There continues to be numerous studies on the benefits of supplementing your diet with vitamins but what I have found is the apparent lack of knowledge into WHY we should be taking vitamins. Not only are we not eating enough of the proper food groups, the foods we do eat can sometimes be woefully short in vital nutrients and alarmingly high in calories. Unfortunately, in today's high-stress world, we face a steady diet of meals on the run, fast-food restaurants, and processed foods devoid of nutritional value. We no longer sit down to home-cooked meals with fresh from the garden fruits and vegetables. Even when we do, the mass production processes of storing, drying, cooking, freeze-drying, extracting, and hydrogenating wreak havoc on an already marginal nutrient content.

One of the strongest arguments of why we should be supplementing with vitamins is because of the lack of minerals in our agricultural soil. It is well known that during the 1940's the use of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) fertilizers used during the war produced very plentiful crops. The subsequent use of these nutrients quickly replaced traditional mulching and manuring, and, over time, the use of NPK fertilizers contributed to the depletion of many essential micronutrients from our soils. Because of this, we have seen a steady decline in our nutritional health and an incredible rise in the incidence of degenerative disease.

On another note, there is growing medical evidence that cancer and other degenerative processes initially develop through oxidative damage and inflammatory events caused by oxidation. The fact that oxidative stress and inflammation are so closely linked to diet and lifestyle suggests that the onset of chronic disease is based on long-standing inadequacies in the nutritional status of the body that have left it vulnerable to attack.

Many of the most serious types of illness are chronic degenerative diseases such as cancer, heart disease and stroke. The big thing to understand with these is they do not happen overnight. They take years to develop and are largely preventable. What is frightening is that we don't recognize the symptoms until the disease has progressed far enough that we are too late for complete recovery.

Being healthy today is no guarantee to being healthy tomorrow. As we age, our body processes change and our risk to debilitating disease increases. The key to maintaining optimal health is disease prevention.

The key then is to ensure you have the optimal levels of vitamins and minerals in your body to combat the processes of oxidation and inflammation. And the very best way to do this is by consuming a high quality vitamin so you can rest assured that you are actually absorbing and utilizing the vitamin in the first place. My goal is that you will join me in being proactive with your health by taking high quality vitamins for the rest of your life to ensure optimal health.