Undeniably essential and extraordinarily beneficial
BY STEVE BORN
I’ve often referred to Premium Insurance Caps, Hammer Nutrition’s multivitamin/mineral supplement, as “the most boringly beneficial product we make.” The reason for that unique distinction is because it’s not the most glamorous supplement you can take; there’s nothing ultra-cool in the product as there is in, say, Fully Charged or Anti-Fatigue Caps, to name a couple of examples.
But while Fully Charged, Anti-Fatigue Caps, and other supplements in the Hammer Nutrition line may arguably have a bit more direct impact on improving athletic performance, to be quite honest, if you’re not covering your basic nutrient needs (vitamins and minerals), those other products won’t ever realize their full value, and you will never get maximum benefits from the time and energy you spend in your workouts.
In my nearly 22 years at Hammer Nutrition, I’ve found that most people have three main excuses as to why they don’t take a multivitamin/mineral supplement:
1. They feel that because they already eat a “healthy diet,” a multivitamin/mineral supplement is unnecessary.
2. They believe that taking a multivitamin/mineral supplement won’t do anything to boost athletic performance.
3. They’re convinced that taking a multivitamin/mineral supplement is a waste of time because of the constant message trumpeted from many so-called “experts,” who say that doing so just causes “expensive urine.”
The first reason is absolutely incorrect; it is virtually impossible to obtain all of the nutrients your body requires from your daily diet. Three main reasons why this is true:
1. Studies show that food alone may not supply all of the micronutrients we need to prevent deficiency, let alone to achieve optimal health.
2. Much of our diet comes from foods grown far away, picked when unripe, and then shipped. Nutritional content is questionable and usually depleted.
3. Even if we could obtain all of the nutrients we need from our diet, it's unlikely that any of us eats an ideal diet with much consistency.
The first point is of primary importance. Forget about providing enough nutrients to promote optimal health—many people do not eat enough quality food to meet the minimal Reference Daily Intake (RDI) micronutrient requirements for preventing deficiency-related disorders. Dr. Bill Misner's hallmark paper, "Food May Not Provide Sufficient Micronutrients to Avoid Deficiency" [1] is but one effort in pointing out this startling problem.
The research of distinguished nutritional scientist Bruce Ames, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, also presents a hypothesis that implies micronutrient deficiency may eventually deteriorate the quality of whole human cell health. A portion of Professor Ames' abstract reads as follows [2]:
“Inadequate dietary intakes of vitamins and minerals are widespread, most likely due to excessive consumption of energy-rich, micronutrient-poor, refined food. Inadequate intakes may result in chronic metabolic disruption, including mitochondrial decay. Deficiencies in many micronutrients cause DNA damage, such as chromosome breaks, in cultured human cells or in vivo. Some of these deficiencies also cause mitochondrial decay with oxidant leakage and cellular aging and are associated with late onset diseases such as cancer.”
So, when you hear someone tell you that you can get all the nutrients you need from a healthy diet, keep in mind the sobering words of Drs. Misner and Ames.
As far as the second excuse for not taking a multivitamin/mineral supplement—“they’re boring and won’t don’t make me faster” (or something like that)—think about it a bit more: If you’re not covering your nutrient needs—and it’s pretty clear that basically no one is, especially athletes—you increase the potential for a number of negative athletic performance and health issues to occur. At the very least, this means you won't get the full value from all of the hard work you put into your training because your body doesn’t have the nutrient support it needs to fully recover. It could also very well result in a compromised immune system, which is definitely something to avoid because that could translate into missed training days due to illness.
The third excuse is just flat-out wrong. When you take a multivitamin/mineral supplement, your urine will turn a bright yellow. This is NOT your body “peeing out all the vitamins.” That bright yellow color is due to the riboflavin (vitamin B2) component in a multivitamin/mineral supplement. Among its many functions, riboflavin helps co-enzymes break down carbohydrates, fats and proteins. As the flavins in riboflavin are utilized in the body to metabolize carbs, fats and protein they pass along flavin rings which have a neon yellow color, which simply means that the flavins in riboflavin are doing their job in metabolizing carbohydrates, protein, and fat.
