Iatrogenesis of Vitamins, Minerals and Herbal Supplements

Our body is a wondrous construct of multiple systems working in concert to maintain a finely balanced homeostasis, but dependent on the external environment, the food we eat and the way we use our bodies and minds.

An unbalanced homeostasis leads to disease, which could be something as simple as fever due to infection or a complex multi-organ dysfunction brought out by malnutrition or cancer.

The regulatory pathways that maintain mineral and vitamin homeostasis have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years and work well in most instances unless there is a clinical problem or a deficiency caused by a change in our environment or the food we eat.

It is important therefore that we be cognizant of what we put in our body, what we do with our body and mind, what our body and mind are exposed to externally and how they develop due to our internal genetic makeup. We have no real control over the last part (our genes) and we usually don’t have much control over the third part too, which is based upon where we live and the resources available to us. We can however control to quite some extent what we put in our body and how we handle our body and mind.

We’ve seen how the food we eat matters. A plant-based diet with nuts, fruits and vegetables, with as few ultra-processed food items as possible, goes a long way in keeping us healthy and increasing our healthspan and lifespan. Physical activity as I have mentioned ad nauseam, is the one magic pill that perhaps, even more than the food we eat, keeps our mind and body healthy.