How to Choose the Perfect Multivitamin with John Mills of Highland Labs
Multivitamins are often the first step in supplementation, so it’s vitally important to choose one that will fit your needs. It’s a sad fact that many adulterated and ineffective products litter the shelves of many stores and people are taking home multi’s that can potentially do more harm than good. It’s time to read the labels everyone. Those little details are important.
Meet John:
On this week’s episode, we once again talk with John Mills. John is the Director of Quality and Compliance for Highland Labs, makers of Mt. Angel Vitamins. We’ve continually been impressed with the formulations that Mt. Angel has to offer and they’re packing their multi’s full of ingredients that most manufacturers aren’t even considering. Ed and John chat about why multi’s are so important, the lack of quality in most major multi brands, and key ingredients to search for when selecting your own multivitamin.
Some Topics We Discuss:
Who needs to take a multivitamin? (7:05)
Why do you need to take multivitamins? (8:10)
Is Centrum a good multivitamin to take? (10:50)
What’s the best form of a multivitamin to take? (12:50)
How should you do the dosing on a multivitamin (15:45)
Why did Mount Angel choose to formulate their multivitamin the way they did? (17:30)
Some Key Takeaways from this Episode:
The body operates much like an orchestra. We have to make sure that it’s operating in tune, it has the tools it needs to make beautiful music. (4:40)
If you consume a lot of sugar it actually inhibits your ability to absorb and to utilize vitamins appropriately. (8:20)
It’s best to avoid folic acid in multivitamins. Get a product with folate instead. (12:20)
Make sure you are staying hydrated. Take your vitamins with 8 ounces of water. (14:10)
Products + Resources:
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CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SHOW TRANSCRIPT
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Hey everyone, welcome back to The Holistic Navigator Podcast where we talk about all things holistic health and believe in the body's capacity for self healing if it's given the proper nutrients and care. For any new listeners we just want to take a moment and say welcome. We're excited that you found the show. [00:01:00] My name is Brian Strickland. I'm the producer and I'm joined in the studio as always by our host Ed Jones. On today's episode we're talking all about multivitamins. Multis are often the first or only supplement on many people's radars so choosing the correct formulation is extremely important. And today we're talking with John Mills. He's the director of quality and compliance for Highland Labs who produce Mount Angel Vitamins and we're talking about exactly what to look for when choosing a multi. Let's go ahead and get this show started. Here's your host, Mr. Ed Jones.
Ed Jones: Thank you Brian. And yes, this is Ed with The Holistic Navigator excited for another episode. And you know, all of us have seen, heard, listened to the debate and or or else the endorsement of multivitamins. So today we are going to talk about a very important topic. Why do we need one if we do [00:02:00] and secondly what makes up what at least Edward Jones thinks and many other people in my field, a suitable, effective multivitamin? There was maybe six, eight months ago I had a gentleman on named John Mills from Highland Labs the maker of Mount Angel Vitamins, and we did a show on gout and has been one of the more useful podcasts that I think we've ever done because when people inquire to me or my staff or my wellness clinic and they're coming in with the pain, just wrenching pain of gout and they're sitting there drinking all of this black cherry juice, which is the wrong thing to do because of the sugar and they don't know which kind of supplements may be useful. He narrowed that down so well. And so many have given back positive feedback, John from your and my podcast on gout. So I want to welcome you back to The Holistic Navigator.
John Mills: Well, thank you [00:03:00] very much Ed. I appreciate being back.
Ed Jones: And tell the listeners real quickly again your background and why you are where you are in this conversation. John Mills: Oh sure. Again, my name is John Mills. I'm with Highland Laboratories. We make the Mount Angel Vitamin products and I have been in this particular industry that is to say dietary supplements for about 25, almost 26 years now. I did start in the industry from a biochemical research background. I have a master's degree in chemistry and I started working at a at a biochemical research facility in Missouri and eventually ended up out here at Highland Labs working in dietary supplements largely from a quality perspective. But my inclination is to read and to study more and so I have been continually trying to improve my knowledge then on vitamin applications, on nutritional applications, in just in general life because I like to be healthy. [00:04:00] And so anyway, I've been looking at that and just really focusing on that and creating new products to help my family myself and my family. And it just so happens it also seems to help other people as well.
