Are most supplements we take just a waste of money?

Professor Martin Wiseman, advisor to the World Cancer Research Fund has raised the issue that taking supplements is not recommended for prevention of cancer and that people should be focusing on getting nutrients from a healthy diet.

It is of course true that people should adopt a healthy diet to help them better to defend themselves against cancer or any other disease. The question for many is how do you get a truly healthy diet? Unfortunately much of our food chain is bereft of nutrients due to decades of intensive farming. Even people buying organic produce cannot be sure that it has got all the required nutrients and micronutrients in it if the soil it was grown in was previously intensively farmed.

Dr Mark Hyman, medical doctor and author of Ultraprevention refers to the commonly expressed statement "you can get all the vitamins you need from food" as a myth. In fact Nobel Prize winner Dr Linus Pauling said over 40 years ago "You can trace every sickness, every disease and every ailment to a mineral deficiency". Without good mineral uptake our bodies will not be able to utilise vitamins. Along with mineral depletion has been the depletion of fulvic acid an organic molecule from our soils. This molecule is considered by some scientists to be the most complete answer to the body's needs for life giving minerals, oxygen, enzymes and amino acids.

It is now becoming appreciated that one of the keys to good mineral uptake is if our bodies are properly pH balanced. If they are acidic, and modern diets and lifestyles are believed by many to be causing a build up of excess acidity, then this increases the risk of many degenerative diseases. A study at the University of California looking at diet, age and evolution concluded that modern diets were becoming out of balance (despite natural buffering mechanisms) in terms of the ratio of acid to potassium and this was leading to a low level metabolic acidosis manifesting in different physical complaints such as osteoporosis and kidney problems. Other specialists have indicated that this increase in acidity is also a major contributor to other degenerative diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity.

Balancing the body pH will allow the body to take up much more of the nutrients we need from both our food and the supplements we ingest. It will also help the body release toxins such as heavy metals. So the key is to firstly to bring the pH of our body fluids back into its ideal range.

There are many dietary supplements that can help to alkalise the body. However, one of the best ways, combined with a more alkaline diet is to drink alkalised water. Most people drink coffee, tea, soft drinks and alcohol believing that this will satisfy the fluid needs of the body. However all these fluids further acidify the body. Drinking good healthy alkalizing water helps to restore the body's proper acid /alkali balance.

Water for Health introduced the Alkalark to the UK last year. This innovative device uses special natural minerals to change the properties of ordinary tap or bottled water into alkaline water. It also gives the water antioxidant properties helping to counteract the damaging effects of free radicals. It is an easy and cost effective way to give your body the type of healthy water it needs. If people were to drink plenty of water on a daily basis it would hydrate their bodies, help them take up more oxygen and provide the conditions whereby the necessary supplements they need can be better absorbed by the body.

For further information: www.water-for-health.co.uk