REFERENCES:
[1] Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients 261:49- 52, April 2005 (available at www.hammernutrition.com/downloads/diet_deficiencies.pdf)
[2] Ames BN, Low micronutrient intake may accelerate the degenerative diseases of aging through allocation of scarce micronutrients by triage, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2006; 103 (47): 17589- 94. (Address: Nutrition and Metabolism Center, Children's Hospital of Oakland Research Institute, Oakland, CA 94609, USA). www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu bmed/17101959?dopt=AbstractPlus
Two extraordinary benefits from taking Premium Insurance Caps
If the information you’ve read thus far hasn’t convinced you that taking Premium Insurance Caps is highly beneficial, hopefully the following will.
Extraordinary Benefit #1 – 60%+ reduction in the number of sick days!
In August, 2020, the eye-opening results from a study were published in the journal Nutrients [1]. To this day it remains one of the most important studies in recent years, as researchers found that:
- Compared to study participants taking a placebo, the participants who took a multivitamin/mineral supplement had a 60+% reduction in the number of sick days!
- Those same participants also reported fewer and milder illness-related symptoms!
Profound? Eye-opening? You bet! Here are the highlights of this study:
1. It involved healthy participants between 55 and 75 years of age.
2. For 12 weeks, one group received a daily multivitamin/mineral supplement, while the other received an inactive placebo.
3. Before and after this period, researchers measured the participants’ blood vitamin/mineral status and various markers of immune function.
4. At the end of the study, the researchers noted that the participants who took the multivitamin/mineral supplement experienced an average of 2.29 sick days, while the placebo group averaged 6.43 days of illness.
5. It was also noted that the multivitamin/mineral supplement group experienced fewer illness symptoms than the placebo group and that those symptoms were noticeably milder.
In the published report, researchers made some notable comments:
- “Since multiple nutrients support immune function, older adults may benefit from multivitamin and mineral (MVM) supplements.” [2]
- “Generally regarded as safe and readily available over the counter, dietary supplements have been used with few significant side effects in clinical studies.” [3]
- “Although conflicting and contradictory studies exist, there is evidence suggesting that dietary supplementation with a combination of immunity-related micronutrients supports immune function and reduces risk or severity of infection. [3]
- “Indeed, targeted supplementation with these vitamins and minerals may provide additional protection at doses higher than the U.S. recommended dietary allowance (RDA). [4]
We should always make maintaining a strong immune system a major focus in our daily lives, and the health challenges the past couple of years have really emphasized just how razor-shard that focus needs to be. Bottom line? Taking care of your immune system simply cannot be ignored!
While there are many things that we can do to help promote strong immunity—getting adequate sleep and reducing stress are just a couple—the first step is always the consumption of a diet dominated by nutrient-dense whole foods. However, as important as eating healthy is, that alone will not suffice. To achieve your best performances in your workouts and events—and, even more importantly, enjoy optimal health, which, as this study’s results show, could very well mean fewer sick days—then daily supplementation with Premium Insurance Caps, Hammer Nutrition’s potent multivitamin/mineral supplement, is a necessity, not an option.
REFERENCES:
[1] https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/8/2447/htm
[2] Maggini, S.; Pierre, A.; Calder, P.C. Immune Function and Micronutrient Requirements Change over the Life Course. Nutrients 2018, 10, 1531.
[3] Gombart, A.F.; Pierre, A.; Maggini, S. A Review of Micronutrients and the Immune System-Working in Harmony to Reduce the Risk of Infection. Nutrients 2020, 12, 236.
[4] Calder, P.C.; Carr, A.C.; Gombart, A.F.; Eggersdorfer, M. Optimal Nutritional Status for a Well-Functioning Immune System Is an Important Factor to Protect against Viral Infections. Nutrients 2020, 12, 1181
Extraordinary Benefit #2 – Daily Multivitamin Use Slows Cognitive Aging 60%!
The latest and remarkable research [1] concluded that taking a multivitamin/mineral supplement daily for three years is associated with a 60% slowing of cognitive aging. As most everyone knows, the brain is responsible for many functions that fall under the term “cognition”—thinking, learning, memory, attention, perception, processing information, and much more. It’s also important to know that cognitive aging and decline is not a disease, but instead a naturally occurring process.
While we may not be able to completely halt cognitive aging, we now know how we may be able to slow it down...way down!
