Vitamins and Supplements: Do You Need Them?

By Heidi | June 9, 2020

Do you ever wonder if you really need all those vitamins and supplements you’ve been taking? I mean, if you’re eating healthy, can’t you just get everything from your food? I get asked this question a lot by my clients, and in the past, I used to ask my own Naturopath the same thing! I’ve never liked swallowing pills, and I’ll be honest—some days I would just look at my supplements lined up and grimace. Can you relate?

At least since going to nutrition school and studying naturopathic and functional medicine, I know what my supplements are for and exactly why I’m taking them. So I wanted to help you understand why you might or might not need your vitamins and supplements too. These days vitamins and supplements are big businesses. In the US alone last year the vitamins and supplements industry grossed a whopping $32 Billion dollars!(1)

Did you know this industry is largely unregulated?(2) This means that a lot of vitamins and supplements on the market are counterfeit, and may have suboptimal ingredients or ingredients like lots of fillers and binders that don’t do anything for you and could even make you sick if you’re sensitive to an ingredient. While I love shopping at Costco for so many things, their vitamins and supplements are some of the WORST and get an F grade in an independent test of supplements.

Cheaper supplements may contain less active or less potent forms of nutrients. For example, cheaper supplements may use cyanocobalamin, a synthetic form of B12 that can cause nausea and other issues, instead of the more absorbable methylcobalamin. So do you need to take vitamins and supplements?

What exactly IS a vitamin or mineral, and why might you need supplements?

Vitamin: any of the organic compounds which are essential for normal growth and nutrition and are required in small quantities in the diet because they cannot be synthesized by the body.

Mineral: an inorganic element that comes from the soil and water and is absorbed by plants or eaten by animals. Your body needs adequate amounts of minerals to grow and stay healthy.

This means we need to get our vitamins and minerals from our food or water. So could you be vitamin and mineral deficient? One shocking statistic is that upwards of 90% of Americans are subclinically deficient in at least one micronutrient or vitamin.(3)(4) According to research data: (5)(6)(7)(8)

95% of adults and 98% of teens have an inadequate vitamin D intake
62% of Americans are deficient in magnesium
40% of Americans are deficient in vitamin B-12
32% of Americans have insufficient vitamin B6 intake
23% of Americans are low in Iron

90% of Americans are subclinically deficient in at least one micronutrient or vitamin.

What does it mean to be subclinically nutrient deficient?

Subclinical nutrient deficiency indicates biochemical changes at an unstable state which, if untreated, will develop to clinical malnutrition.

Vitamin and mineral deficiencies are often used as biomarkers to detect other health ailments. So you can think of vitamin or mineral deficiencies as early warning signs that something in your body is out of balance. And there are multiple reasons for someone to have subclinical nutrient deficiencies.

For example, subclinical magnesium deficiency is a principal cause of A-Fib and cardiovascular disease. Magnesium plays a significant role in 80% of your body’s functions, including over 300 enzymatic processes like protein synthesis, muscle and nerve function, blood glucose control, blood pressure regulation, and preventing seizures. And that’s just one nutrient…

Many vitamins and minerals also work in concert with each other… calcium needs magnesium, Vitamin D3 and K2-7 to be absorbed into bones and teeth.

If you’re low in either of those, it can lead to osteoporosis or osteopenia no matter how much calcium you take. In fact, if you’re taking calcium supplements and are low in magnesium, D3, or K2-7 that calcium could even be doing you more harm than good. If it doesn’t have the other needed nutrients to get it into the bones, the body will store excess calcium in your soft tissues, like your arteries, leading to arterial clarification (hardening of the arteries), or in your breast tissue (leading to breast calcifications).

As another example, plant foods typically contain more copper than we need. Zinc and copper compete for the same receptors, so a diet high in copper (think vegans and vegetarians) can cause zinc deficiency (very common).

Zinc deficiency can present as impaired immune function, hair loss, and eye lesions to name a few symptoms. And just like with magnesium, zinc is a co-factor with enzymes creating several biochemical processes in our body. Without sufficient zinc, many other things can go haywire. But everything needs to be in perfect balance. Too much zinc can deplete copper and cause nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, stomach cramps, diarrhea, and headaches. No bueno!

Bothered by frequent charley horses? This can be an indication of a mineral deficiency or an imbalance of electrolytes including magnesium, potassium, calcium, and sodium.

