Why spend money on supplements?

Every survey of eating habits conducted in Britain since the 1980s shows that even those who said they ate a balanced diet fail to eat the basic Recommended Daily Allowances (RDAs).

What is more, the RDAs of vitamins and minerals are set by governments to prevent deficiency diseases such as scurvy (vitamin C) beri-beri (vitamin B1) and pellagra (vitamin B3), rather than to ensure optimal health. And there is a big difference between a lack of illness and the presence of wellness. Take the example of vitamin D. While 5mcg a day confers protection from rickets, 30mcg a day confers optimal protection from a number of common cancers.

So we investigated the effects of vitamins, minerals and essential fats on everything from IQ, memory, mood, energy, immunity, lifespan and pregnancy.  From this we have established ODA’s (Optimum Daily Amounts). Have a look at this chart.

Optimum Nutrition ChartYou’ll notice that the ODA’s are often ten times the standard Recommended Daily Amounts (RDA’s), which reflect only the minimum level of nutrients required to prevent obvious vitamin deficiencies.

But who wants to just function with the bare minimum?  What about enjoying a state of good health with boundless energy and a general feeling of wellbeing.  This can be achieved by being optimally rather than minimally nourished.  Look at the chart again and you’ll notice the disparity between ODAs and the nutrients provided by a standard diet (black bars).

What’s even more concerning is the shortfall in nutrients provided by a healthier diet with plenty of whole foods, fruit and vegetables (grey bars), which still fails to meet the ODAs for each nutrient. That’s why I’m convinced of the essential role of supplements to top up the shortfall in nutrients from the diet, and want to show you the difference that optimum nutrition can make.

The concept of optimum nutrition was probably first put forward by the ‘Father of Modern Medicine’, Hippocrates, who lived around 390AD. He believed that ‘food should be your medicine’ and that ‘medicine should be your food’.

In more modern history Linus Pauling, twice Nobel Prize winner, put forward his beliefs on optimum nutrition which he described as ‘orthomolecular nutrition’. Pauling believed that ensuring optimum levels in the diet of natural substances like vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids and fatty acids resulted in less chemical imbalances in the body, thus allowing the body to achieve optimal health. Dr Pauling was convinced that optimum nutrition would be the ‘medicine’ of the future.

‘I take these every day.  It’s my insurance formula for a full and healthy life’

Having spent 40 years researching nutrition I formulated exactly what I’d like to be taking.  ‘The Optimum Nutrition Pack’ (available from HOLFORDdirect) is my daily insurance policy.  This pack meets the shortfall between what I get from my diet and what I feel I need to deliver optimum health.  It could meet your dietary shortfall too, if you have any, ensuring the levels in your diet to deliver optimum nutrition.

For complete convenience, the days supply of supplements comes in a handy tear off strip, which can easily be slipped into a pocket, wallet or handbag ready to take whenever it suits.  So there’s no need to count out pills from different bottles or try and remember whether supplements have been taken. This has to be the easiest way to achieve peace of mind.

ANTIOXIDANT PROTECTION

Every minute of your life you are bombarded by oxidants.  Some come from sunlight, even on a cloudy day, others come from fried food, smoke and exhaust fumes.  But most come from the normal body process of burning food for energy.  If present in excess, these can cause damage to the cells that make up your body.  Antioxidants are the solution.  The main antioxidants are vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, anthocyanidins (found in berries, which recycles glutathione), selenium and zinc.  They are all team players, recycling each other and working in synergy, so they all need to be provided in your daily supplement in order to harness their benefits.

THE OPTIMUM NUTRITION PACK gives you antioxidant protection through:

Vitamin A • Beta-carotene • Zinc • Anthocyanidins • Selenium • Vitamin C • Vitamin E

BOOST YOUR B VITAMINS

We all want to enjoy boundless energy, be able to cope well under pressure and maintain a balanced state of mind.  The answer is B vitamins.  B1, B2, B3 and B5 are all essential for turning glucose from food into fuel and for supporting healthy levels of important brain chemicals, called neurotransmitters. Your body communicates through chemical reactions, a billion every second. This chemical ‘dance’ depends upon B6, folic acid and B12.  So an optimal intake keeps your body chemistry in balance and helps maintain healthy homocysteine levels.

