Alpha Organics Vitamarkers

We should not forget our nutrition history. Vitamins were discovered because of their relationship to certain diseases, like scurvy and beriberi. These nutrients were originally classified by scientists researching the chemical make-up of nutrients. While only about 44 nutrients have been identified as vitamins and minerals (macronutrients), there are actually thousands more that occur in natural foods. These are simply referred to as phytonutirents.

Many phytonutrients have been isolated from countless foods. Oranges for example, contain bergaptol, farnesene and glucosan. While most people are not familiar with these substances, more popular ones include hesperidin, beta-carotene and rutin. These phytonutrients are on the store shelves in capsules, and overtime, many of the thousands of other phytonutrients will follow.

Still other phytonutrients have not yet been isolated, although scientists know they exist. More of a reason to eat real food and take supplements made from real food -- you'll get all that nature has to offer before science catches up.

In addition, phytonutrients have not been standardized like vitamins and minerals. We know that about 60 mg of vitamin C will prevent scurvy. But we don't know how much ginger, or any of its therapeutic phytonutrients, prevents cancer. However, we do know, thanks to many published scientific studies, that a multitude of phytonutrients prevent and can successfully treat many diseases. These include, for example, limonene from citrus, various compounds in ginger and turmeric, and tocotrienols (important parts of the Vitamin E complex), sulforaphan from broccoli sprouts and many others.

Vitamins clearly play an important role in nutrition. But their greatest role today, since deficiency diseases are all but gone from industrialized populations, may be as markers for the existence of many valuable phytonutrients.

When we find therapeutic levels of vitamin C, for example, in a certain food, we can be reasonably sure that a variety of therapeutic phytonutrients also exist there. (A therapeutic level would be any amount that provides the body with a nutritional benefit.)

There will always be exceptions to this notion of vitamins as markers. For example, broccoli sprouts are very high in the phytonutrient sulforaphan, one of the more potent anti-cancer substances. As sprouts, the vitamin C content is not yet equally high. But when the sprouts grow into plants, sulforaphan levels drop and vitamin C levels rise so that the presence of both nutrients is at therapeutically similar levels.

Vitamins are vital components of healthy foods. But their presence is just the tip of the nutritional iceberg. The goal of Alpha Organics is to provide significant therapeutic levels of both micronutrients and phytonutrients from organic goods in supplement form.