When it comes to outstanding commercially-produced nutritional supplements, the list is rather short. Far too many vitamins and supplements on the shelves of stores are made from chemical ingredients rather than natural sources. Yet we all know that vitamins and minerals should always come from plant sources, not chemical factories.
Alive! is one supplement that gets it right. This supplement is so good that it's almost surprising it's so widely available. Its vitamins and minerals come from whole food and superfood sources that are nothing short of miraculous in their ability to prevent and even reverse chronic disease. Of course, the Alive! label can't make such claims, but the scientific literature is full of clinical studies showing that these superfoods are powerful agents in reversing chronic disease like cancer, diabetes, heart disease and many more.
(By the way, I only review products that I use myself and strongly recommend. These reviews are never paid. Nature's Way has no idea this review is even being written. This is not an ad or an infomercial, it's a 100% independent review of an outstanding nutritional supplement.)
Let's take a closer look at what's inside by starting with the primary ingredient group: the green foods blend. This blend includes both spirulina and chlorella -- both are potent disease-fighting superfoods I've covered in great detail in a free report you can read called Superfoods For Optimum Health: Chlorella and Spirulina. Spirulina, in particular, contains powerful anti-cancer phytochemicals. Chlorella contains CGF (Chlorella Growth Factor) that helps rebuild damaged nerve tissues. Both of these superfoods are rich in chlorophyll, which cleanse the blood and detoxify the liver. Spirulina is also an outstanding source of digestible protein. In fact, ounce per ounce, it has twelve times the digestible protein of beef!
The remainder of the green food blend includes barley grass, dandelion (an outstanding herb for supporting healthy liver function and controlling blood sugar), wheat grass (potent anti-cancer phytochemicals), and several other ingredients. In combination, they are extremely powerful disease fighters and promoters of good health.
Next, Alive! contains a blend of amino acids, primarily derived from the green foods already mentioned. Following that, each serving contains 100mg of a "Garden Veggies" blend, which is basically powdered garden vegetables like parsley, kale and spinach. This is an important ingredient because few people consume enough vegetables. And vegetables provide powerful phytochemicals that fight disease and support optimum health. Many of the vegetables contained in Alive! are well known to reverse cancer, for example. They're covered in the book, Eat to Beat Cancer by Ralph Moss. Of course, it's always best to get your vegetables in raw form, not as a supplement powder, but in reality, since most people don't eat sufficient quantities of vegetables, this supplement is a welcomed alternative.
The next ingredient group is the "Orchard Fruits" blend, which includes powdered cranberries, blueberries, plums, strawberries and other fruits. This is also a very important ingredient group because these fruits provide another powerful assortment of disease-fighting phytochemicals that aren't available anywhere else. As always, you'll do better if you actually eat these fruits in their raw form, but this supplement offers a convenient way to get these healing nutrients into your body regardless of whether you've eaten at a fruit buffet that day.
The next group of ingredients in Alive! is the "MycoDefense Mushroom Blend" which contains a mixture of medicinal mushrooms. They can't claim this on the label, but these are the mushrooms shown to boost immune system function and actually reverse cancer in many patients. There's been a tremendous amount of promising research conducted in Japan on these mushrooms, and a product made from them is regularly consumed by cancer patients in Japan. Beyond just cancer patients, anyone wishing to boost their immune system function would benefit from consuming these mushrooms. And there are many other health benefits beyond the scope of this short review.
Next on the ingredients list, you'll find 100mg of a digestive enzyme blend. This is a handy group of substances that helps your body assimilate the nutritive elements contained in all the other ingredients mentioned here.
Following that, you'll find 100mg of their "Omega Fatty Acid Seed Blend" which contains powders of flax seeds and sunflower seeds. You're probably well aware of the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids and flax seeds, but in case you're not, the short version is that these are the "good fats" that support cardiovascular health and can even help reverse cardiovascular disease and many other disorders. Of course, there's not much oil in 100mg of dried flax seed powder, so don't consider this supplement to be a sufficient source of those oils. The fact that it contains flax seed powder is beneficial, but you definitely need more healthy oils than what you'll find here.
Lastly, Alive! contained a citris bioflavonoid complex, which offers yet another impressive array of immune system boosting phytochemicals.
If you put all this together, you have a rather impressive assortment of health-boosting, disease-busting plant-derived superfood ingredients that practically anyone would do well to add to their diet. There's not a person alive who wouldn't benefit from taking Alive!
The only problem with Alive! is that people don't take enough. The recommended daily dose is a mere 3 tablets a day. Personally, I take ten tablets, and that's on top of all the superfoods I take on the side. Alive! isn't a drug. It's food. You can't overdose with it. You could eat the entire bottle each day and be better for it. The recommended daily dose of 3 tablets is probably on the label to appease the FDA which doesn't want people to get too healthy from nutritional supplements because, after all, that would hurt the pharmaceutical trade if people actually started reversing their diseases through nutrition. But in reality, you can take as many of these tablets as you want. You can literally eat them like food because they are food.
One more thing: Alive! isn't necessarily the best value for your dollar when it comes to buying nutritional supplements. By my calculations, it comes out to around 26 cents per gram, which is roughly double the cost of buying chlorella and spirulina from my top recommended sources. Yet Alive! packs in a convenient array of other ingredients that add to its healing potency, so I think 26 cents a gram is certainly a fair price. You can shop around and find cheaper prices on isolated ingredients, but I don't think you'll find an all-in-one supplement like this one.
So who makes Alive? Nature's Way. They've been in the supplement business for years, and this is their best product yet. Highly recommended.
Where to get it: Any health food store, local or online.
What it's good for (here's the part the manufacturer can't tell you and the FDA doesn't want you to know): cancer, diabetes, heart disease, mental depression, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, digestive disorders, nervous system disorders, osteoporosis, obesity, malnutrition, Alzheimer's, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, liver disease, immune system function.
How much to take? this supplement is a food, not a drug. Personally, I take ten tablets each day. How much you take is up to you (check with your naturopathic physician).
About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher, author and award-winning journalist with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He has authored more than 1,800 articles and dozens of reports, guides and interviews on natural health topics, and he has authored and published several downloadable personal preparedness courses including a downloadable course focused on safety and self defense. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In mid 2010, Adams produced TV.NaturalNews.com, a natural health video sharing website offering user-generated videos on nutrition, green living, fitness and more. He's also the founder of a well known HTML email software company whose 'Email Marketing Director' software currently runs the NaturalNews subscription database. Adams is currently the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit, and regularly pursues cycling, nature photography, Capoeira and Pilates. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds.
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Wednesday, July 28, 2004
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