Do you use one of the market's vitamin/health super supplements?
If you do then you're clearly a health-conscious consumer who prioritizes your health and understands the importance of supplementing your daily nutritional intake and addressing (the number one health concern of the 21 st century living) PREMATURE AGING!
In marketing buzz it's called “ANTI AGING”.
You know that no matter how hard you may try it's nearly impossible to live a really healthy life these days and avoid the environmental and nutritional additives, toxins and stressors that impact your health/wellness while accelerating your aging process.
The net result of this is an overwhelming majority of the population is suffering from deteriorating health leading to life threatening degenerative disease at earlier and earlier ages. You only have to look at recent year on year stats of major disease to see the proof of this.
The action you need to take therefore is to slow down and normalize your aging processes!
So, with the cost of living currently sky-rocketing it's vitally important to make sure that the supplement you choose can 'get the job done' while offering you great value for money and being affordable.
Cheaper supplements are simply weak and most struggle to produce even minimal results.
Only professional grade supplements (nutritional health supplements if you prefer) can create any significant impact on your health by targeting all your organs and systems with a much wider, broad spectrum range of more effective and expensive ingredients.
This allows them to provide a superior ability to limit oxidative damage to your DNA, from the excessive production of free radicals in your body.
How?
By including more of the most powerful antioxidants in their formulas.
Now, while this is a crucial function of a nutritional health supplement it is NOT ENOUGH and this is why most of those leading supplements are not really super supplements!
Why?
Because the free radical problem is only one of the primary causes of aging!
To be capable of actually slowing down your aging process and bringing it back closer in tune with what nature originally intended, supplements must also contain specialized nutrients which target and address the other 3 primary 'aging components':
Glycation
Methylation
Inflammation
Genuine super supplements go much further than simply addressing the free radical problem. They offer real anti aging benefits by addressing all the four primary components of aging!
Unfortunately 99% of health supplements, including almost all 'self claimed' super supplements, only address the free radical component of aging.
That's because almost all vitamin health supplements are made to a price!
Since most supplement formulators have to work within a set budget they are not able to include all the key ingredients that their expertise tells them should be there.
THE BEST SUPER SUPPLEMENT INGREDIENTS
Since supplement users generally have no idea of what the best ingredients are , nor what constitutes a good and effective potency and dose amount, supplement manufacturers can get away with marketing their supplements as being FAR better than they really are.
There are many 'great supplement ingredients' that are useful and highly effective.
Here's a list of what I consider to be 'essential super ingredients' – the cream of the crop!
When reviewing a supplement formula these are the first ingredients I check for!
L-Glutathione ( 'Reduced' form ONLY )
L-Carnosine
Standardized Bilberry Extract ( not less than 25% potency )
Polysaccharides
Resveratrol ('Trans' form ONLY, high potency = 40- 50% )
Standardized Turmeric (high potency needed = 95+% )
Zeaxanthin
Tocotrienols ( look for the word 'Tocomin' )
Chrysin ( For Men's formula's - not less than 95% potency )
You'll discover the importance of some of these ingredients as you read through this article.
My supplement includes ALL of these super ingredients. Does yours?
REAL ANTI AGING INGREDIENTS
Real anti aging ingredients are specialized ingredients whose unique properties can tackle the key aging components listed above; free radical production, glycation, methylation and inflammation!
FREE RADICALS
Most health conscious people are aware that antioxidants are used to neutralize free radicals and keep the free radical population within your body under control.
The market's cheaper supplements always include the well known vitamin antioxidants vitamins A, C, E and the trace mineral selenium but all of these are quite WEAK and they are VERY CHEAP ingredients for manufacturers to use!
The much more expensive and well known vitamin supplements do a far better job by including a number of the more powerful antioxidants like green tea, gingko biloba, alpha lipoic acid, lutein, bilberry and grape extract.
But none of these can compare to an exceptionally potent antioxidant like L-Glutathione.
Due to it's extreme price L-Glutathione is rarely used in nutritional supplements. On top of that it has to be included only in the even more expensive 'reduced' form so that it can penetrate the intestinal walls to reach the blood stream.
And there's yet another reason why you don't often see this fantastic ingredient on your supplement label. L-Glutathione needs to be protected as it passes through the stomach before being released in the upper intestine!
This requires an 'ENTERIC COATED' supplement to protect it from exposure to stomach acid and guarantee its release in the upper intestine. Due to the budgetary pressures I referred to above virtually all manufacturers simply cannot afford to enteric coat their supplements.
I have reviewed market leading 'elite' supplement brands (which educated supplement consumers will definitely have heard of) and unbelievably they include L-Glutathione in the 'normal' form and without enteric coating. That's a double whammy and a waste of money!
This is a nice example of how supplement companies can deceive you!
The unique multi ingredient nutritional health supplement which my family and I have used for the past 7 years does include a generous dose of L-Glutathione 'reduced' and it is enteric coated. That's one of the main reasons I agreed to originally use it.
GLYCATION
Glycation is a complex issue so I'll try to keep this explanation simple for you.
Glycation involves the all important protein molecules in your body and leads to cross linking.
Cross linking creates AGES (Advanced Glycation End-products) which create disastrous results for your health.
AGES produce poisonous chemicals and toxic by-products as well as stimulating free radical production leading to further glycation. They contribute to heart disease and the collapse of collagen leading to WRINKLES.
The bottom line is this:
Glycation speeds up your aging and is a activator for degenerative disease!
