast to be able to heal and recover and reverse and restore the balanced state of health back to normal...

---what i learned from this lesson is following...:

a) IME, there is no such thing as "deficiency" per se, but...

b)...there is an actual state of "toxicity" or "toxemia", where the "deficiency" is just one subordinate side-effect or one result or one aspect of the "toxemia", whis is a toxic overload in/of the body caused by the "unbalance" and the primary "cause accumulated" as "toxemia"...

c) then..., a "toxemia" manifest itself via various body-mind reactions and "disease symptoms", which are called by many names...

d) the primary underlying cause accumulated from the disturbed balance or the unbalanced state of the body-mind health, is the "enervation"...

e) "enervation" involves both mind and body, specially the mind...

thanks for sharing!

(PS! sorry if it went a little out of topic...

justin,

I am curious: you say that while your serum B12 levels increased significantly on supplements, your health didn't improve. Did you have acute deficiency symptoms(tingling hands and feet, lethargy, liver problems, imbalanced movement) that didn't go away with supplementation and did go away on fasting? What, in that case, was the source of the toxemia that resulted in the initial deficiency symptoms that prompted you to submit to testing? I don't understand how this would be implicated in low serum B12 levels. Iron, maybe, because it can be chelated by calcium, but not B12. Please advise, if you have time. Thanks.

Thx heaps guys, I'm on my own in my neck of the woods, and sometimes think my ideas are not 'normal'. It's good to know people who think similarly, out of the box so to speak.

Hey Deb, thx, so it seems that a sample is taken and then generalised to the population, which is what I thought. It's really hard to find reliable data on how they arrive at their conclusions. I'm beginning to think it's difficult because nutritional science know they're on shaky ground, and don't want people to know. After all, society views them and their profession as being elite.

Interesting site Loeve, that the so called dietry requirements differ from country to country.

The B12 thing is also interesting, and as the article I quoted stated, it's not known at what level the so called deficiency becomes apparent (manifested as disease). The same could be said for most nutrients I think.

Justin, your not off topic, and your experience with B12 proves, at least in your case, and I suspect in most, that a cleansed, healthy body does not need the massive amounts of nutrients that are suggested by nutritional science. Also, that by supplementation the nutritional balance can be disturbed enough to produce adverse reactions.

Appreciate your comments Tamukha, yes, good luck to us all. I believe this site is, or will become the most accurate and reliable resource for nutritional requirements by means of empircism, rather than the traditional source.

I wonder if people on a SAD actually do require the serum levels of nutrients they suggest??? If the body is not efficient, then it perhaps does need an overload of nutrients. So in that case, more is better. Any thoughts???

Quote

"Interesting site Loeve, that the so called dietry requirements differ from country to country."

...thanks, Geo, I think iodine is a good example of this because it is easily washed from farmlands and into the oceans, and then evaporates to some extent and falls back onto land in rain, but not so much in the center of large continents; so a country like Ireland probably has little to worry, but Central Africa where IDD was common, has chosen to iodize their salt.

Whether being a Raw Fooder affects the need for iodine is a good question. Life evolved in the sea, they say where iodine is plentiful, so I'm going to try to keep it up.

Geo, very glad you started this thread as it definitely got my thinking, and resulted in my editing a blog article I'd written on supplements a few months ago. You might find it of interest.

[debbietookrawforlife.blogspot.com]

Justin, VERY interesting to hear of your B12 experience. Thanks for sharing.

geo,

"I wonder if people on a SAD actually do require the serum levels of nutrients they suggest??? If the body is not efficient, then it perhaps does need an overload of nutrients. So in that case, more is better. Any thoughts???"

My instant thought upon reading that was, "sounds plausible." But then I thought, hmmm . . . raw foodists tend to have low body fat and some of the most important vitamins are stored in fat, so raw foodists may need more of these than SADers, who may achieve toxicity with supplementation, no? Also, we don't really know how to measure efficiency of vitamin and mineral uptake from individual to individual regardless of diet. A person exhibits a list of symptoms of deficiency, and then the clinician works backward to induce data that suggest malabsorption, say. Very tedious. It would be impossible to study this comprehensively in the SAD eating population--the funding required, oy! To just estimate efficiency of nutrient use among SADers would be difficult because of variables like age and ethnicity. Imagine trying to do that with raw foodists, whose diets vary much more than does the SAD from person to person. I think that's why there are so many threads of this nature: we compare with one another to see if there are any commonalities, because it's reassuring to see patterns. Exciting, but a bit daunting!

The free online books by the National Academies Press provide in great detail how the daily values were determined and what they feel are appropriate plasma levels for particular nutrients and why.

If you are below a recommended range that raises a flag. If you are well below a recommended range that raises a red flag.

