By Richard Tardif
Lately Multi-Level Marketing health, wellness and vitamin companies hoping to add me as a sales generator have bombarded me, and while I don’t support or criticize these companies, nor their hard working salespeople, I was curious about the latest offering. In particular, the differences between pharmaceutical grade vitamins, sometimes called neutriceuticals, and the run-of-the-mill drugstore vitamins. Time to bargain!
I would try one company’s pharmaceutical grade vitamins for one month. I shelled out some money for a quick blood test as a baseline and then weighed myself. According to the clinic my blood revealed nothing out of the ordinary and I was at a good weight.
One week later I received two bottles, one mega-antioxidant, one mutlimineral plus, 112 tablets in each. I watch what I eat and decided to drink more water. I rated my mood and recorded my hours of sleep and kept a daily stress journal.
In a nutshell, according to Health Canada and the FDA Pharmaceutical Grade meets pharmaceutical standards while Food Grade meets standards set for human consumption. The difference between each grade type is one of quality and purity. That’s because no substance is considered 100 percent pure. The difference between the grades is one of how much of these other substances are present in the supplement.
Nevertheless, vitamin supplementation is a reported $69 billion global industry.
For my $47.99 self-test I was expected to take two tablets from each bottle twice a day preferably with a meal of protein. So that means in one week 28 tablets from each bottle. By day three I had an unexpected turn of events. I felt nauseous while at the gym, and had to sit down. It passed. The next week I cut the dosage in half, and still felt nauseous.
I made it through the two bottles in two months, not the one-month recommended and returned for my second blood test. There was no significant change. I lost two pounds, but I am a man in a gym and I was drinking more water and eating more protein.
The lesson here, for me, and hopefully others taking supplementation, is that health, wellness and fitness is all about what we do naturally. Given that I lost 44 pounds in nine months, and didn’t take one supplement, I believe I’ll continue along this path. So they did not do me any good, but they did not harm me, and that is the mantra surrounding supplementation today.
