Designing a Healthy Lifestyle Based on Optimal Nutrition

Why Take Nutritional Supplements?

Nutritional supplements are just what the name suggests—concentrated foods designed to meet nutritional needs that mat not be adequately met by conventional diets. There are many reasons why people use supplements.

Overt nutritional deficiency may be prevented by a multivitamin and mineral supplement that can fill in the gaps that are commonly encountered in most diets, and is a good foundation to build upon when designing a supplement program.

Special dietary needs can occur as a result of lifestyle or environmental challenges. For example, smoking is known to destroy vitamin C and increase the need for higher doses of the vitamin than may be present in a multivitamin supplement. Vegetarians may need to supplement several nutrients, especially vitamin B12.

Health conditions sometimes respond to dietary improvements. A good example is digestive problems that may be helped by using a digestive enzyme. Osteoporosis is a disease that sometimes respond to supplementation with calcium, vitamin D, and possibly other nutrients. Nutritional interventions have been proposed for heart disease, arthritis, and numerous other health conditions. Many of these remain controversial and nutritional treatment of serious disease should be undertaken with the guidance of a physician who is skilled in the use of nutritional interventions as an adjunct to conventional medical procedures.

Choosing the Right Supplements

There is no simple way to determine the right supplementation program. Even the experts disagree on what supplements are needed and how much should be taken. However, there are some guidelines to help with the decision making process.

Expert advice is always useful for helping to make important decisions, including designing a nutritional program. However, be careful who you trust and always put the greatest trust in yourself and learn as much as possible.

Multi-vitamin and mineral supplements provide low doses of a wide range of nutrients at affordable prices, and should be the foundation of any nutritional program. For some people it may be the only supplement needed. Other people will have special needs or are looking for improvements in some area of their health that may respond of nutritional changes.

Individual nutrients from diet or supplements to consider for meeting specific health goals include:

 Bone Health: Calcium, vitamin D, vitamin K, boron, magnesium, soy isoflavones.

• Athletic performance: protein, L-carnitine, tocotrienols, curcumin.
• Cardiovascular health: Calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, vitamin E, L-carnitine, Coenzyme Q-10, garlic.
• Chronic Fatigue: L-carnitine, magnesium, Coenzyme Q-10.
• Digestive Health: Betaine HCL, digestive enzymes, dietary fiber supplements, activated charcoal, probiotics.
• Combination Products are also available for meeting specialized nutritional needs and are often very cost effective.

Supplement Delivery Systems

Supplements can be sold as tablets, capsules, liquids, nasal gels and sprays; and probably other ways. Most supplements are best absorbed in the intestinal tract, which has specific nutrients transport systems which facilitate absorption of nutrients but also regulates the amount absorbed, thereby reducing the risk of toxicity. Liquid supplements run the risk of bacterial contamination. Some reports have found that many liquid supplements contain unacceptably high levels of bacteria. The best form is a capsule with powdered nutrients that immediately disease in the stomach when the capsule dissolves. Tablets are becoming better, however and a well designed tablet can dissolve as rapidly as a capsule. Some supplements (such as vitamin C) are best taken as a time-release tablet so that small amounts of the nutrients can be released throughout the day. Powders are also an effective way to take supplements, but present the challenge of measuring the precise dose. The exposure to air when a powder container is opened also presents additional stability problems compared to nutrients protected from the environment by capsules. 

Who Makes the Best Supplements?

Although there are many fine supplements companies we feel justified in telling people that if you want the best (and at a very competitive price), Daily Supplements are the clear choice. Below are a few reasons why you should trust Daily Manufacturing to manufacture nutritional supplements that will provide you with the greatest effectiveness and value.

Quality: All quality supplements use ingredients that have been thoroughly tested to assure that the ingredients are what they claim to be and are unadulterated. However, stopping there allows companies to shop for price and buy the cheapest ingredients that simply meet the testing requirements. Most products are concentrated to a standard dose of only one component (Hypericin for St. John’s Wort). Often that component is 10% or less of the material and the remaining portion may be as important as that which is analyzed. Daily Manufacturing does not shop for the cheapest ingredients. When we determine that a particular supplier’s ingredient is most effective, we stick with it and ignore all the companies offering cheap ingredients. 

Science Based: Daily Manufacturing does not “jump on the latest bandwagons”. We do not make products that waste customers’ money. If a product has a Daily label, there is evidence-based reason to believe it can work.