But not all tests are perfect and science is a moving target. Do the best you can, don't throw all the science in the garbage but respect that it changes and that you can benefit by learning about it.

Some "normal" levels are actually pathogenic under certain circumstances, too, like "normal" zinc contributing to atherosclerosis in middle aged men with overweight and dyslipidemia.

But most of us don't need to worry about them much.

The only real trouble spots with vegans are B12, to a lesser extent D because some people are averse to supplements for various reasons or don't live in the right place. And maybe to a lesser extent the omega3/omega6 balance, for the high fat types who throw caution to the wind.

Where one lives can lead to other problems. Iodine can be a problem for people in other countries who don't use iodized salt, for example.

In response to Geo and Tamukha, it's interesting to compare US RDAs to those of other countries. Most recs are pretty similar. Only a few are notably out of whack.

East Asians historically ate much healthier diets than SADs and yet the most significant differences in the two countries' RDAs are in their recs for only O3 and calcium (last time I checked and admittedly this is from an ever-increasingly faulty memory).

And since Ireland was brought up (by myself) as probably an iodine sufficient country by virtue of its proximity to iodine rich salt water, I checked. Even though Ireland is an Island Nation, as of 1938-39 the population was considered to have slight to moderate deficiency in iodine, much of their iodine coming from dairy.

[journals.cambridge.org]

Tamukha Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
"justin, I am curious: you say that while your serum B12 levels increased significantly on supplements, your health didn't improve. Did you have acute deficiency symptoms (tingling hands and feet, lethargy, liver problems, imbalanced movement) that didn't go away with supplementation and did go away on fasting? What, in that case, was the source of the toxemia that resulted in the initial deficiency symptoms that prompted you to submit to testing? I don't understand how this would be implicated in low serum B12 levels. Iron, maybe, because it can be chelated by calcium, but not B12. Please advise, if you have time. Thanks."


---autumn last year, i did a blood-test to find out if i was "allergic" to a cat, and i let them check as well all the other blood values, including B12 and D, iron, etc.. at the same time, as i was curios in connection to my long-term raw-vegan dieting..., however my helth was ok at that time considering that i had a "normal" state of "toxemia", as my previous fastings had not yet accomplished the complete healing, recovery and reversal of the underlying cause or "toxemia" accumulated up to the final restoration of the natural balanced state of "perfect" health of my body-mind...

---i did not have any recognizable acute deficiency symptoms such as: tingling hands and feet, lethargy, liver problems, imbalanced movement..., only a "normal" state of general "toxemia" manifesting in "half-health" and mainly caused by my overeating...

---so, my 1st blood test indicated a "red flag" for B12(/S-Kobalamin(ModE)level =140pmol/L)..., my 2nd blood test, a 1,5-months later, indicated a "normal" B12(/S-Kobalamin(ModE)level =210pmol/L), (where the "normal level reference" is between 150-650pmol/L), all the other blood value levels were ok...

---so, what i mean is that the increased B12-level, did not improved the level of my "toxemia" state which i experienced prior to the 1st blood-test, instead the inclusion of the supplementation, besides increasing of my B12-level, increased as well the level of my "toxemia" state, resulting in additional and more strongly pronounced body reactions and disease symptoms, - such as rapidly increased forming of mucus, asthmatic reactions, presperation, headache, loss of energy, depression, etc... - just to name a few..., all my system became more clogged up, i even lost ability to smell as my breathing pathways became constantly clogged up and swollen becaue of the pressure from mucus building..., and the tolerance to eating foods became much lower, causing in stronger adverse after-effects followed the eating...

---OBS! this IS my own experience and observation of the event-chain and the development of the cause underlying...

---the undergoing of the complete fast began recently, a few days ago, the aim is to complete the urgently required healing job of my body and mind...

---thanks for sharing

Iodine -- [www.vegansociety.com]
...
"Iodine is typically undesirably low (about 50 micrograms/day compared to a recommended level of about 150 micrograms per day) in UK vegan diets unless supplements, iodine rich seaweeds or foods containing such seaweeds (e.g. Vecon) are consumed. The low iodine levels in many plant foods reflects the low iodine levels in the UK soil, due in part to the recent ice-age. About half the iodine consumption in the UK comes from dairy products. In the US iodised salt is widely used and some other foods are fortified with iodine. In Canada all table salt is iodized. The UK has no iodine fortification strategy for plant foods or salt.
...
It is important not to over-consume iodine as it has a relatively narrow range of intakes that reliably support good thyroid function (about 100 to 300 micrograms per day). Someone consuming large amounts of iodised salt or seaweeds could readily overdo it. Excessive iodine has a complex disruptive effect on the thyroid and may cause either hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism, in susceptible individuals, as well as increasing the risk of thyroid cancer. Hyperthyroidism may also occur, particularly in elderly people, due to long term slight iodine deficiency as this may result in additional nodules on the thyroid.
...
The key to good thyroid function is adequate, but not excessive iodine intake. Intakes in the range 100-300 micrograms per day are desirable, though intakes up to 500 micrograms per day are probably not harmful. If taking supplements go for about 100-150 micrograms per day, to give a total intake of 150-200 micrograms per day. The supplements supplied by The Vegan Society contain an average of about 150 micrograms..."

