Excerpted from the book Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom by Dr. Christiane Northrup.
For over two decades, I’ve recommended nutritional supplements to my patients, friends, and family, and I have taken them regularly myself. During this time, I’ve seen tremendous results.
Vitamins and minerals can help do all of the following:
- Enhance your immune system
- Reduce oxidative stress and damage from free radicals
- Support healthy brain function
- Protect your cardiovascular system
- Enhance the health of your bones and joints
- Promote radiant skin
- Support your vision
Nutritional supplements bridge the gap between adequate and optimal nutrition. And this is what really makes a difference. Today, we’re living longer, and we all want to be active and healthy into our seventies, eighties, and even nineties. Receiving the right amount of nutrients from food sources and nutritional supplements can help everyone achieve this goal.
The Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) were first established in 1941 by the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) and have been updated only a few times in the last sixty years. At the time, the board looked at large populations to determine how to prevent diseases due to gross vitamin deficiencies. Based on their studies, the FNB set the RDA for vitamin C at 60 mg—the amount needed every day to prevent scurvy—and determined the RDA for vitamin D to be 440 IUs (international units)—the amount required to prevent rickets.
Focusing on Optimal versus Adequate Nutrition is a Giant Step in the Right Direction
While it seems obvious that those levels are antiquated by today’s standards, many still hold on to the belief that you can get all the nutrition you need from a healthy diet. Focusing on optimal versus adequate nutrition is a giant step in the right direction since there can be a huge difference between the two.
T. A. Barringer et al., “Effect of a Multivitamin and Mineral Supplement on Infection and Quality of Life. A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial,” Annals of Internal Medicine, vol. 138, no. 5 (March 4, 2003), pp.365-71.
B. Villeponteau, R. Cockrell, and J. Feng, “Nutraceutical Interventions May Delay Aging and Age-Related Diseases,” Experimental Gerontology, vol. 35, no. 9-10 (Dec. 2000), pp. 1405-17.
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