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The Biggest Myths about Supplements

Hi!

I am so excited to share this Facebook Live and THESE POWERFUL PEARLS of functional medicine with you. At SAFM we honor that scientific knowledge is always evolving. That’s why we are always revising our content in light of new research findings.

Supplements are a provocative topic! Some practitioners shun them as toxic. Others believe copious, high-doses are necessary. As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle. But confusion abounds! And this is a particularly myth-riddled topic with way too much information coming from unsubstantiated claims in blogs. Catch the latest video here.

Targeted nutrient or therapeutic supplementation can indeed be a powerful tool. But there are some common mistakes that we see practitioners make over and over again. Sometimes they can prevent client progress. Other times they might actually be causing harm.

In this video, you will learn about COMMON (and not so common) truths about Supplementation and some good old-fashioned myth busting! 

Are you confident in this arena? 

Although you may already be a savvy practitioner, I am certain you will learn something new that you can apply right away in your practice.

Here are some of the things we’ll be discussing:

  • The common physician recommendation that is causing heart attacks
  • The most common supplement-medication mistake
  • A voice of reason amidst all the MTHFR pop craziness
  • What those strange symptoms after starting a Vitamin D supplement are all about
  • A truly surprising reason why iron status (ferritin) isn’t getting better 
  • And much, much more!

 

Thank you very much for joining in the fun and learning!

With warmth, love, and gratitude to you for sharing your gifts with so many –

 

 

P.S.  If you are passionate about transforming healthcare through the power of functional medicine, we encourage you to learn more about our training program here.

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Gail Anton
Gail Anton

I was struck by your statement that “substituting supplements for medications is not Functional Medicine” because that has been my experience with practitioners who label themselves as Functional Medicine doctors. I also liked your whole discussion on synthetic vs whole food supplements. I will no longer fall prey to the marketing scams and will share that with others.
In my own experience, I find following the advice of my Functional Medicine practitioner can be much more overwhelming than going to a doctor and getting a pill to take daily. I’m thinking of becoming a coach that specializes in helping patients who need a little help to put into practice the healthy lifestyle changes. Are any of your deep dive courses particularly good starting points for someone who wants to coach in this space?

silvia graber

Thank you so much Tracy ! I love that you emphasized other factors besides supplements for good health, and how important food, stress etc are. We cant fix health with supplements any more that we can fix it with a medical drug. Wonderful insights here, thank you,

Roseann McNamara
Roseann McNamara

I really enjoyed todays clinical pearls! Thank you for doing it. I was very interested to hear about the relationship of Vitamin D to adequate Magnesium levels in the body. My questions is regarding supplementing with Vitamin D 3 and Vitamin K2, do you use the combined formulations? Or do you use separate formulations?

Jennifer
Jennifer

Thank you for your wealth of knowledge. As you spoke about going on and on I could have listened forever. I love this stuff as much as I know a lot it’s always great to hear over and over as there is so much in helping the body run at its optimal performance. I loved th k2 and vitamin D for menopausal that was new to me and I’m that girl. Your amazing thank you for the insite and inspiration today.

Rosalie Donatelli
Rosalie Donatelli

This is my first time listen g to your webinars.
It was all interesting to me especially the part about
Whole food supplements. I’m looking forward to learning more about this.

Samuel Bart-Williams
Samuel Bart-Williams

I was particularly taken by your detailed arguments for why the demand for nutrients has increased while simultaneously there is a decreased supply of nutrients. Thanks for busting the myth that we can get all the nutrients we need from eating organic whole foods but that we also need to be selective about what and when we should supplement.

Roseann McNamara
Roseann McNamara

I really enjoyed todays clinical pearls presentation. Your teaching style is extremely engaging. Thank you for doing this! I was very interested in the relationship between Vitamin D levels and Magnesium in the body. There are so many things to keep in mind when taking supplements. My questions is do you like the combination Vitamin D 3 and Vitamin K2 supplements out there? Or do you prefer to dose them separately? Also what form of Magnesium do you prefer?

Cathy Baudoin
Cathy Baudoin

Thank you Tracy for another terrific information session! Two takeaways I needed to hear today: Metformin/B12 depletion and the copper/zinc connection, especially for vegans consuming legumes. Very helpful for two clients I’m working with right now. Appreciate the clear, concise manner in which you share your knowledge!

Dixie Reynolds

The detoxification physiology is fascinating and something I would like to understand better. That fat soluble toxins have to be changed to water soluble toxins to be excreted… this is something I really hope to learn more about in this program.

Beth Haines
Beth Haines

Wow, this was fascinating. Now you made me want to go back to school AGAIN! Geez!

