Pycnogenol® (Pik-nah-gen-all) is a water extract from the bark of the French maritime pine grown as a mono-species forest, spread over the coastal region of south-west France. The unique source of Pycnogenol®, the "pine bark" has a well-established monograph based on macroscopic and microscopic findings defining its pharmacogonistic characteristics, an essential feature of the quality confirmation.
Pycnogenol® is produced by a validated manufacturing process following good agricultural practice (GAP) and good manufacturing practice (GMP). There is absolutely no application of pesticides during the growing of pine trees or toxic solvents during the manufacture of Pycnogenol®, there can be no pesticide or solvent in the finished active substance.
Pycnogenol® represents a natural blend of genetically programmed constant proportions of bioflavonoids including catechin, epicatechin, taxifolin, monomers, dimers of catechin and epicatechin, oligomeric procyanidnins and phenolic fruit acids such as ferulic acid and caffeic acid.
What is Pycnogenol®?
Pycnogenol® is the brand name for a premium herbal supplement extracted from the bark of the French maritime pine tree. That special pine bark is loaded with a concentrate of active bioflavonoids, which are also found in fresh fruits and vegetables. The extract from that bark is a potent blend of active compounds. Extensive research over a period of more than 30 years was dedicated to safety of Pycnogenol® and to substantiate the manifold benefits for human health of this extraordinary extract. Purity and potency of Pycnogenol® are continuously monitored and Horphag Research guarantees its constant high quality.
Where does Pycnogenol® come from?
The source of Pycnogenol® is a large forest of millions of acres in South-West France near the famous Bordeaux region. That forest is a plantation of French maritime pine trees. The pine trees are cultivated over a period of 30-50 years. Neither pesticides nor herbicides are used in that forest.
How does Pycnogenol® work for your health?
As one of the most potent natural scavenger of free radicals, Pycnogenol® mops-up all kinds of aggressive radicals, before they cause any damage by oxidative stress. Pycnogenol® boosts the immune system and it strengthens blood vessel walls and capillaries. It supports a better circulation by preventing stress-induced constriction of arteries and blood clotting. Additionally the extract contains substances, which act against cramps.
Free radicals - why fight them?
In every day life our body generates free radicals, especially in case of stress. These chemically unbalanced radicals cause damage to our cells by oxidizing them, in the same way as metal becomes rusty and destroyed. Hence, free radicals are dangerous and scientists believe that the continuous exposure to free radicals is the major cause of ageing and also of many degenerative diseases. As a super-antioxidant, Pycnogenol® counteracts that danger in two ways: It stimulates our cells to double their antioxidative power and it catches free radicals in the blood stream. That double defense makes Pycnogenol® unique.
What can Pycnogenol® do for women?
First of all, women are exposed to stress in the same way as men. Therefore, protection of arteries against blood clotting and constriction is also important for women to reduce the risk of heart infarction or stroke. Many women suffer from problems related to bad circulation: Swelling of the lower legs, cold hands and tendency to easy bruising for example. By sealing the capillaries and enhancing the microcirculation Pycnogenol® will be a relief. Another point of great interest for women is the protection of the skin against photo-ageing. Intake of Pycnogenol® reduces the risks of UV-radiation and oxidative stress for the skin. Finally, Pycnogenol® soothes menstrual disorders like cramps and pain.
It seems that nature has combined the constituents of the pine bark in a way to improve quality of life especially for women.
How does Pycnogenol® affect the beauty of my skin?
Pycnogenol® binds and protects collagen, the protein that keeps the skin tight and smooth. Enzymes and free radicals can no longer break down collagen and elastin fibers, the process enabling development of wrinkles. Pycnogenol® defies the accelerated ageing of the skin due to exposure to sunlight (photo-ageing). Pycnogenol® helps to lighten-up disturbing dark spots of the skin resulting from over-pigmentation. Pycnogenol® restores a good blood circulation in tiny capillaries of the skin. With abundance of water and oxygen and removal of waste products the skin is replenished with moisture, looking young and fresh.
How does Pycnogenol® benefit stressed business people?
Stress means your adrenaline is flowing during traffic jam, demanding phone calls and loads of bad news, that you smoke too much, if you are a smoker. Pycnogenol® counteracts the increase in blood pressure caused by stress and it helps to prevent the clotting of blood, which may occur in case of stress and smoking. Business people have to work in a sitting position and have to travel a lot. Pycnogenol® helps against swollen feet and reduced circulation caused by that immobile life style. Intake of Pycnogenol® may increase cognitive function, reduce the risks of stress and will prevent consequences of immobility.
What about diabetes and Pycnogenol®?
Diabetes produces oxidative stress and continuously damages blood vessels. The protective action of Pycnogenol® for blood vessels and capillaries helps to keep blood vessels in diabetes well functioning. Of course, a strict normalization of blood glucose is the best way to prevent these damages. Often a retinopathy is observed in diabetics. Without protection diabetics often develop retinopathy: Tiny capillaries nourishing the retina of the eye spill blood onto the retina causing vision loss. Intake of Pycnogenol® has been found to reduce the micro bleedings in the retina and to improve eyesight.
Is Pycnogenol® helpful for smokers?
For smokers, unable to quit smoking, Pycnogenol® gives a protection against the cardio-vascular risks by preventing the clotting of blood platelets, caused by smoking. Furthermore Pycnogenol® inhibits the nicotine-induced constriction of blood vessels. Both effects together help to reduce the risk of clogged arteries and veins, the primary cause of heart infarction and stroke.
How about chronic bronchitis and asthma?
Asthma and chronic bronchitis are both caused by chronic inflammation of lung tissue. Intake of Pycnogenol® decreases the amount of circulating inflammatory substances in the blood stream and has been shown to improve asthma symptoms and the lung function. It inhibits additionally those enzymes responsible for the destruction of lung tissue in chronic bronchitis.
Doing sport with Pycnogenol®?
Sport always creates oxidative stress, as the metabolism rises, reflected by a 10-20 fold increase of inhaled oxygen. Trained athletes cope with oxidative stress by an increased production of anti-oxidative enzymes, protecting their cells against the burst of free radicals. That's exactly what Pycnogenol® does: It stimulates the cells to produce more anti-oxidative enzymes and free radical scavengers. An investigation with recreational athletes on a treadmill has shown that Pycnogenol® increased endurance. Pycnogenol® protects against the overload of free radicals and allows a better performance.
Will I feel any difference when I take Pycnogenol®?
Not all people are alike. Sensitive persons feel revitalized, some even experience difficulties to fall asleep at night when taking Pycnogenol® in the evening. Many ailments you suffer from may be relieved after prolonged usage of Pycnogenol®. However, the main reason to take Pycnogenol® is to stay healthy and keep optimal body functions.
How much Pycnogenol® should I take?
For general use as a supplement, a typical daily dosage would be 1 mg per kilogram of body weight, or follow the directions on the packaging. Please consult your physician if you are taking Pycnogenol® for a specific condition.
Are there any side effects?
Because of its astringent taste, which occasionally causes minor stomach discomfort it is best to take Pycnogenol® with or after meals. To date, no serious adverse effects have been reported.
Is Pycnogenol® safe?
Pycnogenol® is one of the best-researched food supplements and it has passed extensive safety tests. Toxicity tests have demonstrated a very low toxicity. No serious adverse event had been observed in clinical trials. Mild side effects as gastro-intestinal discomfort, headache, nausea and dizziness were seldomly reported.
Should I use Pycnogenol® instead of vitamins?
No. Vitamins are as important for your health as Pycnogenol®. Pycnogenol® acts in synergy with vitamins. It recycles and spares vitamins C and E, so they act longer in your body. Take Pycnogenol® along with your vitamins and feel the difference.
Should pregnant women and small children take Pycnogenol®?
As a general precaution, pregnant women should not take Pycnogenol® within the first 3 months of pregnancy. Because there is no experience with small children, children under the age of 6 should not take Pycnogenol®. That precaution measure is given beside the fact that no adverse effects had been observed in test series.
From:
Horphag Research
71, avenue Louis Casai
P.O. Box 80
CH-1216 Cointrin Gen�ve
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Vitamin D and Calcium Supplementation Reduces Cancer Risk
A four year clinical was done that involved nearly 1200 women. This is the kind of study physicians love and always talk about when it comes to pharmaceutical trials. However, very few of them realize that there are these kinds of studies regarding the health benefits of taking supplements. Subjects were assigned to take 1400 mg of calcium alone, or 1400 mg of calcium plus 1100 IU of vitamin D, or a placebo. After only 4 years, the risk of developing any type of cancer was 60% lower in the vitamin D group. If you excluded the cancers diagnosed in the first year because these cancers were most likely already present before the study, there was a 77% reduction in all types of cancer in the vitamin D group.
