Why it is Harmful to Randomly Take Supplements

In this article I share my thoughts along with many of Dr. Paul Eck’s teaching on supplementation. Please note that my Free Basic Mineral Balancing Program only recommends the “general” supplements we use on every client’s MB program and in small, safe amounts.

After over 20 years of working with HTMA and MB programs, I concur with Dr. Eck’s principles on random supplementation.

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Dr. Eck was strongly against people taking supplements without knowing what they were doing, believing the only way to know what supplements one needed was through the intelligence of a Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis.

He believed that “feeling better” was not the proper way to determine if a supplement was right for an individual and that feeling better did not mean that a supplement was “working”.

In fact, Dr. Eck knew that a person could temporarily “feel better” while making their mineral imbalances worse.

Here’s an example he gave of how a fast oxidizer may feel better but create other health issues by randomly taking supplements.

Let’s look at a fast oxidizer who has a high level of sodium and potassium. This means his adrenals are overactive or overstressed and he is already overstimulating himself to keep going.

Therefore, if he takes supplements like vitamin E, C, and a B-complex stress vitamin, he will probably feel better. Yet he is really worsening the mineral pattern.

The reason being is that the vitamin E, C, and B complex more than likely will raise the sodium and potassium even more. So, while he may feel better, as these supplements produce a drug-like effect, like drinking a cup of coffee which produces a feeling of increased energy.

However, what he is probably unaware that he is raising the sodium and potassium which is pushing him closer to having a heart attack!

He is also unaware that his calcium and magnesium levels are being depleted at the same time. If he keeps doing this long enough, the calcium and magnesium levels –and the ratios between them – can move him into a higher risk range for cancer!

Of course, if this person gets cancer, he often does not connect it to the supplements he was taking and may think, “If it weren’t for the supplements, I probably would have gotten cancer much sooner.”

The truth is that WITHOUT the supplements, he may never had gotten cancer at all.

Dr. Eck had this to say about taking a multi-vitamin. “A person with a slow or even a fast metabolism can take a multi supplement – just to make sure they are not “missing anything. But I doubt it will do much to correct their metabolism.”

Many of the multi supplements on the market today generally contain magnesium, zinc, and copper along with vitamin A and vitamin B2. Unfortunately, a combination of these compounds will only slow down an already slow metabolism.

The idea behind taking a multi mineral and vitamin supplement is logical, but you must make sure the multi supplement is “balanced” for a particular metabolism. (This is what your personal MB program is designed to do).

Dr Eck said, “The whole philosophy of everyone taking the same kind of multi supplement is just absurd as everyone wearing the same shoe size.”

Dr. Eck knew that if you change or rearrange a mineral pattern by 10-25% - in any direction- you can probably get short-term relief from symptoms. However, this short-term benefit that occurs as you help some parts of your mineral chart comes at the expense of your other minerals.

Unfortunately, the damage you are doing on the wrong supplement program does not show until later as it takes time to develop so you never realize the harm you have done.

This is the part many people do not want to hear -many times you must make a person temporarily feel worse before you get them to feel better.

Here’s why. Let’s take that example of the fast oxidizer we were using before. The right way to help this person would be to lower their sodium and potassium levels which in turn reduces the stress on their adrenal glands.

This slows down the person’s metabolism and prevents them from “burning out” their mineral reserves and collapsing. To save this person’s life – you have to slow them down.

However, when you do it, this person feels worse, and they don’t “want” to slow down. They want to keep driving themselves. They are living off adrenaline and cortisol, often addicted to these hormones and doing the right thing, while necessary, can be difficult.

These people do not go to the health food store and buy supplements that make them feel worse. Do you think this highly driven person is voluntarily going to go into a health food store and buy supplements that will slow them down?  

They need to work with a practitioner who can help understand their program and work through the fatigue with an understanding of the bigger picture.

I know as I came into MB as a fast oxidizer and had to work through these issues but I knew I was doing the right thing. As tough as it may seem, this (and every healing phase in MB), is temporary!

