Critical Questioning of
Why Current Nutritional Products Don’t Work

The hard part was not isolating which compounds are so important, but rather in critically and objectively questioning why we do not see a decrease in health care issues that is reflective of the astronomical increase in supplement usage in the United States.

It’s All About Asking The Right Questions

And being open enough to see the answers, even if they weren’t the answers you were hoping for.

The nutrition industry has done a fabulous job of “selling” the benefits of these compounds wrapped neatly in a capsule, yet have failed miserably with actually understanding and translating the scientific realities of these compounds into products that could actually work.  They are profiting, but in the end you are losing.

The patient population WANTS TO BELIEVE that what they are taking will do the job.  Yet, if one conducts an honest and appropriate assessment of the absorption rate as well as the bioactivity of the nutrients in these products, the truth will be apparent. Misinformation for profit margins and preying on the fears and wishful thinking of patients has turned into a billion dollar industry. Unfortunately it is at the expense of the consumer and both money and therapeutic windows have been lost and often cannot be recovered.

Some valuable compounds are absolutely fine to take orally and include, but are not limited to:

• Fish Oils (DHA/EPA)
• Vitamin D3
• Magnesium

We recommend Vitacost for Vitamin D3 & Pure Encapsulations for Magnesium as effective and cost-efficient options.

However, many of the anti-aging, disease-preventative compounds consumers are spending millions on will simply never be effective as an oral supplement.  Not because we say so, but because the science says so.

Did You Know?

• Popular antioxidants like resveratrol or curcumin are <1% orally bioavailable? (ie: 500mg dose=5mg absorbed at best)
• If you put any type of protein (ie: milk-based product, including soy) in your tea (ie: Chai Latte) you decrease the absorption of the most beneficial compounds by as much as 75%.
• The dosages you need to exert a beneficial therapeutic response for many of these compounds are often times more than 20mg/kg/bw/day, dosages that are unachievable with oral delivery.
• There is a Big Difference Between “Pharmacological” and “Physiological” Dosages.
• Achieving pharmacological, therapeutic dosages of many popular antioxidants would require more pills/capsules every day than most people can either afford or literally swallow without inducing GI discomfort.

It was becoming clear to the team at Zetpil™ that taking these compounds orally (and we were too!) was not working for us nor for our patients.  We were seeing no effect in either our symptoms or in  appropriate blood work to indicate the products were working.

As disheartened as we were, we realized it was our own responsibility to be educated about what products we were taking and through this “critical questioning” phase we faced some hard realities.  We had no choice but to accept what was the truth and try to move forward to solve the problems at hand.

The hard part was not isolating important compounds, but rather in critically and objectively questioning why we do not see a decrease in health care issues that is reflective of the increase in supplement usage.