Sorting out the hype from science about supplements is not easy. So many claims have been made by so many different people, professionals, and "experts," as well as by manufacturers. Over $3 billion is being spent annually by consumers. It has become a very big business. Sorting our way through this can be very challenging.
Vitamin supplements are classified by the Food and Drug Administration as foods rather than drugs. Therefore they are not tightly regulated in regard to manufacturing standards, purity standards, ingredient standards, or dosages. It is difficult to know whose judgement to trust and what information we need to make our own decisions. Which supplements have undergone extensive research? What reports have been published in scientific medical journals? Which articles are true and which are misleading? Can you believe any of the advertising?
Michael Janson, M.D., former president of the American Preventative Medical Association and author of The Vitamin Revolution, has this to say about published reports of supplements. "Quite a few have been reported on in many medical journals. Unfortunately sometimes the authors of these published articles found themselves later having trouble getting research grants. It was obvious that a lot of political things were going on. I think it becomes a little clearer when you realize about two-thirds of the pages of these journals are filled with ads from drug companies. You understand just how much of an influence the drug industry has on the way medicine is practiced. I think there is clearly a lot of influence that the drug companies have in suppressing information about supplements that might replace some of their medications.
"The medical profession has taken a stand that if you eat what they call a balanced diet you don't need dietary supplements. We know from the research that that isn't true. But it has been difficult for the medical profession to accept that what they have been saying for 40 years is incorrect. It puts them in a bad light. They are gradually starting to realize that number one the evidence for the value of supplements is overwhelming and number two the public demand is overwhelming. They are gradually starting to change."
I certainly hope so.
You will find that vitamin supplements are absolutely mandatory if you want to get your child, or anyone else, over asthma, even if an "excellent" diet is being followed. The amount of supplements needed depends on the previous diet and the size of the nutritional "debt." In the same way that a dry sponge requires much water to saturate it but little to keep it moist, starved cells absorb nutrients avidly at first but need smaller amounts later.
Sometimes people worry about toxicity of vitamins. They hear that you can "overdose." This would be very hard to do. The only vitamins you can truly get too much of are vitamins A and D, but you have to take a large, unreasonable amount over a long period of time to develop any symptoms. For instance, adults who have developed vitamin A toxicity have usually taken 100,000 to 500,000 units daily for 15 months or longer before any symptoms became noticeable. Typical multi-vitamin tablets usually contain 5,000 to 10,000 units. This means you would have to take ten of the 10,000 unit tablets or twenty 5,000 unit tablets every day for several months just to start having symptoms. For children, more than 25,000 units daily can be toxic.
Symptoms of excessive vitamin A are: thinning hair, sore lips, bruising, nosebleeds, headaches, blurred vision, flaky, itching skin, painful joints, and tenderness and swelling over the long bones. These symptoms quickly disappear after the vitamin is withdrawn, or can be completely prevented by generous amounts of vitamin C.
There has been much publicity concerning the toxicity of vitamin A, yet how many deaths have we heard of from the use of it? The overemphasis on vitamin-A toxicity appears to be part of a movement to limit the sale of most nutritional supplements to prescriptions. And how many deaths do we hear of from accidental overdoses of aspirin, yet there's no movement to control the use of that.
Like vitamin A, vitamin D can be toxic in excessively large doses, but would be nearly impossible to overdose on since supplements generally contain no more than 400 units per tablet or capsule. The Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine considers an intake of 1,000 IU for infants up to 12 months of age and 2,000 IU for children, adults, pregnant and lactating women to be the tolerable upper intake level on a daily basis. The amount given to infants should include the amount in milk if they're drinking milk that has vitamin D added. The best form to take is old fashioned cod-liver oil, and given after a meal containing the most fat, so that it will be absorbed, along with vitamin E. If cod-liver oil is not well tolerated, drops of vitamins A, D, and E in oil can be given directly on the tongue. It should never be put into a bottle because it adheres to the sides. Don't use water-dispersed vitamins A and D.
| Adverse Drug Reactions | 100,000 to 140,000 |
| Automobile Accidents | 39,325 |
| Food Contamination | 9,100 |
| Boating Accidents | 2,064 |
| Household Cleaners | 74 |
| Acute Pesticide Poisoning | 12 |
| All Vitamins | 0 |
| Amino acids | 0 |
| Commercial Herbal Products | 0 ** |
*Sources Data as of 1995 from American Association of Poison Control Centers, National Center for Health Statistics, Journal of the American Medical Association, Centers for Disease Control, March of Dimes, Consumer Product Safety Commission, FDA Reports.
**Before Ephedra scare, Recent problems attributed to synthetic Ephedra and are not proven.
B vitamins are water-soluble and never toxic in any amount. The entire 11-member B vitamin spectrum should be taken, however, as large amounts of any one B vitamin taken consistently may eventually create an imbalance, and thus a deficiency of some of the other B vitamins. The 11 B vitamins are: B-1 (Thiamin), B-2 (Riboflavin), Niacin (Niacinamide), B-6 (Pyridoxine Hydrochloride), B-12 (Cyanocobalomin), Folic Acid, Biotin, Pantothenic Acid (Calcium Pantothenate), PABA (Para-aminobenzoic Acid), Choline Bitartrate, and Inositol. There are also 3 other vitamins in the B group, as yet not isolated, known as antistress factors. A good brand of the B-Complex will contain all 11 of the B vitamins plus antistress factors, usually noted on the label as a "Proprietary Blend" of ingredients such as alfalfa, parsley, watercress, etc. It is important to use only B-vitamins that contain all 11 of the B's plus antistress factors.