The researchers pointed out that vitamin D has an effect on at least 200 human genes and is critical in the normal functioning of our immune system and cell division. When there is less than an optimal level of vitamin D, the regulatory process involving cell proliferation and differentiation becomes defective. This can lead to abnormal cell division and thus cancer growth. However, if individuals simply supplement their diet with 1100 IU of vitamin D, they can significantly decrease their risk of all cancers.
Source:Dr. Strand Health Nuggets
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Why Baby Boomers Are Having Heart Attacks
We can't blame cigarettes, the prime villain for our parents' heart disease.
By Melanie Haiken, Caring.com
In August 2009, film director John Hughes, an iconic figure to Baby Boomers for his '80s-era movies about teenage angst, died of a heart attack at age 59. The outpouring of nostalgia and grief was palpable, and it wasn't just because Hughes inspired such affection, though he was a beloved figure. It was also a collective cultural gasp, because 59-year-old Baby Boomer icons are not supposed to have heart attacks while visiting family in New York, which is how Hughes died.
I did a little research about Boomers and heart attacks, and came upon some startling information. Our generation, it seems, is experiencing heart disease in higher numbers than any previous generation and we can't blame cigarettes, prime villain for our parents' heart disease. The generation of adults currently between the ages of 46 and 64 (known as boomers thanks to a post World War II spike in the national birth rate) is less likely to smoke than our parents and grandparents. Yet we're getting heart disease earlier, and worse, than our parents and grandparents.
So what's to blame? Weight gain, pure and simple. The American Heart Association (AHA) reports that 73 percent of men and 60 percent of women ages 45 to 54 have a body mass index of 25 or higher, considered over the healthy weight limit for their height. And more than 30 percent of both sexes has a BMI of 30 or higher, which means they're considered obese. Along with weight gain comes elevated cholesterol, high blood pressure, and hardening of the arteries—all risk factors for heart disease.
Get even more specific, and the AHA's statistics are even more alarming:
- 43 percent of men and 44 percent of women ages 55 to 64 have high blood pressure.
- Among younger boomers, those ages 45 to 54, 34 percent of men and 25 percent of women have high blood pressure.
- Between 59 and 65 percent (depending on race) of men ages 45 to 54 have total cholesterol over 200 mg/200dL.
- Among women ages 45 to 54, 63 to 69 percent, depending on race, have elevated cholesterol.
What's more, according to Boomers themselves, they feel worse, too. An ongoing nationwide survey of Americans over age 50 called the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) found that those born between 1948 and 1953 reported having more pain, chronic health conditions, drinking problems and psychiatric conditions compared with the two previous generations, those born between 1936 and 1941, and those born between 1942 and 1947. The youngest group of seniors was also more likely to have reported difficulty in walking, climbing steps, getting up from a chair, kneeling or crouching and doing other normal daily physical tasks.
So what can we do? Here's a quick primer on taking charge of your heart health:
Stop smoking. Just keep trying; statistics show many people have to quit ten times or more before it sticks.
Reduce blood cholesterol. Fat lodged in your arteries triggers heart attack and stroke. If diet and exercise alone don’t get those numbers down, then medication is key. Aim for total cholesterol less than 200 mg/dL with LDL (bad) cholesterol less than 100mg/dL and HDL (good) cholesterol at 40 mg/dL or higher for men and 50 mg/dL or higher for women. Be sure, too, to ask your doctor about the new, more sensitive cholesterol panel tests now available.
Lower high blood pressure with exercise, diet, and drugs, if necessary. It’s the single largest risk factor for stroke. Goal is less than 120/80 mmHg.
Be physically active every day. Research has shown that getting 30 to 60 minutes of physical activity on most days of the week can help lower blood pressure, lower cholesterol and take off pounds or prevent them coming on board in the first place.
Aim for a healthy weight, which means a BMI of 25 or below.
Manage diabetes; even better, manage pre-diabetes so it doesn't turn into diabetes. Get a fasting glucose test, and, if you're at risk, talk to your doctor.
Reduce stress by taking up yoga, meditation, walking or another activity that leaves you feeling calm.
Limit alcohol to a drink a day or less. Drinking too much alcohol can raise blood pressure, cause heart failure and lead to stroke. Also, alcohol has lots of hidden calories, so cutting it out is an easy way to jump-start a diet.
Source: http://health.msn.com/health-topics/cholesterol/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100244254>1=31007
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Why Are Smart People So Ignorant When it Comes to Health, Vaccines and Vitamin D?
by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/026843_health_food_nutrition.html
A heart disease patient of late
Had an IQ of 168.
His brain was immense
But it lacked common sense
And it never engaged when he ate.-
by the Health Ranger
As an observer of human behavior, one of the most fascinating things I've ever witnessed is really smart people dying of diseases that are easily preventable through basic nutrition (vitamin D, plant juices, targeted supplements, superfoods, etc.). I know doctors dying of cancer who take chemotherapy over vitamin D supplements. I know members of MENSA who are killing themselves with junk foods and diabetes. I know extremely intelligent attorneys and physicists who are among the smartest people in their respective fields; but when it comes to basic health, they're completely ignorant.
In fact, if you look around at all the "smart" people you know, you're likely to find the vast majority of them are incredibly ignorant when it comes to their own health. They know nothing about basic nutrition, the benefits of superfoods or the dangers of pharmaceuticals. They eat processed junk foods, dairy products and food products contaminated with pesticides and toxic chemicals. They may be the smartest people in the world in their labs or offices, but when it comes to their own bodies, they are among the most ignorant people on the planet.
How can this be?
How can such high-IQ people remain so utterly ignorant when it comes to their own health?
There are two reasons, it turns out. And one of them will blow your mind...
How to become an expert in one area while abandoning the basics
To be an expert in astrophysics, you have to spend many years studying astrophysics. To get really good at law, you have to study law. If you want to get good at anything, you have to focus on it, learn about it, and invest some time learning how it works.
That's what I've done with the subject of health and nutrition (and you too, probably). And yet I'm not an expert in astrophysics, nor law, nor brain surgery. Importantly, I don't have to be an expert in those areas because I don't practice in those areas.
And yet -- here's the important part -- all those physicists, attorneys and surgeons do have a physical body they need to take care of. They all need to become proficient in basic human health, regardless of whatever other specialties they might pursue.
In other words, everyone with a body needs to learn the basics of taking care of that body. And yet most of the smartest people in the world today have spent essentially zero time learning about human health. So even with their high IQs, they make childish, ignorant decisions when it comes to their own health. They may be doctorate-level academic thinkers in their own fields, but when it comes to protecting health and preventing disease, these people haven't even graduated from kindergarten yet.
You see this quite frequently in the geek community, by the way. Junk food, pharmaceuticals and caffeinated soda drinks seem to go hand-in-hand with the wired, pale and frenzied computer brainiacs who are, after all, smarter than everybody else. They can write DRM decryption code with one hand while they eat MSG-laden fried snack chips with the other. Like everybody else, they are high-IQ, highly-specialized experts in their fields who remain woefully uneducated when it comes to their own health.
But how can so many smart people be so utterly unaware of the basics of nutrition? That vitamin D prevents cancer and influenza? That aspartame kills your brain cells? That processed meat (beef jerky, bacon, sausage, pepperoni) contains cancer-causing coloring chemicals designed to make the meat look rosy fresh?
The real reason is more insidious than you may have imagined. If you want to learn it, read on...
Good health is bad for business
Here's the real reason why so many smart people remain so uninformed when it comes to their own health:
The institutions of power in our modern world go out of their way to keep people nutritionally ignorant.
By "institutions of power," I mean our governments, our private industries (health care and others) and the corporations that pull all the strings behind the curtains.
What are the most powerful corporations in our world? Aside from the military bombs-and-bullets companies (who have their own scams running), the most powerful corporations are drug companies, media companies, agriculture companies and food & beverage companies.
Now think about this clearly for a minute: What do all these companies have in common? How do all these companies keep their economic machines running?
The answer is: Nutritional ignorance of the masses.
You see, the agriculture companies depend on nutritional ignorance in order to keep selling their processed ingredients to food companies which then turn around and sell those nutritionally-depleted products to consumers. Media companies depend on the advertising revenues from the promotion of junk foods and junk beverages, and drug companies depend on the revenues from all the diseases caused by the widespread consumption of all those products.
These four industries -- Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Media and Big Food -- have a dark, incestuous relationship that generates huge profits... but only as long as the masses remain nutritionally ignorant.
If people became proficient in nutrition, superfoods, vitamin D and natural foods, all four of these industries would suffer huge financial losses. Their sales and profits would plummet in a world where nutrition is common knowledge. Their continued financial success requires nutritional ignorance among the masses.
Enforcing nutritional ignorance
Powerful corporations, of course, require the services of oppressive government to enforce nutritional ignorance across the population. In the USA, the Food and Drug Administration is the primary enforcer of nutritional ignorance.
