Vitamin and Mineral Supplements
What You Need To Know Before You Buy

Important! Read this before you buy another vitamin-mineral or nutritional supplement product. This information is vitally important to your health. All vitamin supplements are not the same. AND there is no one supplement that is good for everyone. If anyone ever tells you that theirs is the one supplement that everyone needs, run, don't walk and don't look back.

How do you choose the vitamin-mineral and nutritional supplements that you take? Or maybe you don't take any because you're so overwhelmed by the choices and you don't know which to choose.

One product claims it's "the most comprehensive answer to the body's need for life-giving nutrients." It has "100's of healthy nutrients from all natural whole-food sources."

Another company says they produce the "highest quality nutritional ... products available" that "make you feel and look wonderful."

Still another company boasts "an exclusive line of cutting-edge nutritional products" that are "quality, wellness and life-enhancing."

Then there's the product that states it "has a total of 165 nutrients, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and whole food extracts" which gives you "a more complete and broad spectrum of ingredients [and] faster absorption..."

These are only a few of the claims made for nutritional supplement products available today. There are hundreds of different vitamin-mineral and nutritional supplement products competing for your dollar.

So, how do you choose?

Maybe you've heard someone say what fantastic results they got from taking a specific product. You tried it and you didn't feel any different. Perhaps you did this a few times, with several different products, and still you got no results. You might even have gotten discouraged and decided that vitamin supplements just don't work. Or quite possibly you continued to take them simply because you felt you needed to, to be healthy, even though it didn't make you feel any different.

Why do some people get such fantastic results that they rave about it to everyone who will listen and some people don't get any results at all ... with the same product?

It all boils down to biochemical individuality. In other words individual differences. Those who get the most dramatic results are generally the most deficient in the nutrients that product provides. They had deficiencies the product corrected. And why didn't you feel any different? Because the nutrients in that product were not the right nutrients for your body or they weren't in the right proportions.

Not everybody needs the same vitamin and mineral combinations in the same proportions. But everyone needs certain amounts of vitamins and minerals to be healthy. Vitamins and minerals are essential to life. And with the nutrient deficient soils our foods are grown on, most people don't get enough nutrients from their food alone to be truly healthy. Even the American Medical Association (AMA) recommends that every adult take a vitamin/mineral supplement daily.

So how do you choose a good quality supplement that will give you all the nutrients that you need?

First, let's take a look at some facts that you need to know about how vitamins and minerals work in your body.

1. Vitamins and minerals work together. They need to be taken in the right proportions to be effective. For example, calcium, magnesium and phosphorus, in the right proportions, work together to keep your bones strong.
2. If you take too much of one nutrient, it can cause deficiencies in other nutrients. For instance, if you take too much calcium, it can cause your body to absorb less magnesium, phosphorus, iron and zinc. Too much vitamin C can cause a copper deficiency.
3. Taking too much of some nutrients can cause the same symptoms as a deficiency of that same nutrient. This happens with calcium, zinc and vitamin C.

Your personal needs are also dependent upon your metabolism.

Is your metabolism fast or slow? Certain nutrients speed up your metabolism and others slow it down. If you have a fast metabolism, you don't want to be taking nutrients that speed it up even more. If your metabolism is slow, you shouldn't be taking nutrients that slow it down. You want a nutritional product that will balance your unique body chemistry.

Choosing the right nutritional supplement sounds complicated, but it's not. It can really be quite easy.

You see, your hair holds the key. It contains the blueprint of the mineral balance in the tissues of your body, past and present. And because minerals interact not only with each other but also with vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates and fats, the mineral status also gives you information on your vitamin needs as well.

Your hair gives you a good picture of your body's nutrient needs. When you have a hair mineral analysis test, there's no guessing, no trial and error. With proper interpretation of the results, you know what's in balance in your body, what's out of balance and what your body needs. And with the proper selection of nutritional products based upon the results of your hair analysis, you will get the nutrients your body needs.

© 2006 Christine H. Farlow, D.C. Find out more about how hair analysis can help you improve your health and choose the right supplements for your unique nutritional needs at http://www.healthyeatingadvisor.com/customnutrition.html