Re: Which vitamins to buy? Naural or processed?

 Google "Dr. Shulze" And read about what he says commercial vitamins are. He doesn't say anything nice about them. GNC vitamins = Junk. Go to Herbal Apothecary or Dr. http://www.HerbDoc.com
and get his nutritional supplements.

You could not pay me to take this garbage.  

The formulas contain a lot of herbs that are not "healthy" such as coffee, guarana, kola nut, which contain caffeine that weakens adrenal function and immunity, the berberine herbs (goldenseal, Oregon grape root, barberry) that kill the flora, damage the intestinal lining and raise blood pressure by depleting potassium, and stimulant laxatives (senna, cascara sagrada, rhubarb root, and aloe species) that weaken the intestinal muscles leading to a laxative dependence in as little as a few weeks of use.  Yohimbe, which is damaging to the liver and kidneys.  This is also a very unstable herb losing its vasodilating effect after a few months of being dried or if added to alcohol, such as the tinctures it is used in.

Another problem is poor design of the formulations.  For example, in some of the formulas he adds uva ursi.  The most common formulating mistake I see is people putting high tannin herbs, such as uva ursi, in to formulations.  The problem with this is that tannins bind the active components of other herbs such as alkaloids and glycosides and various nutrients rendering them useless to the body.  Therefore the addition of high tannin levels decreases the effectiveness of formulations.  Other herbs used in the formulas that are high in tannins include white oak bark and raspberry leaf.

In addition the uva ursi is added to formulations for long term use.  But uva ursi is not to be used for more than 4 days without a break since it can irritate or damage the kidneys with longer use.

If you check the Female "Shot"  and  Nerve Formula you will see blue cohosh listed as an ingredient.  This herb is actually considered to be quite toxic and should be avoided.

Another example of poorly designing a formula is in the kidney formulas, which contain horsetail herb (shavegrass).  Horsetail grass constricts blood vessels reducing the blood supply to the organs.  Since many cases of kidney disease result from a lack of blood flow to the kidneys, such as from diabetes or the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), further reducing blood flow to the kidneys in a kidney formula is simply ridiculous!!!

In addition, there are herbs in the formulas that really should not be taken together such as lobelia and ginger.  So taking several different of these formulas at the same time could be quite dangerous.

This is a good example though of why I wrote this earlier post on the dangers of not understanding the chemistry of herbs when designing formulations:

http://curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1803305#i