SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS: CAN I BECOME HOOKED ON VITAMINS?

« SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS: GLUCOSE METABOLISM AND HYPOGLYCAEMIA

NATURE DOCTOR – OTHER BAFFLING QUESTIONS »

SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS: CAN I BECOME HOOKED ON VITAMINS?

No, you can’t. Vitamins and minerals are not foreign chemicals that disrupt the body’s metabolism and create addictions. They are nutrients that the body needs and wants. They have a rightful place in the body’s metabolism and fulfil an important role there.

Some people assume they have developed an addiction to their multi-vitamin, mineral formula because they feel so much better while taking it and tired, run down, cranky and irritable when they are not. Feeling this way when stopping your supplements is not a symptom of withdrawal, it is a symptom of insufficient nutrients reaching your cells. The feeling of well-being experienced while on supplements is proof positive of how deficient in nutrients our modern day foods are. A vitamin and mineral supplement is simply a concentrated food and for the body to react positively to it indicates that the body needs that quantity of vitamins and minerals to function optimally. To deprive it of that food will see it fall back to its former level of function.

Taking vitamin and mineral supplements does not create dependency the way taking drugs, cigarettes, stimulants and alcohol does. In the case of vitamins/minerals/food the dependency, or need for x amount, has existed since birth and feeling better with supplements indicates that the need is finally being met. There is no comparison between the innate biological need for vitamins and minerals and the artificially contrived need for drugs, cigarettes, alcohol and chemical stimulants.

The confusion arises from the fact that some people arc so used to functioning below par, they think it’s normal—that the average, healthy person should and does feel that way. They misinterpret the vitality-enhancing effect of vitamin and mineral supplements as being an artificial stimulatory effect that is not normal. This belief is confirmed when they go off the supplement and slip back to feeling how they did before. As a result they struggle through the rest of their lives never knowing what good health is.

*229\18\9*