The FDA, as most NaturalNews readers well know, makes one of its primary missions the destruction of knowledge about nutrition and natural remedies. This is accomplished by outlawing any honest speech about nutrition from supplement companies, even going as far as threatening them with arrest and criminal prosecution if they dare link to scientific studies about nutrition (http://www.naturalnews.com/019366.html).
Meanwhile, the FDA openly approves health claims on processed food products sold by powerful corporations. This is designed to convince consumers that junk foods are healthful foods, even while healthful foods can make no claims whatsoever about their health benefits.
The FTC also gets in the game with its own brand of censorship, arresting and imprisoning owners of companies that offer natural cancer treatments based on good science. That's why no real cancer cures are offered in the U.S. anymore -- all the scientists who know the subject have either been imprisoned or run out of the country.
Medical journals also play a part in the ongoing nutritional ignorance of the masses by promoting intellectually dishonest information about the supposed benefits of pharmaceuticals while attacking natural remedies and ignoring nutritional cures.
The disease non-profit groups also play a big part in the nutritional ignorance scam. Note, carefully, how the cancer non-profits dare not teach people to take vitamin D supplements? If they did, cancer would cease to be such a big problem and those non-profits would lose membership (and power). So they continue the grand charade of ignoring known cancer cures while claiming they're still "searching for a cure."
I've even seen lots of smart people jogging along in those "race for the cure" events -- which are of course just a fundraising fraud. When I've asked these people where the money goes that they're donating, they just shrug their shoulders and say, "I dunno. I guess it goes to find a cure!"
These are very smart people, mind you, who have been sucked into this sucker's fundraising trap. They have no clue where the money is going (hint: almost all of it goes to cancer "recruiting" and screening efforts to scare more women into chemotherapy) and yet they jog along with all the other sheeple, somehow believing they are doing good in the world.
In all, these institutions and power centers accomplish something quite remarkable: The complete nutritional ignorance of virtually the entire population.
And with that, they shore up their own profit centers by keeping the American people ignorant and nutritionally illiterate.
What does it feel like to be a slave?
I can't help but bring up a touchy chapter of American history -- made even more touchy by the recent racial profiling debate regarding the police arrest of Prof. Henry Gates. It is an historical fact that slave plantations in America forbade their slaves to learn how to read or write. Literacy, you see, empowers people, and when slaves are empowered, they're harder to control.
Keeping the slaves illiterate made them easier to dominate. If you can't read road signs, it's harder to escape. If you can't write, it's difficult to secretly communicate with others (you can't even write a note!). Illiteracy, it turns out, is a highly effective strategy for keeping people enslaved.
Americans today are kept nutritionally illiterate for precisely the same reasons: To make them easier to control. To enslave them -- economically, medically and even chemically. Banning knowledge about natural remedies (the FDA) while promoting false science as truth (the medical journals) accomplishes the seemingly impossible task of enslaving an entire nation (including nearly all of the "smart" people).
As a result, we are slaves to that system of enforced nutritional ignorance.
It is a system that grows our (genetically modified) crops. That processes grains into depleted foods. That feeds us through vending machines and fast food restaurants. That sells us medicine when we become predictably sick. It is a system that turns free-thinking, intelligent people into blabbering, diseased victims who are so deeply entrained in the philosophy of enforced ignorance that they will actually defend it.
Ignorance is power.
Power over the people. Power to dominate minds. Power to make money off the suffering of others.
What the cruel, white plantation owners did to their black slaves in the 1800's, Big Government is doing to all of us today.
By the way, if the phrase "Ignorance is Power" seems familiar, that's because it's a paraphrase of one of the lines in George Orwell's novel 1984, which states:
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Power
This philosophy, it turns out, is embodied by our government today. "War is Peace" refers to the idea that the only way to achieve peace is to wage war. (This is precisely the foreign policy of the U.S. today.) "Freedom is Slavery" means that in order to achieve freedom, we must give up our rights and become slaves. (Also a key principle of the crooks running Washington today.) "Ignorance is Power" is as I've described here: The more the population can be kept ignorant and illiterate, the more easily they can be controlled by advertisers, government regulators and so-called "authority figures" like conventional medical doctors.
No coincidence
Thus, it is no coincidence that the U.S. population is kept nutritionally ignorant. The knowledge destruction campaigns of the FDA, combined with the health disinformation efforts of the medical establishment, have managed to keep even really smart people completely in the dark on nutrition fundamentals. People don't even know the truth about vitamin D! (http://www.naturalnews.com/025495_c...) and (http://www.naturalnews.com/021892.html)
And that, my friends, is how even really smart people can seem so incredibly unintelligent when it comes to nutrition. It is not mere coincidence; it is a devious, intentional plot to keep the population docile and ignorant. And you can really see the effectiveness of this scheme when it comes to things like vaccines. Thanks to widespread ignorance of vitamin D, people foolishly believe their only protection against influenza is a vaccine injection (even smart people!).
That so many people willingly line up to be injected with an untested, unproven and utterly ineffective vaccine cocktail is proof of how easy it is to control a population as long as the people are kept illiterate. People who lack good information have no way to ask questions. So they go along with whatever disinformation the "authorities" are pushing at the time, even if it's complete nonsense.
Even smart people, I've learned, have very poor discernment skills when it comes to questioning authority.
Why the schools are dumbed down
Now that you know all this, you instantly know why the public schools continue to be dumbed down: Keeping the population illiterate is easier if you start early!
For the most part, public education today is really just a shadow of a real education. Some students graduate from high schools with virtually no ability to read or write -- much like the slaves in America's plantation days. As illiterates, they are ripe for exploitation by powerful corporations and governments. They have no real ability to question what they're being told, or to stand up for their own rights. They have no ability to defend themselves against the campaigns of disinformation promoted by those in power.
America's schools do a very poor job of teaching critical thinking skills, but they do a fantastic job of churning out the next generation of illiterate wage slaves. And this, of course, is entirely the point. That's why you can't even call public schools a "failure" -- because they are actually quite good at what they're designed to do: Train people to be mind slaves who get along in society without asking too many questions.
Getting back to the question at the top of this article, the truth is that even really smart people are mind slaves, too, because you don't get through the world of academia by asking lots of questions. You survive academia by conforming. You get through medical school by swallowing whatever you're told and shutting down that part of your brain that used to ask skeptical questions. People who ask too many questions get flunked out.
Thus, all the people who become the top doctors, academics and leaders in our nation are, by definition, conformists. That's how they are so easily fooled by the disinformation campaigns waged by Big Pharma, the FDA and the medical journals. And that's how they end up with a double-doctorate degree in physics while chowing down a greasy, genetically-modified cheeseburger in the other.
Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/026843_health_food_nutrition.html
A heart disease patient of late
Had an IQ of 168.
His brain was immense
But it lacked common sense
And it never engaged when he ate.-
by the Health Ranger
As an observer of human behavior, one of the most fascinating things I've ever witnessed is really smart people dying of diseases that are easily preventable through basic nutrition (vitamin D, plant juices, targeted supplements, superfoods, etc.). I know doctors dying of cancer who take chemotherapy over vitamin D supplements. I know members of MENSA who are killing themselves with junk foods and diabetes. I know extremely intelligent attorneys and physicists who are among the smartest people in their respective fields; but when it comes to basic health, they're completely ignorant.
In fact, if you look around at all the "smart" people you know, you're likely to find the vast majority of them are incredibly ignorant when it comes to their own health. They know nothing about basic nutrition, the benefits of superfoods or the dangers of pharmaceuticals. They eat processed junk foods, dairy products and food products contaminated with pesticides and toxic chemicals. They may be the smartest people in the world in their labs or offices, but when it comes to their own bodies, they are among the most ignorant people on the planet.
How can this be?
How can such high-IQ people remain so utterly ignorant when it comes to their own health?
There are two reasons, it turns out. And one of them will blow your mind...
How to become an expert in one area while abandoning the basics
To be an expert in astrophysics, you have to spend many years studying astrophysics. To get really good at law, you have to study law. If you want to get good at anything, you have to focus on it, learn about it, and invest some time learning how it works.
That's what I've done with the subject of health and nutrition (and you too, probably). And yet I'm not an expert in astrophysics, nor law, nor brain surgery. Importantly, I don't have to be an expert in those areas because I don't practice in those areas.
And yet -- here's the important part -- all those physicists, attorneys and surgeons do have a physical body they need to take care of. They all need to become proficient in basic human health, regardless of whatever other specialties they might pursue.
In other words, everyone with a body needs to learn the basics of taking care of that body. And yet most of the smartest people in the world today have spent essentially zero time learning about human health. So even with their high IQs, they make childish, ignorant decisions when it comes to their own health. They may be doctorate-level academic thinkers in their own fields, but when it comes to protecting health and preventing disease, these people haven't even graduated from kindergarten yet.