Ed Jones: Well, thank you for that. And I say this constantly I separate the world into two classes of people: learners and non learners. And I really hate to keep harping on this but if you're a non-learner in the field of health as we age you are going to probably lose the game. Losing means diseases far quicker, falling apart at a rate that's far excessive having chronic aches and pains, anxiety, depression, gastro. It's going to happen unless you really find some trusted sources and you embrace some of these ideas. And John I'll say this again, I’ve said it to so many people. I kind of use the analogy that nutrition and health is similar to a very very large orchestra that had hundreds of musicians [00:05:00] and instruments. And when you have them all in the right place, tuned up pretty dang well, and practiced it can make some absolutely beautiful music. But start throwing some of the instruments out or damaging them or not teaching the people how to play it and they won't be long and you'll have garbled music. Well, that's how nutrition works. There's this huge amount of interaction and synergy between nutrients, and food, and phytochemicals. It is not that complex because we have people like John Mills who understand how to formulate these kinds of products. But this is why I go back to you have to have a basic multivitamin that's going to cover all the little small instruments. Not always the big ones but it's going to cover the small ones all the way from A to Z. And I think you would probably agree with me on that analogy wouldn’t you John?
John Mills: Absolutely. I really like that as a matter of fact. You can see that in [00:06:00] the people who are just starting out in playing music and that is they are typical day off key. And you can pick that one note out of the whole orchestra every time. And the same is true with nutrition. As soon as you get one nutritional aspect in your body out of whack, then the rest of the rest of your orchestra, the rest of your body, just does not function at optimum levels.
Ed Jones: Right? And and you know again, that was wonderful the way you said it you can pick that one instrument out of a hundred and when you have a faulty gut issue, it doesn't matter how strong you can bench press, how far you can run, how great you sleep. You're going to have some negative consequences. And so putting together the package. In fact, I want to mention this real quick. I know that some of the listeners have heard me speak of what I call the Core 4 and it really came about after about 40 Years of me really super involved with clients and people as far as their personal health. [00:07:00] And we can all if we spend enough time and effort figure out, okay, this is kind of probably exactly what I need and come up with the whole plan. But people don't always have time to do that. So I came up with the Core 4. The Core 4 is what I really truly believe that 95% of all people over the age of probably 30 if you are breathing and have blood flowing through your veins. You need these for supplements for optimal health. One a very good multivitamin not Centrum, which we're going to talk about or many others. Two: Omega-3 fatty acids have to have it. Three: is a probiotic. And four is a green drink. And somewhere in this mix has to be some vitamin D. But those four things called the Core 4 will meet most of your needs to help you stay healthy. And for people that have listened they know that we really recommend our sponsor Nutrition World for ordering of products. If you go to nutritionw.com to the shopping page you can order [00:08:00] at a very, very good value price and get it very quickly and that includes Mount Angel. Also, so you want to add anything to the last conversation of why do people really need multivitamins, John?
John Mills: Well, yeah, I mean recently there have been some articles, negative press articles out in the news. One talking about you don't need vitamins because you get them at all in your foods and everything. But then just a couple of days ago they had an article out if you have if you consume a lot of sugar. And unfortunately, we as Americans tend to consume a lot of sugar if nothing else in starches. If you consume a lot of sugar it actually inhibits your ability to absorb and to utilize vitamins appropriately. So that's a big concern that I have. And then an article that just came out today was five stress-relieving vitamins and supplements to fight physician burnout. So these are recommendations going to doctors now [00:09:00] saying you need to be taking these vitamins and one of the key ingredients in that is B vitamins. There's a few more on that list but B vitamins is the top of the stress relieving vitamins and supplements that physicians need to be taking in order to help them. So that's an interesting article just from today.
Ed Jones: Well and the tides have to change because so many conventional medical people they really don't want to get outside their box. They don't want to. Mayne they think their reputation will lessen if they start acting like they are going to promote nutritional supplements or something. There's some catch there with that conversation especially in our smaller local towns. But it's slowly changing because the thing is, you know, I don't say this often I think health is a continuum on a scale of zero to a hundred. 100 being perfect health. Maybe we were there at seven years old. Maybe who knows. Zero’s death. While most Americans are kind of flat wandering around the 40 [00:10:00] to 50 range. That means they don't have a disagreement but they also are so far away from quality energy, mood, digestion, blank blank, blank. And because of the soil depletion, which means that farmers are just continually growing on the same soils only replacing the few nutrients that the plant needs to grow big and look pretty. But not the full spectrum. We have to have a multivitamin you It do and you and again the Core 4 supplies that. But I know in the retail establishment at one time, we had a box of Centrum that we put up there with a skull and crossbones and we had a good explanation for why we did that. It again goes back to that physician thing, which is just crazy to me that that's what most Physicians recommend is take a Centrum and there's about 50 reasons. Why not do that? What is your feeling on Centrum, John?