Now let’s assume this person knows what supplements he needs and may be willing to take them. He still doesn’t know how much he should take and for how long he should take them. He needs direction and a HTMA practitioner to personalize these recommendations. And this is the why I remind clients to retest on time because I update their program and make changes as needed so they do not have to guess for “how” long they need these specific supplements. Yes, there are “some” supplements that you can take without testing, as shared in my Free Basic Mineral Balancing Program but the others - the ones that “move” minerals and create balance - or imbalances - need to be recommended based on your updated HTMA results.  

Because if you slow a person down too much, that is just as bad as making him too fast. So, without the guidance of a well-trained practitioner, how would a person know precisely when to change his supplements or how much of these supplements were needed?

Remember that so far, we have only discussed four minerals - sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium. Can you see how complicated it can get when you consider the relationships between the other minerals, such as copper, zinc, manganese, chromium, phosphorus, iron and so forth – plus everything that occurs with detoxing and metals?

This is why Dr. Eck insisted that “the only way you can tell what supplements to take for your specific physical/emotional imbalances is to use the results of hair tests. There is no other way and no better way. If there was, I would be using it”.

He also said “It is sad to see what goes on in the health field today. You could probably switch the labels on all the vitamins and minerals being sold and probably few people would physically notice the difference. Some people would even get better” That’s how unscientific things are. You can see why I get so passionate when I talk about this. The way I see it, it is better and far safer to take NOTHING than to practice scientific guess work!”

He continued to mention that “people do not use hair tests, nor do they use them scientifically. They read in a magazine or on the web that zinc is good and then take some. They read that vitamin C is good and they take that too. They read that we are all deficient in magnesium (or so they think), so they add some of that. If there is a special 2-for-1 sale on calcium tablets, they stock up on that. It is pathetic the way people go about choosing supplements, they could do almost as good as using a roulette wheel! I’m not trying to make fun of anyone but when you don’t know what to take, you must guess! I used to do it myself.”

And dare I mention all the clients I have taking iron in forms that are bio-unavailable, and toxic based on a blood test that said they were “anemic”.  

Another thing that you frequently find in the health field is the taking of a little of every mineral – “just to be on the safe side.” They believe that the body with its infinite wisdom knows exactly what to do with each mineral. They believe that whatever the body needs, it keeps; and whatever it doesn’t need, it simply excretes in the urine, or through the proper channels.

Dr. Eck stated the following about excreting minerals through the urine: “Many authorities believe that the body will always excrete all the minerals which it does not need through the proper body channels. If this were the case, then why do so many individuals have hair analysis which indicate that they have toxic amounts of copper, lead, cadmium, calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc in their tissues?

If everything was the way everybody said it was – if all the minerals the body did not need were excreted, and if all you had to do to correct “deficiencies” in the body was to give people the minerals they were low in, then it would be the easiest thing in the world to correct mineral imbalances.

All you would have to do would be to give them mineral supplements which contained all the essential minerals. If it were as easy as this, very few people on the various mineral programs would not remain ill for very long. But you know as well as I do that this is just not the case!

This is why I continually talk about the synergy of my MB programs!

Mineral Balancing is a journey! Mineral Balancing works and is based on scientific principles.

Stop taking the supplements you see advertised on social media platforms, commercials, the internet or following the advice of well-meaning friends and family. Many of these quick fix products are a money grab! Plus, what others may not work for you. Let’s take the guesswork out of your supplement program today.

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The entire contents of this website/article are based upon the opinions of Doreen McCafferty NLC, unless otherwise noted. Individual articles are based upon the opinions of the respective author, who retains copyright as marked. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of Doreen McCafferty, NLC and her community. Doreen McCafferty encourages you to make your own health care decisions based upon your research and in partnership with a qualified health care professional. If you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition, consult your health care professional before using products based on this content. All information in this article is for educational purposes only and not designed to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice.