Dirty supplements: 90% of vitamin C comes from toxic China
03/06/2019 / By Tracey Watson
While the tremendous health benefits of vitamin C cannot be disputed, those benefits can be negated if the vitamin is being sourced from China.
There is simply no question that China is a highly polluted country. Its toxic air pollution kills close to 1.6 million people each year, and 20 of the world’s 30 most polluted cities can be found there, including Linfen, the most polluted of all. And then there’s the water: Figures from 2010 – which must be far worse now, nearly a decade down the line – indicated that close to half of all state-monitored rivers were classified as grade 4, meaning they were not suitable for human contact. A report by Asia Water Project in 2007, found that 90 percent of all Chinese urban groundwater was contaminated. And in 2014, The Guardian reported that as a result of the country’s rapid industrialization, more than a fifth of all China’s farmland was polluted.
A report by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection found that over 80 percent of this contamination was inorganic, and included dangerously high levels of heavy metals like lead, copper, cadmium, mercury and arsenic.
This issue raises grave concerns, because the vitamin and supplement market in the United States is worth about $28 billion, and is growing at a rate of 3 percent each year. Over half of all Americans take supplements, including vitamin C, in the belief that they will improve their health. While this is certainly an excellent way to support good health if the supplement is of an excellent standard, consuming vast quantities of toxic Chinese supplements may do more harm than good.
To illustrate why avoiding heavy metal toxin exposure is important, let’s look at some of their effects: Cadmium exposure is related to kidney damage, bone damage and fractures; lead is particularly dangerous for children, as it passes the blood-brain barrier, causing neurological damage; and long-term exposure to arsenic is associated with skin and other cancers.
Perhaps you’re thinking that the issue is not likely to affect you, since China is so far away and your vitamin C is sourced in the U.S., but you’d be wrong; China now controls over 90 percent of the vitamin C market in our country. This affects not just vitamin C supplements, but millions of products to which vitamin C is added, including drinks, fortified foods, processed foods and even pet foods. You would have no way of knowing what the origin of the vitamin C is, since manufacturers are not legally required to reveal the country of origin of any of their ingredients. (Related: Toxic heavy metal lead found at 700 times national limit in China’s water supply.)
While it may be worth switching supplement brands to ensure that your vitamin C is not sourced in China and is “clean,” the absolute pervasiveness of this supplement in so many foods means you are likely still going to be exposed to toxic heavy metals in other ways.
Doctors alert enough to recognize a heavy metal poisoning problem generally prescribe chelating agents like the drug 2,3-Dimercaprol to bind to heavy metal ions and remove them from the body through its excretory system. These drugs have serious side effects, however. Fortunately, there is a very effective natural solution: The combination of cilantro and chlorella.
While it is mainly the cilantro that removes the heavy metals, chlorella is very important to prevent the body from being flooded by the toxins released by the cilantro. It is therefore important to always take the two in combination.
So, while taking a high-quality vitamin C supplement every day certainly has merit, it would perhaps be wise to also ensure that you add some cilantro and chlorella to your smoothie every morning.
For more news on how toxins may be making their way into your diet, visit Toxins.news
Sources include:
Tagged Under: China, supplements, toxins, vitamin C