John Mills: Well, my issues associated [00:11:00] with Centrum and go back to just it's only a core and unfortunately, most of the percent daily values provided are less than even in the high quality even their high potency ones or less than 50%. So you'll find you know, it'll be on the order of three percent or two percent. The folate is typically folic acid, which I have an issue with. And then the B12s are almost always cyanocobalamin, which is another potential problem. So they just don't use the right form of some of the vitamins. That's where my biggest beef is.
Ed Jones: Yep. You're exactly right. I was going to actually bring up those two points and you did it perfectly. And other thing is, you know, they have talc in there. That's let's say I've seen so many commercials with attorneys who if you're damaged by talc and had cancer, you can call them. Why would company put talc in a multivitamin? They also have so many different colors. It's like the colors of the rainbow [00:12:00] blue number two, red number 40, yellow number six, modified corn starch, on and on and on. And they use DL Alpha vitamin E, which is synthetic magnesium oxide which stays in the gut and doesn't do much for your heart and muscles. And I am right there with you John on the folic acid. I know people who've listened to many of my podcasts. In fact, we just did with Dr. Rountree about three weeks ago on methylation. And it was a fabulous conversation with him. He's such an expert on methylation and we talked a lot about folate. And of course folate is the natural source folic is synthetic. We know there's a gene called MTHFR and if you intake folic it's going to go down a pathway that will not end in a pretty scene. So we never recommend folic even if you don't know your gene or whatever just don't take a chance because it's synthetic. And the last thing on Centrum is it's a very hard tablet [00:13:00] and there are people who cannot digest tablets very well. In fact, I'll tell you a really quick story. There was a great company that makes wonderful products and does studies dissolution studies, which means they put it in a laboratory setting and kind of imitate the human system to see how long will it take this tablet to dissolve. Well in the studies, they were like 35 minutes for the tablet of calcium, magnesium. A gentleman came he was a really really regular came in and he been buying this certain calcium magnesium for probably two years. Well one day he hurt his back like I have right this minute, but it's getting better, and that he went to the chiropractor and they took an x-ray and he brought me the copy of the X-ray because it was quite interesting. You could see all the way down his gut to his anus these tablets that were totally undissolved. Well, he had never seen it in his stool because people don't look at it as covered up but none of these tablets to dissolve so I'd from that point on I questioned anyone over 50 doing [00:14:00] tablets. And so I'm I know that they're good companies that make them dissolve but I still question it. Do you like capsules better John?
John Mills: Well capsules tend to dissolve in the stomach it within 15 minutes. And so it doesn't take much but water to help those capsules dissolve if a person is properly hydrating and that's a trick to all these taking any supplement at all proper hydration. Actually, that's the trick to living. If you don't do your proper hydration, your body cells don't work correctly to begin with. So hydration is critical. They have to drink it with 8 ounces of water. That's the only way you're going to make this work. So and then the capsules will dissolve appropriately and then you have liberated all those components within that capsule at that point. But it takes a minimum of 15 minutes of direct contact with water in your stomach in order for those capsules to dissolve.
Brian Strickland All right, everyone. Let's pause for just a moment to learn more about our for this week. [00:15:00] This episode is brought to you by Mount Angel Vitamins. Mount Angel is dedicated to providing quality supplements to suit your busy lifestyle. They understand that picking out vitamins and supplements can be overwhelming so they offer simple solutions for what your body really needs and they can help you maintain your health before something needs to be fixed. For more information visit mountangelvitamins.com. Mount Angel Vitamins-Simple, Proactive wellness.
Ed Jones: So we know that if they could do a gelatin capsule and 8 ounces of water and their body temperature is 98 degrees. They're going to melt that capsule and absorb it?
John Mills: That's correct.
Ed Jones: Okay and tell me your feelings because my feelings on multivitamins is I really believe that people should try to choose something that they can do twice a day to maintain blood levels. Is that something that's common sense?
John Mills: Well, it's like any medicine you take. And you have to think of [00:16:00] supplements as being in almost a natural medicine in that you want to take things in divided dose to keep a constant level in your body. So if you have a two provide capsule, so as you provide. Two provide means that you take two capsules in order to get the label copy if you take one in the morning and then one again at lunch time or at dinner time, then that's going to equal that will even it out for your body for that day. It's sometimes better if you could take four a day even just depending on what you're trying to do and trying to keep an even level. But yes divided dosing is always a little bit better to make sure that you're actually getting what you need over the course of the day. You can limit the amount of absorption of any one nutrient by what you're eating and what you're doing. That's what I do every day. I take I take my morning meds. I called my morning meds by morning vitamins and and then I take my afternoon lunch time vitamins as well. So I have them split out. So I take my fish [00:17:00] oil in the morning and I take my fish oil at lunch. I take my multivitamin in the morning. I take it at lunch. I do them all that way. That way I'm able to split out my dosing all my nutrients go out evenly and I'm able to get through the day that way.
