[Arsan]

חשיבות? יש תאוריה מעניינת של לייל על העניין :

Was going to put this in the thread that put it back in my mind but decided to make another post.

In that thread, the issue came up regarding red meat as a source of iron and zinc versus just taking pills with me, as usual, banging the drum on eating red meat instead of just popping pills.

Here's at least part of the reason and my half-assed theory: I have this hunch that nutrients in food are not only absorbed better (bioavailability) but utilized better by the body. In some cases, this is clearly due to the structure of the nutrient, for examlpe heme vs. non-heme iron with heme iron (found in red meat) something something like a 10X better absorption than non-heme (found in veggies).

The other part is that I think there may be better absorption/utilization due to the presence of other nutrients (some of which we probably haven't even identified).

Consider, for example, the data showing that natural Vitamin E intakes have a protective effect compared to just taking Vitamin E pills. It's being suggested that the difference is that naturally occuring Vitamin E occurs as a comlex of the different E isoforms along with other compounds (tocotrienols in this case).

The main thing that drove this home for me was when I was looking at the calcium data a couple of years back. Having seen that dairy calcium appeared to work better than non-dairy and not buying the idea that it waas other substances in the dairy (proteins), I concluded that the basic issue was one of absorption and bioavailiability.

So I set out to design the ultimate calcium delivery system. I looked at the data on everything that affects calcium absorption. It turned out that small amounts of sodium, protein, carbs and a few others affected it. When I put it all together, I came up with milk.

And I gave up on the project.

But the point was made, milk exists primarily as a calcium delivery system, it is nutritionally optimized towards such.

It wouldn't surprise me if the same went for red meat and iron. God knows what other co-factors and nutrients are present in red meat that make it such an ideal source of iron, zinc and the rest.

Citrus fruit probably contains other nutrients which maximize vitamin C absorption.

Clearly the anti-oxidant data showing that high fruit/veggie intakes have a different effect than isolated anti-oxidants do is supportive.

So that's the half-assed theory, here's the half-assed application.
At the very least, I think choosing whole foods is superior to pills. That's not the half-assed theory part.

If you must use pills (here's the half-assed part), I have this hunch that consuming it with some of the food that contains that nutrient (i.e. take your calcium pills with some type of dairy, take your Vitamin C with some orange juice) might improve the effect of the pill.

I have little direct data to support this but what amounts to circumstantial evidence leading me to believe it for the time being.

ובקיצור הדבר ה"טבעי" יותר כנראה גם טוב יותר.