justin,

Hope your healing crisis stabilizes soon and you emerge in radiant health. Good luck!

loeve,

"Excessive iodine has a complex disruptive effect on the thyroid and may cause either hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism, in susceptible individuals,"

Didn't this strike you as odd? Either/or? What kind of wack pathology is that? It sounds very like covering one's bases, fingers crossed Seriously, now that we are on the subject, and at the risk of usurping the original post: have you ever met someone who overdosed on iodine, that is, that had iodine toxicity? I never have, nor have I ever heard of such a thing. Hmmm . . . mighty fishy(no pun intended).

> "Excessive iodine has a complex disruptive effect
> on the thyroid and may cause either hypothyroidism
> or hyperthyroidism, in susceptible individuals,"
>
> Didn't this strike you as odd? Either/or? What
> kind of wack pathology is that? It sounds very
> like covering one's bases, fingers crossed
> Seriously, now that we are on the subject, and at
> the risk of usurping the original post: have you
> ever met someone who overdosed on iodine, that is,
> that had iodine toxicity? I never have, nor have
> I ever heard of such a thing. Hmmm . . . mighty
> fishy(no pun intended).

I think the Vegan Society is reliable. My sister has had two thyroid operations and a third operation to allow her to speak again. I'm not sure if it was from excess iodine.

loeve,

Have your sister's iodine levels been checked lately? Does she know what's causing her thyroid disorder? It would be prudent to check levels, as iodized salt(you've participated in Lightforms post on iodine from a few weeks ago, I think) doesn't have therapeutic iodine levels, merely the barest minimum to prevent goiter. I do hope that your sister is all right and has recovered her health; thyroid surgery is serious.

..ah, here's a reference [www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov]

"In contrast, patients with underlying thyroid disease may fail to adapt to excessive iodine resulting in hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism."

..I have no idea what any of that means


Thanks, Tamuhka. I'm sure my sister has it under control. She's been on meds for years and has insurance. I never knew the cause of her initial goiter, the reason for the surgery to remove it or the cause of the subsequent "re-growth". She does't talk about it.

Ya, I was on Lightform's thread and have been gathering fresh seaweed and looking locally at supplements, and not finding much, so am really just trying to figure out how much to eat and how much to take.

---hey..., just to clarify more..., - what my experience, observation, thoughts reflection and simple logic teaches me, is that there is no such thing as "deficiency" (of whatever nutrient, be it a "vitamin" or "mineral" or some other thing...)...

---instead there is a thing called "toxemia"... - as a result of the unbalanced state of body-mind, caused by "enervation"-factors, such as: overeating, eating of unnatural or unnaturally processed foods or food combinations, as well: too little sleep, too little rest, too little fresh clean air and/or "wrong" breathing, too little sun-light, too much stress, also: use of artificial isolated suppements promote in more of the unbalanced state, as body must compensate and/or acummulate and isolate the adverse overflow matter until the resolving of it during a complete healing, etc etc

---our organism is very intelligent and able to self-regulate and adjust itself and its needs according to foods and nutrients availabe at a time, up to a certain point, beyond which it is all about the damage control in order to just survive...(=living in chronic sickness symptoms in various forms and degrees of intensity)...

---"toxemia" develops as a result of life preservation, however there is a critical point which when exceeded will lead to severe "un-reversable" damage or death...

---it is why our body-mind signals to us in various ways all the time by developing the state of"toxemia" which is manifested in a form of various body-mind reactions and x-named disease-symptoms, which all are the calls for a break, with a request to be allowed to initiate and complete its healing work aimed to restore its natural by nature intended balanced state of body-mind, which when finally achieved will remove all the "toxemia" and its disease manifestations, including the so called seemingly present "deficiency"...

---no foods or supplements will cure, at best, the most suitable high quality foods will result in the least harm and not disturbing of balance too much IF not overconsumed...

---the key is: to allow to heal as soon as needed and avoid or minimize all the enervation, and eat as little as possible from foods of as high quality as available...

Hmmm interesting comments. I'm going to check out the iodine theory,and also your article Deb, thx.

Valid point re lipid storage of nutrients Tamukha, and the literature does say do store nutrients when they're available. One journal article said we store B12 also, and this leads me to agree with Justin that our bodies are pretty much self-regulating. Btw Justin, thx heaps for sharing that info.