You see this quite frequently in the geek community, by the way. Junk food, pharmaceuticals and caffeinated soda drinks seem to go hand-in-hand with the wired, pale and frenzied computer brainiacs who are, after all, smarter than everybody else. They can write DRM decryption code with one hand while they eat MSG-laden fried snack chips with the other. Like everybody else, they are high-IQ, highly-specialized experts in their fields who remain woefully uneducated when it comes to their own health.
But how can so many smart people be so utterly unaware of the basics of nutrition? That vitamin D prevents cancer and influenza? That aspartame kills your brain cells? That processed meat (beef jerky, bacon, sausage, pepperoni) contains cancer-causing coloring chemicals designed to make the meat look rosy fresh?
The real reason is more insidious than you may have imagined. If you want to learn it, read on...
Good health is bad for business
Here's the real reason why so many smart people remain so uninformed when it comes to their own health:
The institutions of power in our modern world go out of their way to keep people nutritionally ignorant.
By "institutions of power," I mean our governments, our private industries (health care and others) and the corporations that pull all the strings behind the curtains.
What are the most powerful corporations in our world? Aside from the military bombs-and-bullets companies (who have their own scams running), the most powerful corporations are drug companies, media companies, agriculture companies and food & beverage companies.
Now think about this clearly for a minute: What do all these companies have in common? How do all these companies keep their economic machines running?
The answer is: Nutritional ignorance of the masses.
You see, the agriculture companies depend on nutritional ignorance in order to keep selling their processed ingredients to food companies which then turn around and sell those nutritionally-depleted products to consumers. Media companies depend on the advertising revenues from the promotion of junk foods and junk beverages, and drug companies depend on the revenues from all the diseases caused by the widespread consumption of all those products.
These four industries -- Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Media and Big Food -- have a dark, incestuous relationship that generates huge profits... but only as long as the masses remain nutritionally ignorant.
If people became proficient in nutrition, superfoods, vitamin D and natural foods, all four of these industries would suffer huge financial losses. Their sales and profits would plummet in a world where nutrition is common knowledge. Their continued financial success requires nutritional ignorance among the masses.
Enforcing nutritional ignorance
Powerful corporations, of course, require the services of oppressive government to enforce nutritional ignorance across the population. In the USA, the Food and Drug Administration is the primary enforcer of nutritional ignorance.
The FDA, as most NaturalNews readers well know, makes one of its primary missions the destruction of knowledge about nutrition and natural remedies. This is accomplished by outlawing any honest speech about nutrition from supplement companies, even going as far as threatening them with arrest and criminal prosecution if they dare link to scientific studies about nutrition (http://www.naturalnews.com/019366.html).
Meanwhile, the FDA openly approves health claims on processed food products sold by powerful corporations. This is designed to convince consumers that junk foods are healthful foods, even while healthful foods can make no claims whatsoever about their health benefits.
The FTC also gets in the game with its own brand of censorship, arresting and imprisoning owners of companies that offer natural cancer treatments based on good science. That's why no real cancer cures are offered in the U.S. anymore -- all the scientists who know the subject have either been imprisoned or run out of the country.
Medical journals also play a part in the ongoing nutritional ignorance of the masses by promoting intellectually dishonest information about the supposed benefits of pharmaceuticals while attacking natural remedies and ignoring nutritional cures.
The disease non-profit groups also play a big part in the nutritional ignorance scam. Note, carefully, how the cancer non-profits dare not teach people to take vitamin D supplements? If they did, cancer would cease to be such a big problem and those non-profits would lose membership (and power). So they continue the grand charade of ignoring known cancer cures while claiming they're still "searching for a cure."
I've even seen lots of smart people jogging along in those "race for the cure" events -- which are of course just a fundraising fraud. When I've asked these people where the money goes that they're donating, they just shrug their shoulders and say, "I dunno. I guess it goes to find a cure!"
These are very smart people, mind you, who have been sucked into this sucker's fundraising trap. They have no clue where the money is going (hint: almost all of it goes to cancer "recruiting" and screening efforts to scare more women into chemotherapy) and yet they jog along with all the other sheeple, somehow believing they are doing good in the world.
In all, these institutions and power centers accomplish something quite remarkable: The complete nutritional ignorance of virtually the entire population.
And with that, they shore up their own profit centers by keeping the American people ignorant and nutritionally illiterate.
What does it feel like to be a slave?
I can't help but bring up a touchy chapter of American history -- made even more touchy by the recent racial profiling debate regarding the police arrest of Prof. Henry Gates. It is an historical fact that slave plantations in America forbade their slaves to learn how to read or write. Literacy, you see, empowers people, and when slaves are empowered, they're harder to control.
Keeping the slaves illiterate made them easier to dominate. If you can't read road signs, it's harder to escape. If you can't write, it's difficult to secretly communicate with others (you can't even write a note!). Illiteracy, it turns out, is a highly effective strategy for keeping people enslaved.
Americans today are kept nutritionally illiterate for precisely the same reasons: To make them easier to control. To enslave them -- economically, medically and even chemically. Banning knowledge about natural remedies (the FDA) while promoting false science as truth (the medical journals) accomplishes the seemingly impossible task of enslaving an entire nation (including nearly all of the "smart" people).
As a result, we are slaves to that system of enforced nutritional ignorance.
It is a system that grows our (genetically modified) crops. That processes grains into depleted foods. That feeds us through vending machines and fast food restaurants. That sells us medicine when we become predictably sick. It is a system that turns free-thinking, intelligent people into blabbering, diseased victims who are so deeply entrained in the philosophy of enforced ignorance that they will actually defend it.
Ignorance is power.
Power over the people. Power to dominate minds. Power to make money off the suffering of others.
What the cruel, white plantation owners did to their black slaves in the 1800's, Big Government is doing to all of us today.
By the way, if the phrase "Ignorance is Power" seems familiar, that's because it's a paraphrase of one of the lines in George Orwell's novel 1984, which states:
War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Power
This philosophy, it turns out, is embodied by our government today. "War is Peace" refers to the idea that the only way to achieve peace is to wage war. (This is precisely the foreign policy of the U.S. today.) "Freedom is Slavery" means that in order to achieve freedom, we must give up our rights and become slaves. (Also a key principle of the crooks running Washington today.) "Ignorance is Power" is as I've described here: The more the population can be kept ignorant and illiterate, the more easily they can be controlled by advertisers, government regulators and so-called "authority figures" like conventional medical doctors.
No coincidence
Thus, it is no coincidence that the U.S. population is kept nutritionally ignorant. The knowledge destruction campaigns of the FDA, combined with the health disinformation efforts of the medical establishment, have managed to keep even really smart people completely in the dark on nutrition fundamentals. People don't even know the truth about vitamin D! (http://www.naturalnews.com/025495_c...) and (http://www.naturalnews.com/021892.html)
And that, my friends, is how even really smart people can seem so incredibly unintelligent when it comes to nutrition. It is not mere coincidence; it is a devious, intentional plot to keep the population docile and ignorant. And you can really see the effectiveness of this scheme when it comes to things like vaccines. Thanks to widespread ignorance of vitamin D, people foolishly believe their only protection against influenza is a vaccine injection (even smart people!).
That so many people willingly line up to be injected with an untested, unproven and utterly ineffective vaccine cocktail is proof of how easy it is to control a population as long as the people are kept illiterate. People who lack good information have no way to ask questions. So they go along with whatever disinformation the "authorities" are pushing at the time, even if it's complete nonsense.
Even smart people, I've learned, have very poor discernment skills when it comes to questioning authority.
Why the schools are dumbed down
Now that you know all this, you instantly know why the public schools continue to be dumbed down: Keeping the population illiterate is easier if you start early!
For the most part, public education today is really just a shadow of a real education. Some students graduate from high schools with virtually no ability to read or write -- much like the slaves in America's plantation days. As illiterates, they are ripe for exploitation by powerful corporations and governments. They have no real ability to question what they're being told, or to stand up for their own rights. They have no ability to defend themselves against the campaigns of disinformation promoted by those in power.
America's schools do a very poor job of teaching critical thinking skills, but they do a fantastic job of churning out the next generation of illiterate wage slaves. And this, of course, is entirely the point. That's why you can't even call public schools a "failure" -- because they are actually quite good at what they're designed to do: Train people to be mind slaves who get along in society without asking too many questions.
Getting back to the question at the top of this article, the truth is that even really smart people are mind slaves, too, because you don't get through the world of academia by asking lots of questions. You survive academia by conforming. You get through medical school by swallowing whatever you're told and shutting down that part of your brain that used to ask skeptical questions. People who ask too many questions get flunked out.