One other very important thing to note as far as the B vitamins go, not all brands work! I asked a physician friend of mine years ago why my asthma came back when I took certain brands of B's, and didn't come back when I took certain other brands. She said it was because the filler, or the material that holds all the vitamin material together in a tablet, was not dissolving or allowing the vitamins to be released in order to be absorbed into the body. I was incredulous because, after all, the label listed all the vitamins that I knew were needed, no naturally I assumed the FDA wouldn't allow a vitamin be on the market if it didn't "work." Not true. The doctor said the FDA is not required to show that the vitamins work, they are only required to make sure that the ingredients listed on the label are actually in the product---whether they work or not!
I've also noticed from my own experience that even B-vitamins in capsule, not just tablet, form do not always work. Once I switched from one of my dependable brands to try a well-known MLM vitamin B complex. It was rather expensive and in capsule form, so I really expected it to work; but after taking it for about a month, my allergies started coming back. They didn't get as bad as they were before I ever started taking supplements, but they were definitely there, and very embarrassing, because I was teaching support groups how to get over allergies and asthma at the time.
It's important to know that B vitamins are catalysts. This means they are used in body processes but are not accumulated, and therefore can never be toxic. You cannot "overdose" on B vitamins. The vitamin, being water-soluble, is excreted in the urine and gives it a more yellow color. This does not mean, as is commonly believed, that you are wasting your money and only creating "expensive urine" when you notice the color. You are not only excreting any excess B vitamin, you are excreting even the B vitamin your body was actually using as a catalyst in it s functions. This is why B-vitamins are continually being manufactured in the body in the intestinal tract. If our body didn't manufacture B vitamins, we would get sick and die rather quickly. If our body doesn't manufacture enough B vitamins for our needs, we eventually develop disease. We can help this out by learning how to acquire and maintain a more healthy digestive tract. Meanwhile, vitamin B supplements are essential to overcome allergies and asthma. (For information regarding the amounts to take of all the vitamins and their food sources, see each vitamin section on this website.)
Pantothenic Acid, also known as Calcium Pantothenate, is a B-vitamin. As in the case of the other B-vitamins, it is never toxic in any amount, is water-soluble, and is excreted in the urine. Pantothenic Acid deserves special mention because research suggests that allergic and asthmatic persons may have unusually high hereditary requirements for this vitamin.
Vitamin C is never toxic in any amount; any excess is excreted through the colon, and if there's way too much, the only thing it may do is cause loose stools. If this happens, simply cut back on the amount. Any type of vitamin C is good, whether natural or synthetic.
Vitamin E is never toxic in any amount. It is oil soluble and should be taken with or after meals containing fat, butter, or oil. Natural rather than synthetic vitamin E is known to work better.
Calcium and Magnesium should always be taken together in a ratio of 2:1 (twice as much calcium as magnesium). May be difficult to absorb; never toxic. Anyone on steroid therapy, in particular, needs extra calcium and magnesium.
Essential Fatty Acids are also key in overcoming asthma and allergies. These include the omega-6 family derived from plant oils (linoleic acid and arachidonic acid) and the omega-3 family derived from fish oils (gamma-linolenic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid). When the adrenal glands do not put out enough adrenal hormones, allergies and/or asthma eventually result. Adrenal hormones are made of particular kinds of fat; cholesterol forms the raw material from which these hormones are made, but they must also have linoleic acid and other nutrients. If enough linoleic acid is supplied by the diet, the other essential fatty acids, arachidonic acid and linolenic acid, can be synthesized from it, provided an abundance of certain vitamins and minerals are also present.
Digestive Enzymes may be more important than you think. Without proper digestion, nutrients as well as supplements cannot be absorbed in the amounts required to build health.
Herbal Supplements. I'm sure there are many good herbal supplements on the market; however, as they are increasingly popular and more accepted, many manufacturers, good and bad, have jumped on the band wagon because it's such a lucrative business. Like vitamin supplements, it's confusing and almost impossible to tell which of the hundreds and hundreds of products to buy, and which ones really work. Also, many of them are questionable and some even potentially toxic. My recommendation, if you do use them, would be to only use "food-grade", not "medicinal-grade" herbs. These are safest, as like food, you cannot "overdose", since that would be like trying to "overdose" on food. If anyone has had any problems with food-grade herbs, I would appreciate hearing about it.
Meanwhile, my only personal recommendation would be Sunrider products. I know of many people that have gotten over their and their children's asthma/allergies (as well as other diseases---personally, I take it for my arthritis) by taking Sunrider herbal products alone. My own experience with allergies and asthma has been in getting over it simply with vitamins and eating well; but taking Sunrider herbs (which are food-grade) does make getting a very nutritious diet much easier, as it fills in the nutritional gaps you might have in trying to find, cook, and eat nutritious meals on a daily basis. These herbs are very concentrated, processed by a patented process, so are unmatched in strength and quality---therefore, they do work very well. The only problem is, because of this, they are almost prohibitively expensive. They are also only sold through distributors. Retail cost for one bottle of 100 capsules of the basic herb, Quinary, is $42.00; distributors who have met a certain quota get it for $27.20. For more information, go to www.sunrider.com
Right now I'm hearing an advertisement on the radio recruiting participants for a study (another word for "experimenting on humans") for a new asthma drug. I'm wondering why they're coming up with a new drug if the asthma drugs we already have work so well. Apparently they don't work so well? Or different drug manufacturers want to get in on the high profits to be made? The advertisement went on to say that this experimental drug is to be taken along with the current drugs already used by the participants....drugs upon drugs....and no cure in sight!
Well, let's get on to learning how to really overcome asthma. Just click on the links below or throughout this section to get the details of what part the supplements listed play in helping the body to do just that.
- Vitamins A and D
- The B Vitamins
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin E
- Calcium and Magnesium
- Essential Fatty Acids
- Digestive System