Does Your Body Need Vitamins?

Why bother taking vitamins at all? Our forefathers survived just fine without multi vitamin packs, why can't we? The answer to that question is easy, go look in your cupboards. Our forefathers ate a lot better than we do. High processed, homogenized, pasteurized, canned and prepackaged fast food means less chance of natural occurring vitamins surviving for any length of time.

While some of us pick our own fruit and grow our own vegetables, most of the country chooses to rely on packaged, store bought fruits and veggies. These aren't as healthy as they look, either. The longer the apples and tomatoes are off the vine, the faster they begin to lose their nutritional value, losing vitamins during processing and shipping.

Your body needs vitamins to boost your immune system, ward off colds and other viruses, and even keep you even tempered, so to speak. Did you know with a vitamin deficiency that you are less likely to clot when you cut yourself? Vitamins play a much bigger part then we think, and the average diet does not include all the vitamins necessary to keep the body in top shape.

A good multi-vitamin is your best choice, but here again you can be misled into believing that 100% of the USDA recommended dosage is good enough. They mean 100% total, not 100% of each vitamin necessary. Think about it, they can't possibly pack the right amount of every kind of vitamin that you need into one pill a day, and most multi vitamins sold in your local grocery store are cut with fillers and preservatives. Nope, you'll have to visit your local food co op and get some natural, all inclusive vitamin supplements. Along with eating well, these supplements contain everything you need for balanced vitamin intake, with none of the fillers and preservatives that I, for one, resent paying for.

Vitamin B12 Sublingual

So let's talk B vitamins as an example. You need several different kinds of B vitamins alone. B6 and B12 are just two, but the most commonly talked about. Vitamin B6 promotes the development of red blood cells, and 12 helps promote energy and fights Alzheimer's disease. You need these and other vitamins to be in the purest form possible in order to be the most beneficial. Let's skip back for a moment, the history of vitamins, if you will. Vitamins began being "discovered" by scientists and surgeons around 1914, and the word "vitamin " comes from the word "vital" as in vital energy for life, but as far back as the 1600's sailors knew to eat citrus fruits to prevent scurvy. It wasn't until later that they knew it as vitamin C.

Now we will skip forward to the future. Many vitamins are now available as liquids. Remember cod liver oil? Well now most vitamins can be taken from a spoon rather than choked down (although if you were one of the kids forced to down cod liver oil, you were choking anyway), what's more, they taste good now as well.

Now before you get all excited and run out to stock up on each vitamin that you are deficient in, let me remind you that you can, in fact, 'overdose' on vitamins, kind of. The water soluble vitamins such as B's and C's will simply be expressed through your urine if you've taken in more than your body needs, but fat soluble vitamins such as D and E can accumulate and cause problems such as diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and rash.

I recommend contacting a homeopath to test for vitamin deficiencies before you run out and spend a lot on vitamins. Knowing exactly what you need the most and in what daily dosage will save you some money, because again, you really need to purchase each vitamin separately, rather than in a multi-vitamin pill.

DISCLAIMER: This information is not presented by a medical practitioner and is for educational and informational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read. Since natural and/or dietary supplements are not FDA approved they must be accompanied by a two-part disclaimer on the product label: that the statement has not been evaluated by FDA and that the product is not intended to "diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease."

Sublingual Vitamin B12 Info

DO Any of these 9 Items sound Familiar?
1. Do you find that you just don't have the energy that you used to?

2. Do you have difficulty remembering things, even though your memory has traditionally been good?

3. Do you get angry or frustrated by situations that wouldn't have bothered you ten years ago?

4. Do you feel down or lonely on a more frequent basis?

5. Are you under increasing stress and pressure?

6. Do you sleep poorly or fail to get at least seven and a half hours of sleep consistently?

7. Do you often feel tired or listless?

8. Do you increasingly rely on caffeine to make it through the day?

9. Is it harder for you to concentrate than it used to be?

Sublingual vitamin b12's main ingredient is actually the chemical element, cobalt. Cobalt in terms of its biological role is know as cobalamin or vitamin b12. Sublingual vitamin b12 was first isolated from a liver extract in 1948. Up until that point, eating large amounts of raw liver on a daily basis was the only treatment available for people suffering from pernicious anemia (vitamin b12 deficiency symptoms). Finally in 1955, the chemical structure of vitamin B12 was determined at Oxford University and in the same year, a group at Harvard succeeded in making vitamin B12 synthetically.

Theoretically we should be able to get our daily requirement of sublingual vitamin b12 from the foods we eat. However this is not always possible. Small amounts of sublingual vitamin b12 exist in the soil. The vitamin b12 nourishes the plants as they grow and store trace amounts in their leaves. Then as animals eat the plants, the vitamin b12 gets transferred to the animals where it is stored in their liver and other body tissues. In this manner, vitamin b12 makes it to the top of the food chain to humans who get their vitamin B12 by eating either the animals themselves or the products of the animals, like eggs, milk, butter and cheese. Over time our soil has become depleted of much of the vitamin B-12. Vegetarians who eat no meat and vegans who eat no animal products period are at a higher risk for deficiency because they are eating fruits and vegetables grown in depleted soil. Even those who eat animal products such as liver, eggs, fish, and dairy products may not be getting adequate vitamin B12 in their diet due to the depletion of nutrients in the soil.