Thus, all the people who become the top doctors, academics and leaders in our nation are, by definition, conformists. That's how they are so easily fooled by the disinformation campaigns waged by Big Pharma, the FDA and the medical journals. And that's how they end up with a double-doctorate degree in physics while chowing down a greasy, genetically-modified cheeseburger in the other.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Anti-Cancer Properties of CoQ10
Source: Dr Ray Strand - newsletter@bionutrition.org
Exciting new research is showing that CoQ10 is able to program cancer cells to self-destruct. This finding was one of several from recent studies conducted by researchers at the University of Miami (FL) using CoQ10 in supplementation. CoQ10 was found to change the genetic makeup of the cancer cell, which allowed the cancer cell to kill itself without harming normal cells. Essentially, CoQ10 set off a natural process of cell death of the cancer cells called apoptosis. The genetic makeup of normal cells was not affected.
I have observed this phenomenon clinically in many of my cancer patients. This is why I have always strongly recommended high doses of CoQ10 for all my cancer patients. Dr. Peter Langsjoen who is the head of the CoQ10 Society International has reported case studies of women who were sent home to die because of metastatic breast cancer to bone and liver which went into spontaneous remission just using CoQ10. Every cancer patient needs to be taking high doses of CoQ10 (500 to 600 mg of powder form or 180 to 200 mg of gel form) along with a complete and balanced antioxidant and mineral tablets.
Exciting new research is showing that CoQ10 is able to program cancer cells to self-destruct. This finding was one of several from recent studies conducted by researchers at the University of Miami (FL) using CoQ10 in supplementation. CoQ10 was found to change the genetic makeup of the cancer cell, which allowed the cancer cell to kill itself without harming normal cells. Essentially, CoQ10 set off a natural process of cell death of the cancer cells called apoptosis. The genetic makeup of normal cells was not affected.
I have observed this phenomenon clinically in many of my cancer patients. This is why I have always strongly recommended high doses of CoQ10 for all my cancer patients. Dr. Peter Langsjoen who is the head of the CoQ10 Society International has reported case studies of women who were sent home to die because of metastatic breast cancer to bone and liver which went into spontaneous remission just using CoQ10. Every cancer patient needs to be taking high doses of CoQ10 (500 to 600 mg of powder form or 180 to 200 mg of gel form) along with a complete and balanced antioxidant and mineral tablets.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Early Detection of Cancer
Most of the success we have had in battling cancer over the past several decades is the result of diagnosing cancers earlier. This is why most physicians encourage their patients to get a mammogram, have a PSA blood test or have a colonoscopy. These tests have been designed to try to diagnose cancers earlier and have them removed before they spread. Remember once cancers have spread or advanced enough to cause symptoms, it is generally too late. Now we have had some improved success with blood-borne cancers like lymphoma and leukemia as well as tumors like testicular cancer; however, cancer deaths continue to rise.
I still would recommend that everyone consider having a colonoscopy every 5 years after the age of 50. Almost all colon cancers begin as benign polyps, which can be removed through the scope before they become cancerous. Occasionally having a mammogram after age 40 is also a good idea; however, I am not sure that an annual mammogram is the best way to go. If you have the opportunity in your area to have thermography, I would take advantage of this testing. Having a complete physical with bloodwork annually after the age of 50 is also a good idea.
Source: newsletter@bionutrition.org
I still would recommend that everyone consider having a colonoscopy every 5 years after the age of 50. Almost all colon cancers begin as benign polyps, which can be removed through the scope before they become cancerous. Occasionally having a mammogram after age 40 is also a good idea; however, I am not sure that an annual mammogram is the best way to go. If you have the opportunity in your area to have thermography, I would take advantage of this testing. Having a complete physical with bloodwork annually after the age of 50 is also a good idea.
Source: newsletter@bionutrition.org
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Vitamin D deficiencies widespread among pregnant women and infants despite prenatal vitamin usage
Vitamin D deficiency early in life is associated with rickets, a disorder characterized by soft bones. New research has shown that despite taking a prenatal vitamin, vitamin D deficiency is very common in pregnant women and newborn infants. Higher-dose supplementation and increased sun exposure is needed to improve maternal and infant vitamin D status.
Even among those taking prenatal multivitamin supplements, vitamin D levels were found to be insufficient or deficient in pregnant women, particularly in African-American women and women living in northern regions, according to new research published in the Journal of Nutrition. Researchers took blood samples from 400 pregnant women - 200 black women and 200 white women - before 22 weeks gestation and again after delivery.
More than 80% of African American women and nearly half of white women tested at delivery had levels of vitamin D that were insufficient, even though more than 90% of them used prenatal vitamins during pregnancy.
In addition, umbilical cord blood from newborns showed 92.4% of African American babies and 66.1% of white infants had insufficient vitamin D levels at birth, leaving them at risk for rickets and other health problems. A newborn relies completely on its mother for its vitamin D stores.
These results suggest that black and white pregnant women and newborns residing in the northern US are at high risk of vitamin D insufficiency, even when mothers regularly take prenatal vitamins. Higher-dose supplementation is needed to improve maternal and infant vitamin D status.
Source: J. Nutr. 137:447-452, February 2007
Monday, June 8, 2009
Vitamin D Deficiency Causes Multiple Sclerosis in Children
Sunday, June 07, 2009 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer of Natural News
Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/026408_Vitamin_D_multiple_sclerosis_disease.html
Children who develop multiple sclerosis have substantially lower levels of vitamin D than children who do not develop the disease, according to a series of studies presented at an international conference on multiple sclerosis in Montreal.
Multiple sclerosis is a degenerative disease of the nervous system in which the myelin sheath that insulates nerve cells breaks down, leading to problems in the transmission of nervous signals. Symptoms can range from tingling and numbness to tremors, paralysis or blindness. An estimated 2.5 million people around the world suffer from the disease, which is rarely diagnosed before the age of 15.
In one study, researchers from the University of Toronto tested the vitamin D blood levels of 125 children who had exhibited symptoms indicating some form of damage to the myelin sheath.
"Three-quarters of our subjects were below the optimal levels for vitamin D," lead researcher Heather Hanwell said.
After a year, the researchers compared the data from the 20 children who had since been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis with those who had not exhibited any further demyelinating symptoms. They found that the average vitamin D levels of children who had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis were substantially lower than those of the other children. Among the diagnosed children, 68 percent of children were actually deficient in the vitamin.
A similar study was conducted by researchers from Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.
"Seventeen of 19 children who had been diagnosed with MS had vitamin D levels below the target level," researcher Brenda Banwell said.
Researchers have suspected a connection between vitamin D and multiple sclerosis for many years, ever since discovering that the disease is more common at more northern latitudes. Because the body synthesizes vitamin D upon exposure to sunlight, deficiency is much more common in places where the sun is weaker, especially during the winter.
"There is a very consistent pattern of latitude and multiple sclerosis," said epidemiologist and multiple sclerosis researcher Cedric Garland of the University of California-San Diego.
Hanwell directly linked Canada's northern latitude to its high rates of multiple sclerosis.
"In Canada for six months of the year the sun is not intense enough for us to manufacture vitamin D in our skin," she said.
Canada has one of the highest multiple sclerosis rates in the world. One of the few countries with a higher rate is Scotland, which has regions reached by only a quarter of all available sunlight. Recent research has confirmed a strong connection in Scotland between vitamin D deficiency and poor health status.
"People have been looking for things in the environment that might account for why Canada has such a high MS risk, and this is one of those factors," Banwell said.
It remains unclear exactly how vitamin D might influence multiple sclerosis risk, but researchers believe it may have to do with the immune system. New research continues to illuminate the role that vitamin D plays in the immune system, providing protection against cancer, tuberculosis and autoimmune diseases.
Many health researchers believe that multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease.
"Vitamin D acts as an immune modulator," Banwell said. "On our immune cells there are what are known as receptors, a docking mechanism, for vitamin D. In MS, there are many lines of evidence that immune cells are not regulated properly."
Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/026408_Vitamin_D_multiple_sclerosis_disease.html
Children who develop multiple sclerosis have substantially lower levels of vitamin D than children who do not develop the disease, according to a series of studies presented at an international conference on multiple sclerosis in Montreal.
Multiple sclerosis is a degenerative disease of the nervous system in which the myelin sheath that insulates nerve cells breaks down, leading to problems in the transmission of nervous signals. Symptoms can range from tingling and numbness to tremors, paralysis or blindness. An estimated 2.5 million people around the world suffer from the disease, which is rarely diagnosed before the age of 15.
In one study, researchers from the University of Toronto tested the vitamin D blood levels of 125 children who had exhibited symptoms indicating some form of damage to the myelin sheath.
"Three-quarters of our subjects were below the optimal levels for vitamin D," lead researcher Heather Hanwell said.
After a year, the researchers compared the data from the 20 children who had since been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis with those who had not exhibited any further demyelinating symptoms. They found that the average vitamin D levels of children who had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis were substantially lower than those of the other children. Among the diagnosed children, 68 percent of children were actually deficient in the vitamin.
A similar study was conducted by researchers from Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children.
"Seventeen of 19 children who had been diagnosed with MS had vitamin D levels below the target level," researcher Brenda Banwell said.
Researchers have suspected a connection between vitamin D and multiple sclerosis for many years, ever since discovering that the disease is more common at more northern latitudes. Because the body synthesizes vitamin D upon exposure to sunlight, deficiency is much more common in places where the sun is weaker, especially during the winter.
"There is a very consistent pattern of latitude and multiple sclerosis," said epidemiologist and multiple sclerosis researcher Cedric Garland of the University of California-San Diego.
Hanwell directly linked Canada's northern latitude to its high rates of multiple sclerosis.
"In Canada for six months of the year the sun is not intense enough for us to manufacture vitamin D in our skin," she said.
Canada has one of the highest multiple sclerosis rates in the world. One of the few countries with a higher rate is Scotland, which has regions reached by only a quarter of all available sunlight. Recent research has confirmed a strong connection in Scotland between vitamin D deficiency and poor health status.
"People have been looking for things in the environment that might account for why Canada has such a high MS risk, and this is one of those factors," Banwell said.
It remains unclear exactly how vitamin D might influence multiple sclerosis risk, but researchers believe it may have to do with the immune system. New research continues to illuminate the role that vitamin D plays in the immune system, providing protection against cancer, tuberculosis and autoimmune diseases.
Many health researchers believe that multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease.
"Vitamin D acts as an immune modulator," Banwell said. "On our immune cells there are what are known as receptors, a docking mechanism, for vitamin D. In MS, there are many lines of evidence that immune cells are not regulated properly."
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Lutein and Zeaxanthin, Essential Nutrients for the Eyes
Original article from: http://my-healths.blogspot.com/2009/04/lutein-and-zeaxanthin-essential.html
Besides the elderly, those with family history that have eye problems, smokers and diabetes sufferer also have higher risk to get eye diseases.
Exposures to sunlight also accelerate aging process of the eyes. Furthermore, less antioxidant recruitment which protects the eyes also makes your risk higher.
There are many theories that support free radical results of excessive sunlight exposure, air pollution and protein oxidation in the eyes can damage the macula at the retina.
Macula is richest part with lutein and zeaxanthin which are antioxidants in their properties.
Lutein and zeaxanthin are carotenoid can be acquired naturally from of yellow colored and dark green leaves vegetables.
Nutrient intakes that antioxidant in nature also can prevent and slow down cataract. Furthermore there have been many clinical studies that support this statement.
Research published in Archives of Ophthalmology of January 2008 states that 35,000 volunteers who increased their intake of lutein, zeaxanthin and vitamin E have lower risk to experience cataract.
As up to now there are no cure for Age-related macular degeneration (ARMD), attention has been focused to supplements which can prevent and delay this degeneration progress.
Progress of macula degeneration also has been proven to be closely related to lack of macula pigments which are consist of lutein and zeaxanthin.
Based on clinical studies, intake of both of these carotenoids can increase the level of lutein and zeaxanthin in macula and also improved ARMD sufferer's sight.
Intake supplement which possess combination of lutein and zeaxanthin with other antioxidants such as beta carotene, vitamin C or E may even help to safeguard the eye's health.
Besides the elderly, those with family history that have eye problems, smokers and diabetes sufferer also have higher risk to get eye diseases.
Exposures to sunlight also accelerate aging process of the eyes. Furthermore, less antioxidant recruitment which protects the eyes also makes your risk higher.
There are many theories that support free radical results of excessive sunlight exposure, air pollution and protein oxidation in the eyes can damage the macula at the retina.
Macula is richest part with lutein and zeaxanthin which are antioxidants in their properties.
Lutein and zeaxanthin are carotenoid can be acquired naturally from of yellow colored and dark green leaves vegetables.
Nutrient intakes that antioxidant in nature also can prevent and slow down cataract. Furthermore there have been many clinical studies that support this statement.
Research published in Archives of Ophthalmology of January 2008 states that 35,000 volunteers who increased their intake of lutein, zeaxanthin and vitamin E have lower risk to experience cataract.
As up to now there are no cure for Age-related macular degeneration (ARMD), attention has been focused to supplements which can prevent and delay this degeneration progress.
Progress of macula degeneration also has been proven to be closely related to lack of macula pigments which are consist of lutein and zeaxanthin.
Based on clinical studies, intake of both of these carotenoids can increase the level of lutein and zeaxanthin in macula and also improved ARMD sufferer's sight.
Intake supplement which possess combination of lutein and zeaxanthin with other antioxidants such as beta carotene, vitamin C or E may even help to safeguard the eye's health.
Monday, May 4, 2009
MY EXPERIENCE WITH AUTISM
Lately there has been more and more cases of autism and the sad thing is that most parents do not know what they can do to give their loved ones a better quality of life. Support for people suffering from autism is very lacking outside USA. While browsing through Youtube I came across this video by someone with autism. It is my hope that it might prove useful for some of you.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wt1IY3ffoU
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wt1IY3ffoU
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Multivitamins and Healthy Immune Function
An article published in the British Journal of Nutrition summarizes the roles of select vitamins and trace elements in immune function. Adequate intakes of micronutrients are required for the immune system to function efficiently. Micronutrient deficiency suppresses immunity by affecting antibody responses, leading to imbalances in the immune system. This situation increases susceptibility to infections, which increases disease and death risk. In addition, infections aggravate micronutrient deficiencies by reducing nutrient intake, increasing losses, and interfering with utilization by altering metabolic pathways. Inadequate intakes of micronutrients are common in people with eating disorders, smokers (active and passive), individuals with chronic alcohol abuse, certain diseases, during pregnancy and lactation, and in the elderly.
Micronutrients contribute to the body's natural defenses on three levels by supporting physical barriers (skin/mucosa), cellular immunity, and antibody production. Vitamins A, C, E, and the mineral zinc assist in enhancing the skin barrier function. Vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, and folic acid, and the minerals iron, zinc, copper and selenium work synergistically to support the protective activities of the immune cells. Finally, all these micronutrients, with the exception of vitamin C and iron, are essential for the production of antibodies.
Overall, inadequate intake and status of these vitamins and minerals may lead to a suppressed immune system, which increases the risk of infections and aggravates malnutrition. Therefore, supplementation with a multivitamin that includes these micronutrients can support the body's natural defense system by enhancing all three levels of immunity.
Source: Br J Nutr. 2007 Oct;98 Suppl 1:S29-35.
Micronutrients contribute to the body's natural defenses on three levels by supporting physical barriers (skin/mucosa), cellular immunity, and antibody production. Vitamins A, C, E, and the mineral zinc assist in enhancing the skin barrier function. Vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, and folic acid, and the minerals iron, zinc, copper and selenium work synergistically to support the protective activities of the immune cells. Finally, all these micronutrients, with the exception of vitamin C and iron, are essential for the production of antibodies.
Overall, inadequate intake and status of these vitamins and minerals may lead to a suppressed immune system, which increases the risk of infections and aggravates malnutrition. Therefore, supplementation with a multivitamin that includes these micronutrients can support the body's natural defense system by enhancing all three levels of immunity.
Source: Br J Nutr. 2007 Oct;98 Suppl 1:S29-35.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Why Cholesterol-Free Foods Can Be Dangerous
By Dr. W. Gifford Jones
March 27, 2005
Today the word "cholesterol" has become as familiar to Americans as motherhood and apple pie. But unlike these two it's unloved and meant to be avoided. So if you're a marketing whiz kid, would you try to increase sales with a red label stating your product is "cholesterol free"? Unfortunately, life is never so simple and there are several marketing conundrums for both promoters and unsuspecting consumers. And do cholesterol-lowering drugs (CLDs) exchange one devil for another?
Dr. Khhursheed Jeejeebhoy, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, reported in The Medical Post that consumers don't realize that many cholesterol-free foods contain large amounts of sugar and trans-fatty acids .
This is not a healthy combination. Too much sugar and excess calories of any kind are linked to obesity, diabetes and heart disease. And trans-fatty acids have been associated with cardiovascular problems.
But not only advertising companies have befuddled the public about nutrition. What researchers claim to be gospel one day is not the whole truth the next. It's no wonder that many people are confused about cholesterol, fats and other dietary proposals.
The first misconception occurred when blood cholesterol level became the be-all-and-end-all as the cause of heart disease. Some researchers questioned that.
They discovered that almost 50 per cent of patients with coronary artery disease had normal blood cholesterol levels. In fact, Dr. Jeejeebhoy points out that some East Asians with severe coronary disease were found to have either normal or low levels of blood cholesterol.
