Fibromyalgia - Vitamins, Minerals, and The Essential Fatty Acids

No healing process can adequately begin in a chronic, debilitating disease such as fibromyalgia without the availability of the necessary nutrients required to allow the body to heal itself. It has been said by a wise counselor who teaches about the use of safe, non-toxic natural products that "given sufficient time and provided with the necessary nutrients, the body has an almost unlimited ability to heal itself." Unfortunately, we live in a time and in a society where obtaining the nutrients we need has become most difficult, if not impossible.

Vitamins must be supplied in our diet or by dietary supplements because with few exceptions, the body cannot manufacture or synthesize them. Vitamins are used to make substances that are vital participants in many of the chemical reactions in our cells and are essential for their proper function. In order to obtain the maximum benefit from the vitamins one consumes, it is necessary to make certain that they are both "bio-active" and also "bio-available". These terms are used to describe a vitamin preparation that has been shown to be absorbable into the body and to be formulated so that the ingredients work synergistically with the metabolic requirements of the body. The "building blocks" provided by proper vitamin supplementation are an absolutely necessary pre-requisite for the rebuilding process to begin in fibromyalgia.

While vitamins are derived from organic (living) sources, minerals are derived from non-organic (non-living) sources. These nutrients are involved in a multitude of biological and physiological processes necessary for the maintenance of health or in the rebuilding of bodies ravaged by the consequences of chronic illnesses such as fibromyalgia. While the amount of these essential nutrients is relatively small when compared to our overall food intake -- (we need on the average of 500 grams of carbohydrate, proteins and fats each day while only requiring about 1.5 grams of minerals, or 0.3% of daily food intake)-- these nutrients are so potent and important that without them we wouldn't be able to utilize the other 99.7% of food intake and a deficit in the amount of any of the minerals required would greatly and adversely affect our body's healing efforts. Sheldon Saul Hendler, MD, PhD, has stated in his "The Doctors' Vitamin and Mineral Encyclopedia" that mineral insufficiency is even more prevalent that vitamin insufficiency, further emphasizing the need for adequate daily mineral intake.

Then there are the essential fatty acids (EFAs). In the 1980's the health consequences of consuming a diet high in fat began to be ingrained in the consciousness of the population. The Surgeon General actually began a high priority campaign to educate consumers about the dangers of such dietary habits. Even though this was an overall beneficial endeavor, for many it produced a "throwing out the baby with the bath water" end result. Many persons went on low fat diets and therefore didn't ingest the essential fatty acids which are just that - ESSENTIAL. Foods high in the EFAs include plant seeds such as flax and cold water fish such as mackerel, salmon, herring, bluefish and sardines. Even those who don't consciously restrict their fat intake often have difficulty in reaching a sufficient EFA intake. One of the many important functions of the EFAs is their role in the construction of our cell walls. In order to have a healthy immune system, not only must we build and maintain our cell wall's integrity, but we must provide the EFAs in order to have the necessary building blocks to form the particular components of our immune system such as macrophages, lymphocytes, natural killer cells, immune system messengers, and in the production of antibodies.