3 Dietary Supplements to Avoid

1. Ascorbic Acid

I want to clarify that vitamin C and ascorbic acid are not the same. Ascorbic acid is a synthetic compound made from GMO corn and sulfuric acid and is only a fraction of a large complex of nutrients that is collectively called “vitamin C”. In nature, vitamin C comes as a complex that consists of not only ascorbic acid but also bioflavonoids (vitamin P), copper-containing enzyme tyrosinase, vitamin K, ascorbigen, rutin, hesperidin, and choline.

When we take this isolated synthesised part of a large vitamin C complex, it depletes the body of the other parts of it because our body is now forced to balance out the missing nutrients and so it takes them out from its own reserves, organs and tissues.

Side effects include (and mimic vitamin C deficiency too!): spider veins, gum bleeding problems, broken capillaries, haemorrhoids, fatigue, kidney stones, adrenal issues, osteoarthritis, diarrhea, bloating and oxidative stress throughout the body due to ascorbic acid becoming a pro-oxidant.

It is also unfortunate that when people take ascorbic acid during the common cold or flu, the manufacturers put a very high dosage of ascorbic acid of about 500mg to 1,000mg per serving, which highly exceeds the RDA of 80mg.

You will be surprised to find out that the mere benefit you may feel when taking ascorbic acid while treating a cold, is due to acidifying the body and this helps it fight pathogens in the body. However, you can absolutely do the same with any other acidic food, or by squeezing lemon juice into your water or tea.

The good news is that you can easily obtain all the vitamin C that you need from foods and there is no real need for supplementation.

The richest natural sources of vitamin C are papaya, kiwi, acerola cherries, strawberries, blackcurrants, tomatoes, peppers, kale, cabbage, sauerkraut, lemon, orange, grapefruit, and leafy greens. The amounts in these foods are enough to meet your RDA.

2. Cyanocobalamin

This is a synthetic version of B12, a natural form of which is methylcobalamin.

Cyanocobalamin is very cheap compared to methylcobalamin, but also is absorbed much poorer, which is partially the reason why manufacturers put thousands of per cent of RDA into a supplement serving. It needs to undergo not one but several stages before it gets converted into an active form of cobalamin and get absorbed by the body. Not only that, but when it is broken down in a body it splits into cyanide (yes, cyanide), which as you may know is highly toxic. For some reason, there is conflicting information in the medical sources saying that in small amounts cyanide is safe when speaking about supplementing with cyanocobalamin. However, the longstanding viewpoint was for years that cyanide is a poisonous substance even in small amounts. So in this confusing world of pharma businesses, I would take this information with a big caution and choose supplements that are based on methylcobalamin instead.

Vitamin B12 is easily obtained from foods of animal origin: meat, poultry, fish, shellfish and eggs. So unless you are a vegan there is really very little need if any to supplement it.

If you do experience vitamin B12 deficiency symptoms and they do no go away after you started supplementing with methylcobalamin, it could be because you have malabsorption problems like celiac disease, IBS or inflammatory conditions in the gut like Chron’s disease or ulcerative colitis, or you have too little stomach acid, which is both caused by and reversed with a diet.

3. Bioflavonoids

Bioflavonoids (or flavonoids or also referred to as vitamin P) are a class of phytonutrients found in many foods in various amounts and provide pigment and colour to fruits and vegetables. They have powerful antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and allergic response lowering properties and work as a part of the vitamin C complex.

So based on the property of bioflavonoids to assist in strengthening capillaries and vascular health, manufacturers started marketing supplements that have rutin (one type of bioflavonoids) added to vitamin C (which as we have seen above, is not a vitamin C in a true sense but a synthetic fractured part of it - ascorbic acid). You may have probably seen such supplement complexes offered in pharmacies, and health stores or these have been recommended to you to treat varicose veins, including during pregnancy.

However, in 2000 there has been a study by the University of Chicago on a sample of human bone marrow and blood cells and it showed that there is a “molecular evidence that bioflavonoids can cause breaks in DNA that could trigger the development of infant leukemias.”

"Our studies suggest that high dietary intake of bioflavonoids could cause DNA breaks in MLL and possibly in other partner genes," state the authors in the April 11 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "This strongly supports the notion that bioflavonoids could be a causative agent for infant and possibly childhood leukemias". The authors continued: “Although most adult leukemias involving MLL affect a different part of the gene, the breakpoints found in infant leukemias and secondary leukemias occur predominantly in the small region altered by the bioflavonoids.”

A certain class of flavonoids called “flavonols” were found to be especially at culprit. The study said “Given the cumulative activity of, for example, quercetin, genistein, and fisetin, these compounds in food or dietary supplements like the quercetin complex (one tablet contains 250 mg quercetin) could result in concentrations of bioflavonoids inhuman blood sufficient induce DNA cleavage in the MLL BRC.”

Finally, rutin consists of quercetin and the disaccharide rutinose, so is closely related to quercetin, which is a flavanol mentioned in the above study. Rutin is a very popular supplement often sold with ascorbic acid and may cause the following side effects:

• Headaches

• Dizziness

• Blurred vision

• Stomach upset

• Slow or fast heartbeat

• Nervousness

• Fluid accumulation in knees

• Swollen feet and ankles

• Dull ache or feeling of pressure or heaviness in legs

• Skin rash or scaling

• Muscle tension

• Increase in white blood cell counts (leukocytosis).

As a note from myself, I would not recommend bioflavonoid supplementation to anyone. Bioflavonoids are really abundant in plant foods, and they are not essential nutrients like vitamins for example. To date, there is very little data to recommend them as nutrients to treat any health conditions, nor there is an established safe upper limit of daily recommended intake. Note that also flavonoids may reduce the effect of anticoagulant medications (blood thinners like warfarin).

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