Another study showed that men in Scotland and Sweden had the same blood cholesterol levels, but Scottish males had three times the number of heart attacks as the Swedes. Obviously something else was happening. Were the Scots drinking too much of their own scotch? Or not eating enough vegetables and fruits which are harder to get in Scotland?
Later researchers concluded that saturated fats were the bad guys on the street increasing blood cholesterol. This is when consumers began to use margarine with polyunsaturated fats and started cooking food in corn oil rather than butter.
Recently scientists discovered that there are also good and bad polyunsaturated fatty acids. The bad ones, Omega-6 fatty acids present in cookies and packaged foods, promote inflammation and blood clots. Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish decrease the risk of inflammation and heart attack.
Today another factor has been found to play an increasing role in heart disease. It's called insulin resistance. Type 1 diabetes is a genetic problem in which too little insulin is produced by the pancreas. Type 2 diabetes occurs when there are sufficient amounts of insulin but the cells refuse to accept it. It's like having a tank full of gas, but the engine won't use it because of obesity.
Today obesity causes 90 percent of diabetes. And 50 per cent of diabetics are destined to die from heart disease. What a sad commentary on our way of life!
I don't have a crystal ball to predict the outcome of all these studies. At the moment millions of people are taking cholesterol-lowering drugs (CLDs). A recent report published in The New England Journal of Medicine shows what happens when larger doses of Lipitor, the most popular of the CLDs, are prescribed.
As suspected it decreased the risk of dying from cardiovascular diseases. But they increased the risk of dying from other diseases and failed to show an overall reduction in deaths. In effect, patients were exchanging one way of dying for another. This is not an enticing trade.
I wish I could be convinced that the billions spent on cholesterol-lowering drugs is a good bargain. But I've always been concerned that it's questionable to push for lower and lower levels of cholesterol, a vital substance for many bodily functions. Particularly, when we know that CLDs have been associated with liver inflammation, muscle degeneration and death.
I believe history will show that more lives would be saved if people paid more attention to the numbers on the weight scale, and stayed away from packaged foods loaded with calories, sugar and the wrong fats.
Source: http://www.canadafreepress.com/medical/cardio-vascular032705.htm
Omega-3 fatty acids key to cell health
By Judy Fortin
CNN
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The name sounds like something out of a science fiction novel, but omega-3 fatty acids are a necessary part of our diet. "Every cell in the body requires omega-3 to function normally," says Dr. Andrew Stoll, author of "The Omega-3 Connection." "They are a class of fats, good fats that are actually as essential as vitamins to our health."
Researchers discovered that omega-3 protects the heart about 30 years ago. Doctors now know that the compound controls inflammation and protects cells by forming part of the cell membrane. "We know that omega-3 can protect the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, really every organ system that we know of, including the brain," says Stoll.
The problem is that most Americans don't get enough of the compound in their diet. Part of the reason, Stoll says, is they don't eat enough fish.
Fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, herring and sardines are the best sources of omega-3 for the diet. For most patients, Stoll recommends one or two servings of the cooked fish a week. Unlike other fish, which store the compound in their liver, the four recommended varieties store the compound in their muscles, which are eaten by humans.
While certain fish are loaded with omega-3 and protein, they also contain some mercury, dioxins and PCBs. "It's a difficult situation to balance out," explains Stoll. "You need to eat some fish to be healthy, but if you eat too much fish, you're putting yourself at risk. ... So most Americans just can't eat enough fish to get omega-3 in their diet."
Stoll cautions pregnant women, those who are nursing and young children from eating any fish. He says toxins can be harmful to developing babies and youngsters.
Stoll suggests taking a daily fish oil supplement instead or finding another source. Vegetarians, for instance, can get the compound from specially enriched omega-3 eggs.
Flaxseed is another source of a different type of omega-3. Stoll says it's a good way to increase your fiber, but flax doesn't offer the same benefits of the compound found in fatty fish. He also warns that the bodies of two-thirds of the population cannot convert the omega-3 found in flaxseed.
According to Stoll, "Taking more than three tablespoons a day of raw flaxseed or ground flaxseed can inhibit the uptake of iodine in the thyroid, which can produce a goiter or enlargement of the thyroid gland."
While Stoll doesn't call omega-3 a dietary miracle, he does say, "We need it for optimal health. ... If you have very little omega-3 in your diet, you will be prone to inflammatory disorders."
Judy Fortin is a correspondent with CNN Medical News
CNN
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The name sounds like something out of a science fiction novel, but omega-3 fatty acids are a necessary part of our diet. "Every cell in the body requires omega-3 to function normally," says Dr. Andrew Stoll, author of "The Omega-3 Connection." "They are a class of fats, good fats that are actually as essential as vitamins to our health."
Researchers discovered that omega-3 protects the heart about 30 years ago. Doctors now know that the compound controls inflammation and protects cells by forming part of the cell membrane. "We know that omega-3 can protect the heart, the lungs, the kidneys, really every organ system that we know of, including the brain," says Stoll.
The problem is that most Americans don't get enough of the compound in their diet. Part of the reason, Stoll says, is they don't eat enough fish.
Fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, herring and sardines are the best sources of omega-3 for the diet. For most patients, Stoll recommends one or two servings of the cooked fish a week. Unlike other fish, which store the compound in their liver, the four recommended varieties store the compound in their muscles, which are eaten by humans.
While certain fish are loaded with omega-3 and protein, they also contain some mercury, dioxins and PCBs. "It's a difficult situation to balance out," explains Stoll. "You need to eat some fish to be healthy, but if you eat too much fish, you're putting yourself at risk. ... So most Americans just can't eat enough fish to get omega-3 in their diet."
Stoll cautions pregnant women, those who are nursing and young children from eating any fish. He says toxins can be harmful to developing babies and youngsters.
Stoll suggests taking a daily fish oil supplement instead or finding another source. Vegetarians, for instance, can get the compound from specially enriched omega-3 eggs.
Flaxseed is another source of a different type of omega-3. Stoll says it's a good way to increase your fiber, but flax doesn't offer the same benefits of the compound found in fatty fish. He also warns that the bodies of two-thirds of the population cannot convert the omega-3 found in flaxseed.
According to Stoll, "Taking more than three tablespoons a day of raw flaxseed or ground flaxseed can inhibit the uptake of iodine in the thyroid, which can produce a goiter or enlargement of the thyroid gland."
While Stoll doesn't call omega-3 a dietary miracle, he does say, "We need it for optimal health. ... If you have very little omega-3 in your diet, you will be prone to inflammatory disorders."
Judy Fortin is a correspondent with CNN Medical News
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
What is the healthiest approach to skin care?
Skin
The skin is the largest organ in the body, and certainly one of the most important. Through touch, it provides us with a way to communicate with and experience the world. It also acts as a protective barrier against viruses, bacteria, ultraviolet rays, knocks and scrapes, poisonous chemicals, excess heat and cold.
It’s a temperature regulating system, and it helps us with metabolism and respiration, excreting excess salt, water, and other chemicals. In fact, unless your skin is doing its job properly most of the time, the chances are you’ll die.
The Anatomy of Skin
Skin sometimes looks like a single sheet of flesh, but really it comprises many different layers. They’re categorized into three main types, as follows.
The epidermis is the outer layer, and its job is to be the primary ‘bodyguard’ of the skin team. It stops pollutants, the sun, and other harmful elements getting to the more delicate layers of skin underneath. It also converts sunlight into vitamin D.
In addition, it stops your body losing too much of its water content, and that’s pretty important, because if it ends up below 10% your skin becomes brittle, dry, and vulnerable to infection and damage.
The next layer down is the dermis, the secondary ‘bodyguard’ within the skin and the one that gives it most of its colour, scent and oil content. In addition, it carries nutrients and oxygen in blood capillaries to the epidermis, and removes waste products from it.
The dermis is the part of the skin that helps most with the regulation of body temperature, through sweating and blood flow. Just as importantly, perhaps, it keeps us safe by giving us a large proportion of our sense of touch. The dermis also stops bumps and minor wounds from penetrating to the tissues underneath, by using a tough protein called collagen, along with elastic tissue and reticular fibres.
These give the skin strength and flexibility, while enabling it to help keep the internal organs safely in place. The next layer down is the hypodermis, or subcutaneous layer – the one hidden from view beneath the others. It has a more internal role in the body, providing a network of blood vessels and offering shock absorption, energy storage, insulation and the ability of skin to slide over joints.
Protecting Your Skin
With such an important role to play in keeping the body nourished and protected, your skin really is a vital resource for your health, and it pays to put in a bit of effort in to your skin care to help it out. Ultraviolet light is necessary in small quantities, for the skin to be able to make vitamin D. But too much sun can kill you.
In Australia, skin cancer accounts for around 81% of all new cancers diagnosed each year.
