supplementation

the standard american diet (S.A.D.) is very SAD. it is full of processed foods including canned, pasteurized, industrialized, fortified "food" products that are empty of living enzymes and phytonutrients our bodies need to thrive. if your goal is to survive, by all means, eat the way everyone else does. but if your goal is to stay out of the hospital, your body is built out of what you eat day in and day out. what you put into your mouth matters!

even for people who are doing their best to eat fresh foods daily and are already hitting daily protein targets, malnutrition is common. this is because conventional farming practices are industrialized, with the goal of producing mass quantities without regard to the quality of the product produced. our soil is deficient in many nutrients, and this yields plants and animals that lack the nutrients we need. for example, one study found that you would need to eat eight oranges today to derive the same amount of Vitamin A as our grandparents would have gotten from one.

Dr. Olivia has sought the highest quality care from functional medicine physicians and was disappointed to find that even with an almost entirely whole-foods diet sourced locally, she was still not meeting intake needs with food alone. alongside that, whole food supplementation (and even some synthetic vitamins and minerals) pose very little risk and can make people feel and function much better.

I put almost every patient on the following, because nearly everyone can benefit from these.

• Creatine - monohydrate, ideally creapure brand
• Omega 3s - 2-4 grams per day
• Vitamin D - 2000 to 5000 IU per day, usually with vitamin K2 to prevent excess calcium from being deposited in the wrong places

anything that goes into your mouth is information for your body. you have evolved over thousands of years to utilize nutrients like selenium, zinc, copper, amino acids, starches, enzymes, and phytonutrients from FOOD. synthetic supplements are often not well absorbed or utilized... and some can even be harmful especially when supplemented in high amounts (example: vitamin E supplementation can increase cancer risk in some patients).

however, we almost never see this same problem when people are eating their nutrients from foods. Standard Process supplements are made of food. think of them as little pieces of food rather than pills. when your body sees nutrition from food, it knows exactly what to do with those ingredients and they are better absorbed and utilized by your body. because I also know the farm where Standard Process supplements are grown and produced, and am familiar with their clinical research facility in North Carolina that is constantly working on more and better research to better serve patients, I trust their products for purity, potency, and safety. in the world of integrative medicine, they are widely known as the gold standard for whole food based supplementation.

Medi Herb is based out of Australia, where their products are held to high standards and regulated as pharmaceuticals. their herbs are the most pure and potent you can find worldwide, with extensive testing (mass spectrometry!) to ensure products are standardized. these supplements are not inexpensive, because the production of active constituents of herbs in tablet and liquid form, in addition to all of the required testing in Australia plus imports to the US, is costly! a friend of mine reminds me of a phrase: "good, fast, cheap -- pick two." you can't have all three.