WHY TAKE VITAMINS?

by Elmer M. Cranton, M.D.

Nutritional supplements have their greatest benefit by preserving health and preventing future illness. This is accomplished with a wide spectrum of vitamins, minerals, trace elements and antioxidants that, in combination, provide optimum levels for long life and to slow the aging process. An immediate improvement is usually not noticed unless there already exists a significant deficiency, far below optimal levels.

Levels of micronutrients necessary to prevent overt diseases of deficiency, such as scurvy (vitamin C), pellagra (niacin) and beri beri (thiamin), are far below levels necessary for optimum health and to slow the over all aging process. It is extremely difficult and perhaps even impossible to achieve optimum intakes without using nutritional supplements. Higher levels of nutrients strengthen the immune system and prevent infections. Antioxidants combined with a full spectrum of vitamins and minerals, formulated in scientifically balanced proportions, protect cells in the body from damage by free radical oxidation when the body's fuel is burned with oxygen for chemical energy and repair. Heart attacks, strokes, cancer, arthritis and other age-associated diseases can thus be prevented or greatly delayed in their onset.

Recently published research from the University of California shows that by merely taking a simple daily multiple vitamin supplement, with generous amounts of vitamin C, average life span increases by 6 years. A World Health Organization study in Europe has shown that low blood levels of vitamin E correlate far better with death from heart attack than do high levels of cholesterol. In fact, cholesterol is very beneficial to the body unless oxygen radicals in the metabolic process first damage it. The whole anti-cholesterol campaign is largely a false issue. Vitamin E and other antioxidants protect cholesterol from free radical damage and maintain its healthy state. Other research in the United States has also shown that vitamin E acts to reduce heart attacks.

Recent reports show that sudden rupture from inflammation, and not large plaque-blockages, are the main cause of heart attacks. The internal surfaces of blood vessel become diffusely abnormal with age. Sudden symptoms from atherosclerosis result principally from a systemic inflammatory disease, a wide-spread but minimally intrusive process. This can cause a sudden, internal rupture of a blood vessel wall, blocking a location that would previously appear quite normal on angiogram. That is why elevated laboratory tests for inflammation, such as CRP (C-reactive protein), correlate so well with heart problems. Inflammation is a free-radical mediated process. The body's primary anti-inflammatory defenses require a large number of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. The statin, cholesterol-lowering drugs work in a similar fashion, but with the added risk of many associated side effects and toxicity. The reduction in heart disease seen with cholesterol lowering drugs has little to do with cholesterol. They have an anti-inflammatory effect on body tissues, quite similar to the action of nutritional supplements—but with risk of toxicity, greater cost and only partial benefit.

Forty or more vitamins, minerals and other metabolic co-factors are utilized in a cascade of interlocking steps to preserve health and prevent illness. They must all be present in the body in optimal amounts for proper function. For example, neutralizing a free radical inactivates vitamin E. It is immediately restored to its active state by vitamin C, which in turn is inactivated. Vitamin C is then reactivated by glutathione that relies on a further cascade of another 40 micronutrients in succession to completely convert the damaging effects of free radicals to useful energy. Beta-carotene and coenzyme Q10 are also necessary. If one link in that chain is missing or deficient, benefit from the entire process is reduced. It is therefore important to insure optimum intake of the whole group.

If one trace element is taken in excess of its proper metabolic ratio to another trace element, it can block uptake of something else, causing an artificial deficiency. For example, zinc in excess can block the uptake of copper, causing a copper deficiency. Zinc without selenium can cause a relative deficiency of selenium. Almost all minerals and trace elements interact in this way, as do some of the vitamins and antioxidants. Multiple supplements must be scientifically formulated and balanced in the ratios of all ingredients to be of most benefit.

Iron is an exception. For most people, unless a proven deficiency is shown by blood testing, consumption of iron in supplements can be very harmful and greatly speeds the onset of cancer, atherosclerosis and other free radical related diseases.

Readers interested in more details on this may want to read my book, Bypassing Bypass Surgery.

It is possible for healthy individuals to obtain insurance amounts of most micronutrients in a very cost effective way by using a nutritional supplement called Dr. Cranton's PrimeNutrients^TM has insurance amounts of more than 40 nutrients and antioxidants, all in the proper metabolic ratio and without iron. By taking three tablets twice daily with meals (or two tablets with three meals), a bottle costing less than $20.00 will last a full month.

Older people and patients with established degenerative diseases of aging, such as heart disease, should take additional vitamins C, E, coenzyme Q10 and amino acids such as glutathione. Convenient twice-daily packets containing all of those ingredients are available in a product called Dr. Cranton's AntioxPackets^TM. Because of the additional ingredients, however, AntioxPackets^TM costs more than PrimeNutrients^TM. Combined with proper diet and life-style factors, Dr. Cranton's AntioxPackets^TM twice daily, with meals, may actually reverse established disease.

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