I myself am considered anaemic by medical standards. Even with supplementation the serum level never shifted much, and I'm almost always in the red. Yet, I've never felt any manifestations of defficiency.

The Australian Aboriginals had a very frugal, though varied diet. Despite the common belief that they ate mostly meat, the women supplied around 70% of their diet, much of it vegetation and fruits (not all lived in the desert). They 'were' an itinerant race, and travelled to where various foods were in season. These seasonal foods would contain different nutrients, and would only be available once a year. Btw, traditional Indigenous Ozies were stick thin, not like their westernised contemporaries.

My point being that it's possible that our bodies are able to store certain nutrients for long periods. And if we do, then it would be in our tissues, liver etc. Yes, raw fooders don't have much 'visible' fatty tissue, though since our bodies are more efficient,then we wouldn't need to store the same quantities, right?

Moreover, since we eat a varied balanced diet, we dont' need to store anything do we? Our body's say... 'Hey man, I'm getting plenty of everything I need every day, so why do I need to store anything?'...

And Justin, I'm very aware of the mind/body connection. In fact, I feel the psychological considerations regarding my change of diet were, and to an extent still are considerable, not to mention the direct influence they have on body functioning.

Now that would be great topic for another thread eh!

If cooking kills the nutrients in food then the requirements for SAD peeps eating cooked food to get their nutrients would be different then the requirements for those eating a mostly or all raw diet who are getting plenty of usable nutrients from the live foods they eat. I think thats part of the reason so many SAD eaters are fat. They are basically stuffing themselves looking for nutrients that aren't there. Eating SAD is like nutrient fasting and getting fat both from the same cause --> dead food.

justin1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ---hey..., just to clarify more..., - what my
> experience, observation, thoughts reflection and
> simple logic teaches me, is that there is no such
> thing as "deficiency" (of whatever nutrient, be it
> a "vitamin" or "mineral" or some other
> thing...)...
>
> ---instead there is a thing called "toxemia"... -
> as a result of the unbalanced state of body-mind,
> caused by "enervation"-factors, such as:
> overeating, eating of unnatural or unnaturally
> processed foods or food combinations, as well: too
> little sleep, too little rest, too little fresh
> clean air and/or "wrong" breathing, too little
> sun-light, too much stress, also: use of
> artificial isolated suppements promote in more of
> the unbalanced state, as body must compensate
> and/or acummulate and isolate the adverse overflow
> matter until the resolving of it during a complete
> healing, etc etc

It seems to me that there HAS to be such a thing as "deficiency", or else why does every animal - both wild and domesticated - die when deprived long enough of food?

But I do think that toxemia is a much greater problem than deficiency in our current industrialized societies. I don't necessarily agree with the established RDA requirements exactly, but I do believe some level of nutrients from food are required for optimal health, and the RDA can be useful occasionally for reviewing which foods are the best sources for which nutrients.

I think there's an appropriate balance that includes both eating (raw vegan foods) and abstaining (from all food).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2009 04:30AM by suncloud.

Sounds ok ezrider, from my research, I've evidence that microwave cooking destroys more nutrients than infrared, and even freezing has it's consequences due to oxidation etc. All modify foods from their naturally balance perfect state in some way.

Of course, not all nutrients are destroyed otherwise all cooked foodists would be dead. However, I agree on the average persons hunt for proper nutrition. I'm also beginning to believe cooked food and animal products have some kind of stimulant value. I've experienced this when I was vegan/fruitarian many years past when I was hospitalised. and eating hospital food including meat. I noticed I was stronger, or at least stimulated by the food.

Think I'll research this a little.

suncloud Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It seems to me that there HAS to be such a thing as "deficiency", or else why does every animal - both wild and domesticated - die when deprived long enough of food?



---animals alike humans die because of "starvation" (lack of energy and its source) or "toxemia" (developed beyond its critical point of reversal)...

---a seeming "deficiency" is really a disrubted balance, or the unbalanced state of body-mind and the "toxemia" developed and acummulated...

---yes indeed, general conventional suggestions on nutrients levels are too high, as these are based on processed damaged foods containing low quality damaged nutrients..., as well, the higher the level of one type of nutrient, the higher the level of other type of complementary nutrient is required to restore and maintain the balance between the different types of nutrients and their levels..., as body becomes more overloaded, its self regulating ability weakens, resulting in increased higher level of acummulated "toxemia" state, leading to the various x-disease symptoms manifestations...

Sounds logical to me Justin.

Deb, just read your blog on 'supplements', good info. I was researching data on 'antioxident' supplements last month, and came across these journal articles which suggests an 'increase' in cancer and mortality from some antioxident supplementation.


[mrw.interscience.wiley.com]

[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]