Symptoms of Common Nutrient Deficiencies

A ~ dermatitis, any eye inflammation, poor night vision, dry or scaly or itchy skin
B6 ~ anxiety, depression, fatigue, trigger finger, carpal tunnel, elevated homocysteine/hypertension, symptoms of estrogen dominance
B12 ~ numbness and tingling in the hands and feet (neuropathy), depression, dementia, and fatigue
CoQ10 ~ congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, angina, mitral valve prolapse, fatigue, and gingivitis, (and by the way, statin drugs deplete CoQ10!)
D ~ excessive sweating, low immune function, osteoporosis, poor calcium absorption, bone tenderness, and thyroid issues
Folate ~ anemia, low immune function, low white blood count, fatigue, insomnia, hair loss, high homocysteine, cardiovascular disease
Iron ~ anemia, fatigue/lethargy, usually cold, poor extremity circulation, poor T4 to T3 thyroid conversion
K2-7 ~ osteoporosis, osteopenia, and calcified arteries
Magnesium ~ all over tightness/tension, charley horse, headache, anxiety, constipation, GERD, muscle spasms, frequent cough, arrhythmia, insulin resistance, and craving chocolate
Potassium ~ hypertension and muscle cramps (especially “charley horse”)

So when you look at all of the vitamins and minerals our body needs to function properly, and all of the chemical processes each one is involved in, it’s truly amazing that we’re functioning as well as we are. But just because you might have a symptom of some vitamin or mineral deficiency, or you’ve read the latest article on some hot new supplement, doesn’t mean you should start taking them. Just like Rx prescriptions can be hard on the liver, so can taking a ton of supplements.

“Our foods are hybridized, genetically-modified, sprayed, processed, refined, irradiated, oxidized, homogenized, stripped, bleached, charred, and served with fries.”

—Tracy Harrison, School of Applied Functional Medicine

So Why Might We Be Nutrient Deficient?

As you can see, there’s a pretty good chance that you may be subclinically deficient in at least one supplement. And there are several reasons for this as we’ll learn here.

Our produce contains fewer nutrients than it used to. In fact, the average produce today (whether organic or not) contains 50% fewer nutrients than it did in 1975!(11) This factoid left me gobsmacked because that’s in my lifetime. I was eleven in 1975. This lowered nutrient value of produce is due to poor farming practices, including not rotating crops which leaves our soils devoid of nutrients, and spraying with toxins like glyphosate that persists in our soils for many years. Today (compared to 1975) our produce looks like this:
- Apples have 41% less Vitamin A
- Bell peppers have 31% less Vitamin C
- Watercress has 88% less Iron
- Broccoli has 50% less Vitamin C and 50% less Calcium
- Collard greens have 60% less Potassium and 85% less Magnesium
- Cauliflower has 48% less Vitamin B1 and 47% less Vitamin B2
Most Americans eat the Standard American Diet (S.A.D), processed foods full of toxins, artificial ingredients, and minimal nutrients. In reality, 37% of American adults eat at least one junk food meal a day. Not only are we not taking in the nutrients we need in most meals, but eating toxic foods demands even more nutrients to digest, further depleting our vital nutrients.
Many people over age 50 have low stomach acid and/or low digestive enzymes. This can be due to a variety of gut dysbiosis factors from poor eating habits to H.pylori to leaky gut and more. So when we can’t properly digest our food, even if we’re eating totally healthy, we’re likely not absorbing and assimilating the nutrients that are in our food.
For the same reasons mentioned above, if we aren’t digesting, absorbing, or assimilating nutrients from our food, we also aren’t likely to be digesting, absorbing, or assimilating them from our supplements either, making for some very expensive pee and poop!

Not all supplements are created equally

If you’ve ever shopped for vitamins and supplements you’ve seen a wide variety of brands, and a wide variety of prices too. I used to wonder why my Naturopath always recommended high-end professional brands of supplements. Was it just so she could make money by selling them to me? Turns out that’s not why at all. And now I’m grateful that I know the difference.

As we learned above, many vitamins and supplements are made from inferior ingredients or contain forms of minerals and vitamins that are not easily absorbed. For example, there are multiple forms of magnesium—which are more or less absorbable depending on the form. But guess what? Most inexpensive supplements contain the types we can’t easily absorb—like magnesium oxide. (This might help if you have constipation, but your body won’t be able to absorb or utilize any of that magnesium.)

