Why Do I Need Nutritional Supplements?

by Lesley Reid Why do I need Nutritional Supplements?
Answer:
For over 50 years we've been led to believe that RDA levels are adequate. Adequate for what? Adequate to prevent clinically obvious nutritional deficiencies like scurvy, beriberi, rickets, and pellagra?
According to the Food and Nutrition Board (under the umbrella of the National Institutes of Health), "The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) is the average daily dietary intake level that is sufficient to meet the requirement of nearly all apparently healthy individuals in a particular life stage and gender group." The Food and Nutrition Board further defines "requirement" as "the lowest continuing intake level of a nutrient that, for a specified indicator of adequacy, will maintain a defined level of nutriture in an individual." Basically, the RDA is (by their own definition) the lowest level of nutrient intakes that will prevent deficiencies in apparently healthy individuals. And while RDA levels may have helped us to avoid acute deficiency diseases, they do not address the issues of optimal nutrition.
The RDAs have certainly played an important role in public health. Most assuredly, they provide amounts that will prevent you from getting scurvy, pellagra, rickets or beriberi. However, in the general population, these vitamin-related diseases are of little concern. Products based solely on RDA amounts are fine for their intended purpose (i.e. providing minimal amounts of important vitamins and minerals), but the RDA of vitamins and minerals is not always enough to help prevent certain degenerative disease or to provide protection from oxidative damage. In other words, there is more to the benefits of nutritional supplementation than preventing rare deficiencies. Therefore, the RDA should be considered the "minimum wage" of nutrition.
USANA's products are formulated with more nutritional research in mind, and with little relevance to the RDA's. We are concerned with vast majority of people who are "apparently" healthy. How long is a person "apparently" healthy before they have a heart attack? Or break a hip due to osteoporosis? These health concerns and other degenerative diseases develop over a lifetime, often to unsuspecting individuals. Minimal nutrient intakes and the RDAs are simply not always adequate or even designed to address many of these common health challenges.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) much of the illness, disability, and death associated with chronic disease is avoidable through known prevention measures. Furthermore, a recent study examining the potential economic benefits of vitamin supplementation concluded that there are substantiated cost reductions associated with the use of vitamin supplements, based on preventative nutrition. Bottom line- there can be substantial cost reductions associated with vitamin supplements based on preventative nutrition.
If you are eating healthy, do you still need to take supplements? A healthy diet is a necessary foundation for any program of optimal nutrition, and there is no substitute for eating well. In this context, USANA's nutritional supplements are designed to compliment a healthy diet not replace it. Our supplements are designed to provide the advanced levels of the essential vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants that are difficult to obtain from diet alone; levels that we all need, everyday, to promote good health lifelong. More importantly, we are not the only ones who are convinced of the health benefits of nutritional supplements. Last June, the Journal of the American Medical Association published two articles by health researchers at Harvard University. Their articles were entitled "Vitamins for Chronic Disease Prevention in Adults". Through their research, these authors concluded that the "suboptimal intake of some vitamins, above levels causing classic vitamin deficiency, is a risk factor for chronic diseases and common in the general population, especially the elderly. Suboptimal folic acid levels, along with suboptimal levels of vitamins B6 and B12, are a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, neural tube defects, and colon and breast cancer; low levels of vitamin D contribute to osteopenia and fractures; and low levels of the antioxidant vitamins (vitamins A, E and C) may increase risk for several chronic diseases. The scientific evidence supporting the health benefits of nutritional supplements is solid and growing daily. And more health care professionals than ever before are now siding with the conclusions drawn from these two review articles published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The science of nutrition and nutritional supplementation is advancing at a rapid pace. For over a decade, USANA Health Sciences has been a leader in providing high quality nutritional supplements containing advanced levels of vitamins, minerals and other important nutrients associated with long-term health. There has never been a better time put the science of nutrition to work in promoting your health. And there has never been a better time to be associated with USANA.

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Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.

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