True super supplements can assist you in protecting yourself against glycation and the formation of AGES by including specialized anti-glycation agents in their formula.
The most important one is Carnosine because it attaches to glycating agents and NEUTRALIZES them.
There is no other natural substance that can duplicate the abilities of Carnosine!
Without Carnosine it is impossible to get the level of protection we need against the formation of AGEs.
And yes, you guessed it - Carnosine is another super expensive ingredient so you rarely see it in vitamin health supplements. If you do, the dose amounts are always measly! The generally accepted effective daily dose for Carnosine is 50-150 mg.
METHYLATION
Many chemicals in your body must to be methylated in order to avoid serious health consequences. Without methylation you would be in your grave in just a couple of days!
You need to take action to ensure balanced methylation in your body because as you age your methylation becomes less efficient resulting in SERIOUS damage to your health, aging in general and the onset of life threatening degenerative disease!
So, supplementation is the key!
Super supplements contain the ingredients required by your body for balanced methylation.
B Vitamins – B6, B12 and Folic Acid
Tri-Methyl-Glycine (TMG) – also known as 'Betaine'
Methionine and ATP
SAMe (S-Adenosyl-Methionine)
If you take a look at your supplement ingredients label I'm sure you'll see the B vitamins, Folic acid and probably Betaine but it's highly unlikely that SAMe will be there.
SAMe stands head and shoulders above the others as the best methylating agent!
Yes, you guessed it again. SAMe is a VERY EXPENSIVE ingredient and that's why it isn't there. It's normally only found in condition specific supplements targeting neurological illnesses.
And just like L-Glutathione, SAMe is extremely vulnerable to stomach acid and needs to be used ONLY in enteric coated supplements -a significant extra expense for supplement companies!
The 5th generation of the supplement I use will be released in August 2008 and SAMe will be there. So, along with all the other methylating agents from above which are already there, the inclusion of SAMe is an amazing upgrade which my health and I am thrilled about!
INFLAMMATION
Inflammation is not widely understood even by health focused consumers. Uncontrolled chronic inflammation will basically destroy your health! There are leading scientists who believe that inflammation is the MAIN contributor to age related health damage.
Excessive inflammation creates toxic chemicals which eat away body tissues leading to heart disease, dementia, arthritis and diabetes and these are just a few examples!
And as with the other aging components discussed above, inflammation is also not limited to a single thing or process. It is a complex situation.
Omega 3 supplements are presented as the answer to inflammation however in truth they fall far short of the task. While their anti-inflammatory properties help in reducing inflammation they address only one component of the much wider picture of inflammation.
One of the very dangerous chemicals associated with chronic inflammation is Tumour Necrosis Factor (TNF). TNF actively promotes the degeneration of your brain and nerves! It is activated by a combination of free radicals and AGEs.
To keep the production of TNF as low as possible you need to take in nutrients such as calorie restriction mimics. The best known one is RESVERATROL.
But what you want is the more expensive and bioavailable 'Trans' form of resveratrol and not the 'Cis' form.
If your supplement contains resveratrol that's great- as long as they haven't snuck in the 'cis' form nor the commonly used low potency levels of 5-10%.
Look for 40-50% potency for this exceptionally important ingredient with a good 20 mg or more in a daily dose.
Nutritional vitamin super supplements contain all the best anti-inflammation nutrients to work in combination with omega 3 oil:
Resveratrol
Glutathione
Carnosine
Turmeric
Alpha Lipoic Acid
Flavanoids
OTHER KEY INGREDIENT CATEGORIES
Super supplements, as you've just learned, must be capable of addressing all 4 primary components of aging.
But that's only part of the job!
Besides including a full range of essential vitamins and minerals they also contain a large number of specialized ingredients that can comprehensively target all your organs and systems both by themselves and in synergy with other special co-factors.
Only a highly qualified bio-scientist understands this synergy and how the various ingredients interact with one another at the molecular level in the body. Super supplements are formulated only by leading bio-scientists and chemists!
A super supplement formula contains a broad spectrum of clinically proven effective ingredients (60, 70, 80 or more) that come from ALL these nutrient categories:
Vitamins
Minerals
Trace Elements
Enzymes
Antioxidants
Amino Acids
Anti-Glycation Agents
Neuronutrients
Flavanoids
Carotenoids
Methylation Agents
Adaptogens
Calorie Restriction Mimetics
Standardized Herbal Extracts
Gender specific support nutrients
Co-factors
So, check up on your supplement to be sure all these categories are well represented!
As a (partial) example of “well represented” what I mean is:
- a good dozen or more standardized medicinal herbal extracts
- a full range of amino acids and standardized enzymes
- a comprehensive range of gender specific support nutrients (not just one or two)
- several well established immunity nutrients including the most powerful out there - polysaccharides!
To learn more about exactly what ingredients should be in super supplements formulas just follow this link.
OTHER SUPER SUPPLEMENT CRITERIA TO CHECK ON
In your hunt to find genuine super supplements there's several other KEY factors to check on in addition to the names and types of ingredients in the formula!
Here they are:
Contract Manufacturing
Contaminated Ingredients
Safety and Harmful Components of Ingredients
Gauging Value For Money
Manufacturing Secrets
Non Active Ingredients
If you're interested to learn the key details for each of these important topics and also discover the name of the super supplement I personally use, just head on over to my what makes super supplements tick page
Good Health Always