Ed Jones: That's perfect. And it's very similar to what I do. I put everything in a baggie because I know every pill by heart and so I'll do about one-third in the morning, one-third at lunch, and one-third at supper. So if a person is shopping and of course you're with Mount Angel, I'm very familiar with the company and so impressed. And I don't I think people who know me or of listen, I don't say that because you're sitting here on the other end of this microphone, John. I'll never compromise my values. I'm getting too old to do that. There's no need. So I always tell the absolute truth and Mount Angel is I mean when I look at the label, I've sometimes forget how well put together that formula is on the men's versions. I don't look at the women's as much but the I [00:18:00] mean two things you have put in there blows me away because I don't see hardly anyone in the in the arena of multivitamins, even quality ones that is quite reached the level that you have with Mount Angel. How did you come up with that? And the price it’s not inexpensive, but it's not terribly expensive for what you get.
John Mills: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Like I said, this is a product that we started looking at probably I guess it'd have been several years ago now in trying to come up with a particular format. A particular nutrient, a vitamin product that would be beneficial and provide energy and sustainability. And so when we started looking at this we started with with the women's vitamins to be to be honest and I tailored when I looked at the that the vitamin compliment I looked at what women need more than me. And those are the ones I put more in for the women. Now, there's always a limit when you have two capsules. There's a fixed volume. I can't go beyond [00:19:00] the fixed volume to fit materials into it if I really wanted to put in everything that I wanted everything that I thought was necessary in a daily thing you'd have something the size of a ping-pong ball and you can't swallow that. So I went with what I thought would be the most important aspects of this and I try to approach things in a 3-prong manner. You have your Core 4 I have my I got to do three things in order to make it work. That's my philosophy. I have my basic factors, I have my supportive elements and then I have my enhancers. And the enhancers are the things that keep things moving into the body that keep things wanting to go forward. And what we're trying to do, trying to get those nutrients to absorb correctly. Try to get the whole product to work in a synergistic way. And so that's how I looked at this, that's how I approached the whole thing. So I'm using folate. I'm using two active forms of folate: calcium folinate. That's the first [00:20:00] one and then MTHF which is the second one. And if I do anything at all to change these formulas, it would be to change from one active form to another active form. I would never go backwards on it. I would never go to folic acid. So right now I'm using folinate in this which is the first active form. I use methylcobalamin. Those are my core and all the vitamins we do for the women's, the men's, either the 50-plus or the or the standard multi. That’s my core. Then when I look at the B vitamins I try to tailor the b vitamins specifically to the individual as far as male or female because physiologically we’re different. And then I look down at the nutritional or the herbal side of things. And in this particular case, I picked out a core support group, which is the anthocyanins complex from bilberry. I looked at the acai berries, Goji's [00:21:00] Mangosteens. The variety of fruit components in order to to kind of like round out that polyphenol component. And then I also picked an energy component which is an ashwagandha extract, which is kind of surprising because that is one of the ingredients that was recommended today on that news article for doctors is to take ashwagandha. So I looked at ashwagandha extract and I went to a very high quality extract. It is a hot water extract called KSM 66 and that particular research done on that particular extract is so impressive that I felt at that will had to be a core element in the product. And that's the most significant addition to my product that was my formulation was that KSM 66 ashwagandha. So I designed each multivitamin to cater to a specific age group, male or female so that way we have something which focuses for the individual in those particular groups. So we have our 50 plus multi, which is the one that I [00:22:00] personally take the ends 50-plus multi. My wife takes the women's 50-plus multi. And I recommend then for anyone under 50 years old or so, they could focus on taking just the premium multis just to help them out and to get them over that edge. Because like I said, they all of them contain the same amount of the ashwagandha. So it has the ashwagandha root extract in it critical critical. It has eye function materials in it as well. So we have lutein and lycopene. And the lutein I'm using is a very specific one to support blue eye issues. So it's a lutemax 2020. That's where I went with that one. And then the whole process in creating these was designed liike I said to help the individual that they're all support of all the ingredients are designed for the individual ages.
