Posted by Larry Hoover on July 6, 2004, at 9:14:08
In reply to Re: water with supplements » KaraS, posted by Cass on July 5, 2004, at 13:57:25
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> I've never even thought about that issue before. It's an interesting question, and I hope someone knows the answer. I believe that food digests best if you don't consume fluids at the same time, but obviously you have to swallow a pill with some kind of fluid unless it's chewable.Actually, reasonable amounts of fluid intake during a meal have no effect whatsoever on digestion. Stomach acid is far too concentrated to be affected by, for example, two glasses of water taken with the food. This has been confirmed by placing pH meters in the stomachs of volunteers, and monitoring changes throughout digestion.
> I'm not against supplements, but I avoid them because I think that ideally a proper diet can supply all the nutrients one needs, and the vitamins in food are much more absorbable than in pills.
I really don't want to be a crusher of someone else's beliefs, but it is a modern myth that diet alone can provide adequate nutrient intake, let alone the amount the body actually needs.
After studying the USDA nutrient database, and relevant literature such as the NHANES (National Health and Examination Survey) focus on nutrient availability and intake, I realized that we are being lied to. A more detailed examination of the medical literature confirmed my suspicions. It is impossible to meet the RDA of all nutrients for which RDAs have been established from diet alone. (And what of the nutrients which we know less about, for which RDAs have not yet been established?)
I posted a challenge on sci.med.nutrition, open to anyone, to propose a diet (even for a single day) which meets RDAs. It cannot be done. Even when fortified foods are considered. It cannot be done....without grossly exceeding calorie limits, which was part of the challenge. (One challenger proposed a diet that included something like eleven kilograms of head lettuce per day (to meet folate levels), so I added the concept of practical, as well). No takers. The challenger mentioned above had entered the USDA database into a spreadsheet, and was selecting the richest known sources of 18 nutrients. Even though there are RDAs established for nutrients not yet in the USDA database, I let that pass. It can't be done, without exceeding healthy calorie thresholds, by at least 1,000 calories a day.
That quite sidesteps the concept of RDA itself. It is set at the intake level where one person in every forty "normal healthy" individuals exhibits "overt deficiency symptoms". Nota bene, that does not take into allowance what is meant by normal and healthy, nor did is it make allowance for increased demands in those who are ill. Nor does it eliminate deficiency symptoms. It merely reduces them to a statistically small proportion of the population.
I'm sorry, I have come to the sad conclusion that the concepts that have been brainwashed into us, that the Food Pyramid is a good guide, and that diet alone can meet nutritional needs, are patently false. Moreover, the RDA nutrient intake guidelines are literally intended to indicate a statistical reduction in deficiency symptoms. What about a concept like *optimal* intake? Surely, that is a higher level of intake than one that still permits healthy individuals to exhibit deficiency symptoms.
Just consider this one nutrient, zinc. Zinc is supposed to be easy to get from one's diet. And yet, look at how few people get enough. And they even redefined "enough". The table is in terms of *adequate intake*, which is only 77% of the already insufficient RDA (see footnote 1).
http://www.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/130/5/1367S/T4
I fear the emperor has no clothes.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:363230
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/health/20040523/msgs/363434.html