As established in the recent blog post Are You Eating Real Food?, most foods offered in grocery stores today lack the necessary amount of key nutrients that your body needs in order to thrive. In fact, even most whole and raw foods have

significantly less nutrients and minerals than they did 50 years ago. With many contributing factors that include different farming techniques, soil that is less rich in mineral deposits, and genetically altered products, the bottom line is that today the optimal level of nutrients cannot be sustained by our diet alone. This leads to the question: How can we receive the necessary amount of nutrients to achieve and sustain a happy, healthy, and whole life? 

The answer is to take supplements. However, not all supplements actually provide your body with the nutrients it needs, and some even contain harmful chemicals. This poses another question: How can we know which supplements will help us and which ones will hurt us? In the book How To Live Until You Die Dr. Phil Carson explains how to find the supplements your body needs and how to avoid the chemicals it doesn’t.

Dr. Phil tells his readers “You might be shocked to find artificial colors, flavors, preservatives, and other Big Seven Toxins in many of the multivitamins that you’ve been told are a one-pill-per-day solution. In reality, many of those vitamins are a waste of your time and money.” He then provides three simple guidelines for selecting supplements that won’t expose your body to harmful chemicals.

The tips that Dr. Phil provides about supplement selection include avoiding the same dangerous chemicals and ingredients (Big Seven Toxins, etc.) that you would avoid in food. Only take vitamins with ingredients that are organic or substances found in nature and avoid toxic coatings and unhealthy bindings. Instead, look for vitamins with plant based vitamins and be wary of supplements that list all of the vitamins and nutrients in milligrams, because that can be an indication that the product is synthetic and doesn’t contain food-sourced nutrients.

Avoid synthetic supplements at all costs 

Several reports warn against the danger of taking synthetic vitamins that attempt to manufacture the nutrients with chemicals rather than extracting the nutrients from a natural source. Immediate dangers include impeding your body’s ability to absorb real nutrients from real food, possible birth defects, increased cancer risk, hypercalcemia, and blood clotting. The Organic Consumers Organization published a report that gives an in-depth look at the differences between natural and synthetic vitamins, explains why synthetic supplements are so harmful, and sheds light on how to tell if you’re putting your body at risk by taking a synthetic vitamin. The evidence-based articles at Authority Nutrition break down the way the body responds to synthetic vitamins, and encourage you to only take supplements that come from natural ingredients.  

In How to Live Until You Die, Dr. Phil strongly advises readers to take only natural supplements, and recommends specific supplements that he currently takes himself. Among those recommendations are:

• Multivitamin: Catalyn by Standard Process
• Fish Oil: ProDHA by Nordic Naturals
• Probiotic: Enterobiotic SBO by Natural Creations
• CoQ10: Smart CoQ10 by Enzymatic Therapy

Although supplements can be greatly beneficial to your health, each of us has a unique body composition and could have a different reaction to certain supplements than another person. (The same is true with food and with medicine.) Therefore, you should always consult with your doctor before adding a new supplement to your daily regimen. Your doctor knows you and has charts, notes, and other details regarding your health history. Make sure you are getting the right supplements in the right amounts by discussing your plan with your regular doctor.

Taking the right supplements in addition to maintaining a healthy diet will do wonders for your body, but to truly live a full and rewarding life, there are a total of seven crucial elements you need to balance. To learn more about these seven keys to living happy, healthy, and whole, order your copy of How to Live Until You Die today.