I am curious about how high levels of oxalate affect the body. I’ve been doing a lot of research regarding this plant “defense” chemical, and was curious about your thoughts on it. Is there such a thing as oxalate poisoning?

Helina Teshome

Treat iron with respect. Too much iron creates inflammation!

Lisa Mair
Lisa Mair

Thank you for another great talk! You do such a fantastic job painting the picture of why we arent getting the nutrients we need from our diets and into our bodies – mega farming, processed food, suboptimal digestion, stress, genetics, medications, and dietary patterns that favor certain nutrients over others. It’s no wonder we are undernourished!

Thalia Zamora
Thalia Zamora

Thank you Tracey for another successful webinar. Much appreciated!! Question in regards to the Gastrointestinal mucosal lining and Hydrochloric acid. You suggested to take care of any damage to the mucosal lining before increasing HC Acid. Would L-glutamine supplementation help in this instance. What are some ways of addressing the HEALING of the mucosal lining.
Thank you.

Nancy Dougherty
Nancy Dougherty

One of the pearls I appreciated from Tracy’s FB talk today was to be careful about calcium supplementation since we don’t want calcium building up in our soft tissues, such as the lining of our arteries & potentially causing a cardiovascular event. We can get calcium from food. Also, many other minerals are important to building stronger bones, including vitamin K2 and vitamin D and magnesium.

Julie
Julie

Wonderful information!!! I need to go back and replay and take some notes. So much info I needed to know!!!! I am Homozygous MTHFR and have been trying to understand my need for methylation supplementation. Also, I didn’t know about calcium competing with iron and think maybe I should eat a food with calcium to cut down on iron absorption. Dr. Mercola says my ferritin is too high so I don’t want to absorb more iron and I like to cook in iron pan. Maybe the iron is causing high crp? Also, THANK YOU about the whole food based verses the synthetic based supplement info. I have been trying to understand how important the difference is for several years. However, if I follow the logic of knowing it is more standardized in the synthetic so I know what I’m getting, then why are bio identical hormones better than the synthetic ones? In the compounding there must be some fluctuations right?

Lucy Coppes
Lucy Coppes

Tracy, I always enjoy listening to your lectures. I never thought about how taking a high dose of supplements is a lot like “dumping” on the system and the body had to stop and figure out what to do. It makes a lot more sense to take small amounts and monitor performance. Also the fact that it is more important to focus on what is actually happen in a client’s daily life and their performance that to be spooked about “what could happen” just because they have a genetic trait for a certain condition. Fear doesn’t lead to healing!

Quentin Caswell FNP-C

I am not sure I have a question as much as a statement. What I am finding so fascinating and a bit overwhelming is that I am so ingrained as a conventional practitioner to start a medication for every symptom and that just replacing the medication with a supplement is not addressing the underlying root cause of the the symptom. Where I thought I was so forward thinking in becoming familiar with the use of supplements I never questioned that I was simply replacing one band-aid for another and was not actually addressing the root cause. I am finding I have so much more to learn. I just want to thank Tracy and the SAFM team for all you do to educate and mentor so many for the sake of so many .

Mandy
Mandy

Thanks for mentioning the interplay between Ca, vit D, Mg, K2, and Bo. I spend *so* much time talking to fracture patients about this – it’s amazing how hard it is to shift people away from taking 1200mg calcium + 500iu vit D and thinking they’re doing everything their bones need. The cardiac component is huge. Thanks again.

Brenda Tiffner
Brenda Tiffner

Tracy,
I finally to the dive into the SAFM pool in January and the learning in just these first few weeks has been amazing! Thank you! The pearl I pulled out of today had to do with vitamin k1 and k2 and just because we take one we assume you will automatically get spill over into the related vitamin. All of the vitamin D information and I couldn’t agree more about the calcium overload amongst women especially who fear the “what’s to come” like brittle bones, osteoporosis. Thank you for always delivering your message so passionately!

Leslie Flanigan
Leslie Flanigan

Really enjoyed the live FB presentation on supplement myth busting, got me excited for the Supplement course.
I had always wondered about the food based vitamin and mineral supplements and heard they actually started out as synthetic. Good to know for my patients who are on a tight budget but really need a multivitamin mineral supplement!
What about liquid multis vs tablet forms? If I have a patient who has “stomach issues” (or are missing their colon as is the case of one of my patients) and they can afford it, I recommend a liquid multi. If they can’t afford a liquid, I ask them to put one of the tablets in a cup of warm water and see how long it takes to dissolve to make sure they’re not pooping the tablet out whole. Are these strategies sound or am I wasting their time and money?