This particular research on the effects of daily multivitamin/mineral use and cognitive function was a sub-study of a larger study that compared the effects of cocoa extract (500 mg/day cocoa flavanols) and a standard multivitamin/mineral supplement to placebo. The first part of the research focused on the effects of cocoa extract (CE) vs placebo on Global Cognitive Function (GCF) composite score, the overall summary of 19 separate tests and the primary method in determining overall cognitive function. The researchers then studied the effects of daily multivitamin/mineral use vs placebo on GFC.
While the CE findings were no different than placebo, there was a noticeable improvement in GFC composite score in the results for the multivitamin/mineral supplement vs. placebo. Lead study researcher, Dr. Laura D. Baker, states "Daily multivitamin-mineral supplementation appears to slow cognitive aging by 60% or by 1.8 years,” and that the results “may have important public health implications, particularly for brain health, given the accessibility of multivitamins and minerals, and their low cost and safety.”
This new research is as impressive and important as the previously discussed study, and it adds to the “arsenal” of research that shows that daily use of Premium Insurance Caps provides extraordinary, wide-ranging benefits.
REFERENCE:
[1] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03035201
5 Reasons Why Premium Insurance Caps Should Be Your Multi!
1. Optimum, not minimum, amounts - Unlike many vitamin/mineral supplements that contain inadequate Daily Value (DV), Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA), and Reference Daily Intake (RDI) amounts of nutrients, Premium Insurance Caps is formulated with Optimum Daily Intake (ODI) amounts of the highest quality vitamins and minerals. Dr. Shari Lieberman hits the nail on the head about why the use of ODI amounts in supplementation is so vital: "RDIs reflect amounts that are adequate to prevent nutrient-deficiency diseases, and are not tailored for individual needs. In order to attain a state of optimum health and disease prevention, we must take into our bodies optimum - not minimum - amounts of vitamins and minerals."
NOTE: Premium Insurance Caps contain superb levels of the B-complex vitamins, amounts that replicate many stress support formulas, thus making those products unnecessary in your supplement regimen.
2. Capsules, not tablets - The nutrients in Premium Insurance Caps are contained within a two-piece all-vegetable capsule; that means they will dissolve much more rapidly and thoroughly than tablets would, so your body actually will receive the nutrients you're consuming. Because tablets can take longer to break down, they often irritate the intestinal lining, causing major stomach discomfort. Additionally, tablets can pass through the entire digestive system only partially dissolved, or completely un-dissolved. Either way, your body does not get the full volume of nutrients you ingested, which means you're not getting what you paid for.
3. Highly-assimilated, amino acid-chelated minerals - For many minerals, there are several forms available, all with differing absorption rates. Some companies use inexpensive forms of minerals in their products; e.g., magnesium in the oxide form or calcium in the carbonate form. Unfortunately, these cheap forms are not as well absorbed as other forms, such as the amino acid chelates used in Premium Insurance Caps.
4. Multiple digestive enzymes for maximum nutrient absorption - It's not what you consume, it's what you absorb. To aid the absorption of nutrients, Premium Insurance Caps includes digestive enzymes such as pepsin and papain.
5. Only beneficial nutrients, no "salt and pepper" - Some companies add auxiliary nutrients at levels that have no real value (what we call "salt and pepper" amounts). For example, some multivitamin/mineral supplements contain only 5 mg. of coenzyme Q10 and/or lipoic acid. Both are fantastic nutrients, but at that level you won't experience any true benefits. So even though a product's label may show a long list of auxiliary nutrients, you won't see results if the amounts are inconsequential. When you buy such a product, you're paying for a product that has little more than an impressive label. All of the nutrients included in Premium Insurance Caps are at levels that will provide real benefits.
SUMMARY
After hundreds upon hundreds of supplement program consultations I’ve done during my tenure at Hammer Nutrition, I unhesitatingly recommend starting your supplement program with Premium Insurance Caps. Along with your efforts to consume the healthiest diet possible, Premium Insurance Caps will ensure you’re getting optimal amounts of vitamins, minerals, and key auxiliary nutrients. These aren’t minimal and insignificant DV, RDA, or RDI amounts, but amounts that will have a noticeably positive impact on your health, which research has shown includes fewer sick days and a significant slowing of cognitive aging.
In addition, the strong nutrient foundation that you receive from Premium Insurance Caps is a primary key to your body being able to meet the challenge of your training volume and workload, and that translates into improved athletic performance and better overall health.