Ed Jones: Well is so impressive it is [00:23:00] does again mind me of an orchestra director, which is what you are that puts together the right musicians and the quality instruments. And you know, I fly a small airplane is one reason we call this the Holistic Navigator. If you look at the yellow plane on my website, well, you are kind of like the engineer who would build a plane. So would I go out and try to just find any the lowest price plane possible just so I can say that I'm a pilot and flying? No not if we are smart, I want the very best. Best design possible number one for safety and number two because it's the smart thing to do. Well that truly applies to multiples probably more than almost any other supplement on the market. Because when you're buying individual supplements omega-3, or the ashwagandha, or b complex or any of those it's not as I mean, it's critical, but it takes a real engineer to put together a multiple. And I know that [00:24:00] you have just done and well, here's the other thing. I've done enough personal formulating that this is how it works for people who are listening if I wanted to produce a multivitamin with a say ashwagandha, which is one of my most favorite herbs of all time. I would go to these companies and I'd say, you know this vitamin and I want to add this ashwagandha in there. And most of them are going to tell me. Okay, we'll give you four different prices for the raw material $2, $3, $4 or $5 and I'm like, okay. Well I know enough to know that the $5 one is going to be of the highest quality. Probably still not guaranteed. We have to check it out. But we'd also note the $2 one's going to be the very lowest cut grade of that product. Well guess what most companies use? They use the $2 versions. I know for a fact what Mount Angel does is they only get the very best because KSM 66 is proof that you purchased the very best ashwagandha there is because you'd give the information that makes [00:25:00] it transparent. You don't leave it up to just our trust you have enough certifications that guarantee to the consumer. You're going to get the potency. You're going to get the value. You're going to get the quality. You're going to get dissolution, melting in the body. All these things are checked out by very ethical companies, which I hate to say are on the decline. Because when nutritional companies sell out to the big box and the big corporate and the investment firms so far 90% of all of those I've witnessed over 41 years. the quality starts to lessen after about a year and a half. Because investors want to make more money. Well what Mount Angel and people like myself do, I want to make people more healthy and then I don't have to worry about the money. So I know I'm like a cheerleader for Mount Angel. I'm not being paid to do this, people. I just am a firm believer that you have to be wise on your choices of your nutritional supplements and Mount Angel’s is perfect. [00:26:00] You know again, I talk about the Core 4, above that you would want to choose a great omega-3, and a great green drink, and you know good a great probiotic. But so anything else you want to add to this conversation on multivitamins?
John Mills: No, just make sure you're getting a good multivitamin because the problem is that a lot of these multis that are in the market today and I mean you can find good companies, but the components themselves because of the way that the vitamin or mineral is made makes it less absorbable. And so you really want to make sure you have those components in there which can be absorbed by the body and not something which is just going to pass through. Because passing through is great for your colon, but it's not good for your liver or for the rest of your body.
Ed Jones: Right, we do we also have so many other parts to this wellness complex and there's a lot of blood testing that goes on and I [00:27:00] can tell from people when they when we look at the blood work and it's showing very low levels of certain things and they say, well I take supplements and then we start digging into it. It gets to be pretty obvious quickly that they're basically taking very low quality products, which means they're not absorbing it. So finding your trusted partners on this journey is to meet key because I don't have time to do it all myself. I want people like you John who have 25 years experience and the ethics to look out for me.
John Mills: Thank you very much. I appreciate that. You talked about certifications earlier. As Mount Angel vitamins Highland Laboratories, we have the GMP certifications. We are monitored annually on that process. We make sure we follow that we are registered with our Oregon State Board of Pharmacy. We are registered as an organic manufacturer. We are registered [00:28:00] as gluten-free. We have a variety of these things. So we do understand the complications associated with manufacturing products and the nuances associated with doing it. Right and so if you aren't going to do it, right then my personal opinion is why do it at all? So we are focused on doing things right because we taking these products ourselves. I have no intention of my parents take these and and they're in they are 88 years old this year. So I have no intention of getting something which is going to hurt them. I want something which is going to help them and they take my products.
Ed Jones: And the truth is that if it's worthless, it's going to hurt them because it did not do them good. And as we age we have to have the support, so thank you so much John for a very enlightening education on why we need a multiple and how to choose the correct one and to not believe the Centrum story. Thank you everyone for joining us again this week and I am going to say that [00:29:00] one of the upcoming ones that I'm working on is on the EMF and the 5G stories. So stay tuned for that in a few more weeks and we've got some great lineups of topics and other guests over the next two to three months. So everyone have a great afternoon. Take care of yourself. Take care of your health and we're here as your friend. Thank you. This is Ed with The Holistic Navigator.
Brian Strickland: The information on this podcast in the topics discussed have not been evaluated by the FDA or any one of the medical profession and is not aimed to replace any advice you may receive from your medical practitioner. The Holistic Navigator assumes no responsibility or liability whatsoever on behalf of any purchaser or listener of these materials. The Holistic Navigator is not a doctor or doesn't claim to be please consult your physician before beginning any health regimen.