For the past 50 years or more, the public has been led to believe that RDA nutrients level are adequate. But is it adequate to prevent clinically obvious nutritional deficiencies.
What is RDA?
RDA is Recommended Dietary Allowance use for the average daily intake level that is sufficient to meet the requirement of nearly all healthy individuals in a particular life stage and gender group.
The RDA by definition is the lowest level of nutrient intake necessary to prevent deficiencies. It's also clearly important for helping individuals avoid acute deficiency diseases, but it fails to redress the issue of optimal nutrition.
With RDA, it's wonderful that have been so successful in reducing acute diseases. However, another questions arise is the RDA level of vitamins and mineral is enough to prevent degenerative diseases?
Many degenerative diseases and chronic illness develop over a lifetime, striking otherwise healthy individuals when they least expected. Minimal intakes at this point may not be adequate to address modern lifestyle challenges.
If I eat a healthy diet, do I still need supplements?
Do note that eating a healthy diet is a necessary foundation for any program of optimal nutrition and there is no substitute for eating well.
From the journal by American Medical Associations that publishes two articles separately in the year of 2002 and 2012 as follows:
Article 1: "Vitamins for Chronic Disease Prevention in Adults". Through their research, these independent researchers concluded:
"... sub optimal intake of some vitamins, above levels causing classic vitamin deficiency, is a risk factor for chronic diseases and common in the general population, especially the elderly. Suboptimal folic acid levels, along with sub optimal levels of vitamins B6 and B12, are a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, neural tube defects, and colon and breast cancer; low levels of vitamin D contribute to osteopenia and fractures; and low levels of the antioxidant vitamins (vitamins A, E and C) may increase risk for several chronic diseases."
Article 2: "Multivitamins in the Prevention of Cancer in Men".
"A daily multivitamin supplement significantly but modestly reduced the risk of total cancer during a mean of 11 years of treatment and follow-up. Although the main reason to take multivitamins is to prevent nutritional deficiency, these data provide support for the potential use of multivitamin supplements in the prevention of cancer."
From the two article that I have shared by American Medical Associations that supplements intake does reduce the risk of degenerative diseases and from my personal view that optimal nutrients from healthy diet may not be enough to prevent degenerative diseases that may occur to you.
Which Supplement Is Suitable For Me?
There are thousands of supplement brand selling from pharmacy to retail stores and you are definitely not sure which brand to go or the needs require for yourself.
Here is a small sharing with you from my personal view that first you have to understand the type of supplement from the shelves and secondly knowing your needs is very important. In case, you have no idea what you really need maybe you can consider getting a health and wellness consultant you can think of or you can drop me a message here where I will definitely be happy to assist you.
Another source that you can consider is a comparative guide to nutritional supplements books and I would recommend "NutriSearch". Basically this book is written by Lyle Macwilliam former Canada Member of Parliament and member of the Legislative Assembly for British Colombia where it provides a comprehensive market research on over 1,600 nutritional supplements in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Colombia.