A New Way To Supplement: The Sublingual Vitamin b12 Method

There is a better way. Rather than going through the digestive system, where vitamin b12 easily gets lost, the sublingual vitamin b12 method allows you to place a sublingual vitamin b12 tablet under your tongue where it can speed the sublingual b12 vitamins directly into your bloodstream. This is the same way nitroglycerin is administered to heart patients. Tests show that over 90 percent of the vitamin b12 makes it into the bloodstream.

Warning! Dietary supplements are not to be used to prevent or treat any disease. The Statements on this web page have not been evaluated by the FDA. Any information provided on this website is not a substitute for the advice of a licensed medical practitioner. Individuals are advised not to self-medicate in the presence of significant illness. Ingredients in supplements are not drugs and may not be foods. We do not advise unsupervised administration of supplements to children and no supplements should be taken in pregnancy without professional advice.

Sublingual Vitamin B12 Function

Even if you are getting an adequate intake of vitamin b12 daily there are other issues that come into play. You see, vitamin b12 requires the most delicate and fragile balance of conditions to be properly digested. The journey vitamin b12 takes from being bound to a protein source (the meat or dairy product you eat) to being stored in the liver until it's needed for use, is a seemingly straightforward process, but unfortuanately there's a lot of potential for things to go wrong. The interuption of one or any combination of those intricate steps places a person at risk of developing vitamin b12 deficiency and suffer with vitamin b12 deficiency symptoms. Most b vitamins are quickly absorbed in the first few inches of the small intestine, but vitamin b12 requires more care. It must interact with the bacteria in your intestines for several hours before it is finally absorbed into your liver. Vitamin b12 deficiency is due to the inability of the intestine to absorb the vitamin. As we get older or begin relying on antiacids to curb heartburn, our stomachs produce less gastic acid. Without gastric acid the vitamin B12 is never released from it's protein. Other factors are the imperfect enviroment we create for ourselves. Overeating, eating too quickly without properly chewing or eating high-sugar or starchy foods with our protien sources. Medications such as antiacid, antibolic, laxatives, antihistamine and stress all can contribute to vitamin B12 deficiency. The solution to getting our daily requirement of vitamin b12 is sublingual vitamin b12.

The Medical community seems to be in agreement that vitamin b12 shots are effective. Doctors have relied on b12 shots for years to treat serious vitamin b12 deficiency symptoms. Even though most of the b12 vitamin is lost in the urine with large intramuscular doses of vitamin b12, injections have traditionally been the best method of treament. Of course they can also be painful, inconvenient, expensive and embarrassing. Oral tablets on the other hand are generally agreed to be ineffective. While there are many b12 vitamin tablets available on the market, vitamin b12 is poorly absorbed into the body by oral means. Some studies show that on average, blood levels of vitamin b12 increase by only 1.2 percent after passing through the digestive system.

Do You Suffer From Vitamin B12 Deficiency?

Learn How Our Sublingual B-12 Supplements Can Help.
Vitamin B12 is also called cobalamin because it contains the metal cobalt. This vitamin helps maintain healthy nerve cells and red blood cells. It is also needed to help make DNA, the genetic material in all cells. Vitamin B12 is bound to the protein in food. Hydrochloric acid in the stomach releases B12 from proteins in foods during digestion. Once released, vitamin B12 combines with a substance called gastric intrinsic factor. This complex can then be absorbed by the intestinal tract.

Results of two national surveys, the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III-1988-94) and the Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSFII 1994-96) found that most children and adults in the United States (U.S.) consume recommended amounts of vitamin B12. A deficiency may still occur as a result of an inability to absorb B12 from food and in strict vegetarians who do not consume any animal foods. As a general rule, most individuals who develop a vitamin B12 deficiency have an underlying stomach or intestinal disorder that limits the absorption of vitamin B12. Sometimes the only symptom of these intestinal disorders is subtly reduced cognitive function resulting from early B12 deficiency. Anemia and dementia follow later.

Characteristic signs, symptoms, and health problems associated with B12 deficiency include anemia, fatigue, weakness, constipation, loss of appetite, and weight loss. Deficiency also can lead to neurological changes such as numbness and tingling in the hands and feet. Additional symptoms of B12 deficiency are difficulty in maintaining balance, depression, confusion, dementia, poor memory, and soreness of the mouth or tongue. Signs of vitamin B12 deficiency in infancy include failure to thrive, movement disorders, delayed development, and megaloblastic anemia. Many of these symptoms are very general and can result from a variety of medical conditions other than vitamin B12 deficiency. It is important to have a physician evaluate these symptoms so that appropriate medical care can be given.