Likewise, many kinds of cereal and processed foods (including milk) are fortified with vitamins. But guess what? They use vitamin D2, the form we don’t readily utilize, instead of D3, the type we need more of. That’s because D2 is much cheaper to use. And here’s something else to consider. D2 and D3 uptake in the same receptors, so if you’re filling your receptors with D2, there won’t be any room for the D3 to uptake. And you may become Vitamin D deficient even though you may be taking supplements.

Professional vs non-professional brands

And as the old adage goes “you get what you pay for.” Just like with top-shelf brands of alcohol, paying a little extra for quality, professional brands that your body truly needs and can readily absorb can go a long way toward promoting your health. However, there are also some quality non-professional brands.

I’m frequently asked which brands I recommend, and I always personally vet anything I recommend. And that’s why I’m happy to offer my readers and clients a 20% discount on over 250 professional supplement brands in my Fullscript online dispensary. And while I am minimally compensated for selling some of these brands I take them myself and can vouch for them 100%. Plus you’ll get free shipping on all orders over $50.

Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA)

Another thing to keep in mind is RDA (recommended daily allowance). Science has only recently begun to understand what many of these nutrients actually DO in our body (like that vitamin D isn’t even a vitamin at all, but a “pre-hormone” that interacts with all our other hormones!) However, the RDA was established in 1941 and has hardly been updated since. When it comes to magnesium, researchers fed a group of subjects magnesium oxide to see how much they could intake before getting diarrhea, to determine the RDA! Well, as I mentioned above, we can’t absorb magnesium oxide—it causes loose stools in most people. So the RDA is ridiculously low for magnesium. We generally need about 600 mg/day to support sufficient bodily functions. Also, the RDA is based on an “average” 150lb male and gives the bare minimum amount of nutrients needed to survive, not to thrive. So how many of you are actually a 150lb male? Yep, didn’t think so…

Reference Ranges for Vitamins and Supplements

Reference ranges are used to determine biomarker values in blood labs. In allopathic medicine, your blood lab reference ranges are based on the “average” of 95% of Americans—unfortunately, most Americans aren’t very healthy these days—so you might not want to fall into that “average” range. In Functional Medicine they use “optimally healthy” values instead of averages. Research has shown that you’re more likely to catch things that might be going astray in your body much earlier when you use optimally healthy values.(9)

For example, the normal allopathic medicine reference range for Vitamin D is between 25-80 ng/mL, but for Functional Medicine, it’s between 50-80. Generally, it’s been shown that having your vitamin D at least 50 ng/mL will go a long way towards keeping your immune system healthy (this has also been shown in some recent COVID-19 studies)(10). While values above 80 can start to suppress your immune system.

As you can see there is a lot of room for bio-individuality here. Every BODY is different. (That’s why functional medicine focuses on the individual person with dis-ease, rather than what disease the person has.) So you need to work with your health practitioner to determine what is best for your unique individual body.

“In a perfect world, no one would need supplements. Given the stress of our modern life, the poor quality of our food supply, and the high load of toxins on our brains and bodies, most of us need a basic daily supply of the key, raw materials for all our enzymes and biochemistry to run as designed.”

— Dr. Mark Hyman, MD

Vitamins and Supplements: Do You Need Them?

While it would be ideal to get all of our nutrients from real, whole foods, sadly, that’s virtually impossible these days. So how do you know if you need vitamins and supplements or not? And more importantly which ones you might need?

It’s a good idea to work with your wellness practitioner to get a baseline blood test done to show your vitamin and mineral levels. (This is something I help my clients with). Keep in mind that many health insurance companies won’t cover this, which is unfortunate given that it could lead to stopping or reversing something like type 2 diabetes long before it’s typically caught. I feel it’s worth the extra cost to have peace of mind over my own health destiny.

Then you can work with your wellness practitioner from there to see what your blood labs indicate, and which supplements might work best for you given your unique body. (Again, these are all things I help my clients with.)

Please leave a comment to let us know your biggest “ah-ha!” take on vitamins and supplements. Thanks for reading, and sharing with your friends and family to help them stay well too!

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Posted in Vitamins, Minerals & Supplements and tagged #Supplements, #VitaminDeficiency, #Vitamins #Minerals

About Heidi

View all posts by Heidi →

What exactly IS a vitamin or mineral, and why might you need supplements?

What does it mean to be subclinically nutrient deficient?

Symptoms of Common Nutrient Deficiencies

So Why Might We Be Nutrient Deficient?

Not all supplements are created equally

Professional vs non-professional brands

Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA)

Reference Ranges for Vitamins and Supplements

Vitamins and Supplements: Do You Need Them?

About Heidi

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