I get asked many times if I think people should stop their medications or not even go on them. I cannot tell you what to do in those cases, but what I can tell you is what types of nutrients your medications could possibly be depleting that are highly important for your overall well-being and ultimately achieving your rock star status.

I am super excited about today’s Blog Post! I love talking to people about their Nutrition Goals and how they may be able to achieve a better quality of life free of symptoms and in some cases, a life-long dependence on costly medications.

So, let’s jump right in, shall we?!

Since ALL medications come with some degree of a “Nutritional Hit.” Today, I thought I would share some of the more popular medications prescribed and a list of possible Nutrient Depletion’s so that you may be able to begin a supplement regimen to help replenish them. Taking the time to provide the proper nutrition for our bodies when under stress and while taking medications can greatly improve our symptoms and in some cases may even help reverse them.

Some clients also ask me if I get mad at them for taking a medication. I do appreciate them asking this but I do not get mad at people if they need medications. I do, however, feel that certain medications only band-aid the symptoms making them appear not to be there anymore. Sort of like when your check engine light comes on in your car and you stick a band-aid over it, it will disappear. Your engine is not magically repaired or rebuilt because you put the band-aid over the light! In fact, whatever is going on in that engine is only getting worse. Compare this with symptom-relieving medications – it does not mean the symptoms you are experiencing go away or reverse, it just means that you do not feel the symptoms anymore. Medications definitely have a time and place. But in my experience, most of the time, a symptom is a desperate cry for nutrients. Disease is the “Dis-ease” of our bodies telling us that we are missing something critical. Ideally, I would prefer to get more Nutrition into my clients before Medications are used but it doesn’t always work this way. I certainly do not get mad if you go the Medication route first. After all, you do know your body better than anyone.

It is important to remember our bodies are big bags of Biochemistry. Our bodies have to have certain Nutrients (vitamins and minerals) to help ensure that the biochemistry pathways run. Magnesium alone, as we know it, runs over 300 biochemical pathways and Zinc runs over 200!

Now I am not saying that you should go out and start taking lots of Magnesium and Zinc because now you feel you might be low in them. No, no, no. Too much of the wrong magnesium will cause Disaster Pants and too much Zinc will deplete your copper levels and give you the crazies.

I can’t stress this enough – this is why it is super important for you to work with a Nutritionist that has had thousands of classes on Vitamins, Minerals, Biology and… NUTRITION. Ok, maybe not thousands, but some days it sure felt like it!

Let’s look at one example of Biochemistry. We all know that our bodies need energy to function daily, right? So, how do we get energy? Our bodies make a molecule called Adenosine Triphosphate or ATP. This is a Nucleotide commonly known as “Molecular Currency”. This means that ATP can store and transfer chemical (biochemical) energy within our cells. The total ATP in a human at a given time is about 0.1 Mole because it cannot be stored. We need about 200-300 Moles of ATP daily. This requires Biochemistry and specific Nutrients to facilitate. Our bodies recycle Biochemical ingredients to continue to create and manufacture ATP. So, it does not only rely on you getting these Nutrients from your diet. The human body is very resourceful like that. There are many required nutrients to create ATP: Thiamine, Pantothenic Acid, B2, Nicotinamide, Biotin, Iron, B6, B12, Folate, Magnesium, Zinc, Chromium, Vitamin C, Calcium, Phosphorus, Copper, and Manganese that are known. If we do not get enough of each of these nutrients in our diets, then our energy production ultimately suffers.

Thus, high-quality Multivitamins can absolutely be helpful. I call it an Insurance Policy supplement. Multivitamins can help you to get higher amounts of these nutrients. But, I stress, high-quality. Quality absolutely matters when choosing to begin a supplementation and/or a vitamin regimen. I personally recommend and stock the Metagenics brand for my clients. Either way, it is fundamental that we assure we are getting the best quality. You can check out the Metagenics brand here: wholebodynutrition.metagenics.com. As a side note, I am not in any way affiliated with this brand and I get no compensation for you clicking on the link.