THE OPTIMUM NUTRITION PACK safeguards B vitamins intake with:

B1 • B2 • Niacin (B3) • B5 • B6 • Folic Acid • B12

IMMUNE SUPPORT

With more bacteria inside your body than living cells, your immune system is constantly being challenged.  The immune system depends on a whole host of nutrients for support and maintenance, including vitamin C and zinc.  Vitamin C has no less than 10 known functions in immune health and with the demands on your immune system ever present from the stresses and strains of everyday life, I recommend you take an optimal dose.

THE OPTIMUM NUTRITION PACK supports your immune system with:

Vitamin C • Zinc • Black elderberry • Bilberry

ESSENTIAL OMEGA 3 & 6 FATS

Omega 3 and 6 fats are essential for your health for two main reasons:

• They are essential for every single cell in your body, including your skin and your brain, the dry weight of which is 60% fat.  They make ‘prostaglandins’ which are involved in a huge range of different functions in the body.

• They cannot be made by your body so you need to obtain them through your diet.  So much so that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) suggest that fish should be eaten every week (for women they recommend 2 portions of fish a week and up to 4 portions for men).  However many people do not like the taste of fish and there is also the worry about heavy metal pollution like harmful PCB’s in fish.  Good quality fish oil supplements can be purified to give you a virtually PCB free oil. Our fish oil is scrupulously screened for maximum purity.

The Optimum Nutrition Pack contains the key fats: EPA • DPA • DHAGLA

MAXIMISE YOUR MINERALS

Vitamins get a lot of press, but did you know that we are often more deficient in minerals than we are in vitamins? Many people do not achieve even the RDA for iron, zinc and magnesium in their diets.  Iron is essential for haemoglobin, the molecule that carries oxygen.  Your cells can’t ‘breathe’ without it.  Zinc is involved in 200 enzymes in the body, as is magnesium, an essential component of bones, muscles and nerves.

Not all minerals have RDAs but that doesn’t mean they’re not essential.  Chromium and selenium are a case in point.  Achieving an optimum intake of these minerals is one of my key ‘optimum nutrition’ objectives.  That’s why I eat both mineral rich foods such as seeds and take a mineral supplement every day.

The Optimum Nutrition Pack tops up your mineral levels with:

Calcium • Magnesium • Iron • Zinc • Chromium • Selenium • Iodine

Not all supplements are created equal

It is one thing to take a supplement. It is quite another for that supplement to be absorbed into your body.  Take zinc as an example.  Zinc citrate is twice as well absorbed as zinc sulphate.  Of course the latter is cheaper which is why many companies use it. We don’t cut costs or corners. And nor should you.  By eating the right food and taking the right supplements, you can achieve optimum nutrition for you and your family.

Take the Optimum Nutrition Pack for a month and I am sure you will see and feel the difference.

So there you have it – three carefully chosen complexes in The Optimum Nutrition Pack, all working together to help you maintain good energy and to support your body and mind to remain strong and healthy. Each Pack gives you two strips a day, for a month. All this costs you only £1.20 a day (members price) – that’s less than half the price of a coffee.

And by choosing to take the Optimum Nutrition Pack as part of your healthy diet you may not only ensure optimum nutrition, you may also make things easier for yourself.  Your daily supplements are provided in a handy tear off strip, so you can simply tear off a strip each day to pop into your bag or pocket – no more decanting of different bottles, working out a month’s supply or running out at different times – perfect for busy people who don’t want taking their supplements to give them a headache.

P.S. When you get older your need for many nutrients increase. When I hit 50 – I am now 58 –  I developed a souped up 100% Health Pack, also giving an antioxidant complex called AGE Antioxidant®, with glutathione, alpha lipoic acid(ALA) and ten other key antioxidants; and Brain Food® providing phospholipids and extra B vitamins and other nutrients required by the brain. If you are over 50, or have a very demanding life, you might want to take the 100% Health Pack instead.

Both The Optimum Nutrition Pack and the 100% Health Pack are available from www.HOLFORDirect.com. 100% Health Club members save over £7 on the Optimum Nutrition Pack and over £10 on the 100% Health Pack.

To find out more about what supplements to take click here.

To join the 100% Health Club now and save money on your supplements click here.