This article originally appeared in the June 2007 Issue of the Trilogy Online newsletter. Trilogy Online produces high quality Vitamins of the Ultralogix brand as well as pharmaceutical grade fish oil

Recent media attention has been directed toward the safety and efficacy of vitamins and supplements. Some nutritionists have claimed that supplements do less than promised and that we should simply eat healthier foods to provide for our dietary needs. And, in fact, these claims are not without merit. Many of the supplements available today do not deliver the nutrition that they claim.

Ideally, all of us would recieve our complete nutrition from a balanced and wholesome diet. But the reality is that modern lifestyles make numerous demands of our time … time that we could spend preparing the foods that our bodies truly need.

So, how can you determine if you need to fortify your diet with daily nutritional supplements? Here are some key factors that you need to consider to answer this question. Would you characterize your lifestyle or physical state closely with any of the following descriptions? If so, you might need the extra nutrition that comes from a supplement.

• If you’re not eating at least several servings of a variety of vegetables and fruits each day, it is not likely that you will be taking in the neede quantities of minerals & vitamins that you body requires for ideal health and wellness.

• If you happen to be on a restricted-calorie diet, you may not be fulfilling your daily requirements of nutrients. This is mainly due to not eating a broad array of foods, which makes it very somewhat hard to get all of the basic nutrients you require.

Also, If you are pregnant, your body’s needs are quite different. You will need a lot more calcium, iron as well as folate. The extra iron is needed for red blood cell health, just to to stave off fatigue. Folate is generally recommended to protect against fetal spinal defects, such as spina bifida.
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You might just wish to think again prior to drinking another soft drink: research reported in the Britain's Independent newspaper states that a common preservative used in fizzy drinks may switch off essential parts of your DNA. The preservative may bring on premature aging and even trigger certain diseases which are commonly associated with old age.

The preservative in question is none other than sodium benzoate, which is regularly used by the multi-billion dollar global soft drink industry. It is derived from benzoic acid, and it is known to prevent mold in drinks like Coke, Dr. Pepper, etc., and is also used in pickles and sauces as well as other products.

Alarm bells have already been going off about it, since it has been discovered that when it's mixed with vitamin C in soft drinks, it creates the carcinogenic substance benzene. Now British Professor Peter Piper of Sheffield University has sounded an even louder alarm — his tests appear to prove that benzoate damages DNA in the energy-producing mitochondria of cells.

"These chemicals have the ability to cause severe damage to DNA in the mitochondria to the point that they totally inactivate it: they knock it out altogether," Piper said. "The mitochondria consumes the oxygen to give you energy and if you damage it — as happens in a number of diseased states — then the cell starts to malfunction very seriously. And there is a whole array of diseases that are now being tied to damage to this DNA—Parkinson's and quite a lot of neuro-degenerative diseases, but above all the whole process of ageing."