Over 382,000 people are treated for it, and over 1400 die. Even in the cloudy UK, the more serious form of skin cancer accounts for almost three per cent of all newly diagnosed cancers each year. Everyone is at risk from getting skin cancer, regardless of the colour of their skin. Skin care in this regard is critical - a matter of life and death. Even without the cancer, sun ages skin rapidly. Having prematurely aged skin can wreak havoc with your skin care and beauty regime and make you seem old beyond your years.
As we age, or if we suffer sun damage on our skin, it loses its ability to produce collagen and elastin so effectively, so loses some of its elasticity. It develops wrinkles, areas of uneven pigmentation and takes on a texture that’s ‘leathery’ or, ‘papery’ and delicate. That’s when ‘laughter lines’ start to seem a little less amusing. The best way to prevent these problems is to avoid over-exposure to the sun. Skin care does not just mean lotions and potions. It means spending time in the shade, especially during the hottest parts of the day; making sure you never burn; covering up with a t-shirt, hat and sun umbrellas; avoiding sunbeds; and taking particular care of children and their sun exposure.
Slap on a sunscreen with a factor 15 or higher, and consider using a titanium oxide sunblock on delicate parts of their bodies, especially faces.
After enjoying the sun, use a moisturizer. It’s also important to know your skin and keep an eye on moles – if you spot any changes in their appearance or sensation, see your doctor immediately.
Looking after yourself in the sun is one of the best things you can do for your skin care. But unfortunately, it will still change and degenerate as you age. Eventually, free radicals produced by pollution, intoxicants such as smoking, and the body’s normal metabolic processes, produce an oxidative stress on the body which it finds increasingly hard to repair. As a result, it becomes more prone to disease and decline, and the amount of nutrients its cells can absorb will also fall.
For a thorough insight about sun protection, sun’s ultraviolet radiation hazards, types and risk of skin cancer have a look at "the 1st Sun Protection Guide"
The Problems With Skin care Today
You may have noticed that skin care today is more complicated than it was for generations before. Simple beauty routines no longer have the same impact on the health of our skin, and you may be wondering why.
Of course, a lot of our perceived problems with trying to look good come from the advertising industry. The cosmetics and skincare giants are billion dollar concerns, and a great deal of hype is put out to make us buy products.
Some of them even contain substances which are bad for us. Parabens, for example, are used as preservatives in skin care cosmetics, but these chemicals have been found in breast cancer tumours.
Further tests are underway, but in the meantime, who wants to take the risk? They, and other substances, also need to be processed by the body and excreted, which puts unnecessary strain on the liver.
If you can, choose a skin care product with a self-preserving formula that doesn’t contain synthetic preservatives.
It is more important what you put in your body than on your skin
Much of our skin condition comes from what we eat. Food today is vastly different to the kind our ancestors ate, even as recently as 20 years ago. Chemical preservatives, steroids in meat, long storage periods, processing, and the poor quality of over-farmed soil are all to blame. Food that contains too much salt, sugar and hydrogenated or saturated fat, will play havoc with the quality and appearance of your skin.
What Can I Do To Help My Skin?
If you can, eat fresh, organic, locally-grown whole foods, including as many vegetables as possible, and preferably some fruit. Food that’s rich in antioxidants will reward you with healthier skin.
Drinking enough water is also vital for maintaining your health and good skin care, and 6-8 glasses day is a good general rule of thumb.
It’s a wise move to take a high quality nutritional supplement, too.
Do some research first, because many of the cheaper products are actually bad for your body, or simply don’t do what they promise. Fatty acids in the form of omega-3 (flax oil, for example) and fish oils help keep the skin nourished and lubricated. Antioxidants, especially vitamin C and E, will give a tremendous boost to your skin care, and help other parts of your body at the same time.
Finally, remember that ultimately, “you are what you eat” and especially when it comes to your skin.
Source: www.preventive-health-guide.com
What’s an effective approach to healthy aging and anti-aging?
You need to go beyond traditional reverse aging treatment, hyped skin care products, heavily marketed antioxidants, vitamins, creams, supplements and start to understand the science beneath the skin.
It's on -- the race to "anti-age" is a rapidly growing pursuit for many, many people in the Western world. But when you think about anti-aging, what's the first thing you think of? Probably the youthful look of your skin. And while skin care is an important step to healthy aging, it's not the only thing to consider. After all, what's outside very appropriately represents what's inside.
One of the biggest key factors in aging is oxidative stress. The onslaught of free radicals assaulting your body causes breakdown and nearly irreparable damage to the inside and outside of your body.
We'll all age - that's inevitable. But aging gracefully can be accomplished much more easily by paying very close attention, throughout your life, to cellular nutrition
Cellular Nutrition and Healthy Aging
In this world of quick fixes, plastic surgery, and a barrage of "miracle" cures, one thing is clear: These things don't offer a holistic, long-term approach to keeping your entire body fit, healthy, and young for as long as possible. Quite frankly, there's been a failure of prescription medicine in the war on degenerative diseases.
Today, we're living much, much longer than we ever have before. However, the quality of these long lives is sadly degraded by the oxidative damage done to our cells by myriad sources.
The best way to keep our bodies healthy - starting today and lasting a lifetime - is to eat a healthy diet, excerise moderately and consider starting a regimen of supplements that include antioxidants, minerals, and vitamins. These important ingredients help keep the cells healthy, inside and out, and remove the danger that the free radicals cause including internal and external damage.
However, because of doctors' bias against nutritional supplements, you may not have heard just how important getting the proper intake of this nutritional regimen is.
While you may have been told to start taking a multivitamin, the truth is, the recommended daily allowances in most of the popular, predominantly poor quality vitamin supplements is far below what you should really be getting in order to attain a healthy aging process.
The Risks of Premature Aging
Premature aging, in a nutshell, is a rapid depletion of antioxidants and necessary compounds in your system. If you're exposed to dangerous free radicals on a daily basis, and you don't take measures to stop this barrage, your body will begin to break down in various ways.
Take, for instance, sunlight. While sunlight exposure does offer us some essential vitamins, it's also an increasingly dangerous source of free radicals. If you don't take measures to protect yourself from the sun, your skin will begin to break down much faster. This leads to wrinkles, sagging, and potential skin cancer.
This can be said for any source of free radical exposure, and without the proper quality nutritional supplements, you could find yourself with a host of early aging problems - from cancer, to eye diseases, heart disease, and much more.
Anti-Aging Equals Prevention
While it's tempting to run to your nearest anti-aging doctor for the latest in prescriptive medicine, or to your plastic surgeon to have them cut away unwanted lines, the answer in anti-aging really starts at the core - with preventive health.
Keeping your body replenished with the important antioxidants is the most significant step towards aging gracefully. In the past, this may have meant simply eating healthier and avoiding prolonged exposure to free radicals. However, because of the degradation of the food supply, when you bite into a non-organically grown apple or banana, you may actually be inviting even more free radicals into your system. You need to take optimal levels of nutritional supplements to maintain and promote health throughout your life.
However, nutritional supplementation isn't the only thing you can do to achieve long-lasting anti-aging effects. You also need to begin to reduce your exposure to dangerous free radicals. And one of the most potent sources of free radicals is, of course, smoking.
If you smoke, or if you're exposed to second-hand smoke on a daily basis, you are inevitably aging much faster than if you weren't. Before you can expect any anti-aging processes to work, you have to quit smoking.
The same goes for free radicals found in the food you eat, the air you breathe, and the things you choose to drink. By radically reducing your exposure to chemicals, pesticides, and air pollution, you'll be well on your way to healthy aging.
Supplements and Anti-Aging
A big myth in the world of supplements surrounds the RDIs and RDAs. If you'll look on the back of any food label, you'll find a recommended daily allowance, or RDA list. These numbers are based on woefully low estimates of what it would take to maintain optimal health. The fact of the matter is that our bodies, because of our nutritionally lacking diets, need much more than just the RDA to age gracefully.
So the answer in all of this is finding a nutritional supplement that gives you optimal antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals - not just those based on the governmentally issued RDAs and RDIs. Look for supplements that contain optimal amounts of vitamin C, vitamin E, and other essential nutritional compounds.
Also, you should begin taking fish oil, if you don't already. This compound contains a plethora of important antioxidants, as well as omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. It's good for your skin, and good for your entire body. Another fantastic source for antioxidants and important bioflavonoids is grape seed extract. Studies have shown that grape-seed oil is even more potent than vitamin E and vitamin C in the quest for anti-aging.
Source: www.preventive-health-guide.com
Good child nutrition makes healthy kids.
As adults and parents good child nutrition is our responsibility. Children are our future, and they deserve the best possible start in life.
One of the most important things you can do for your children is to bring them up on a healthy diet, because a strong nutritional foundation will give them highest chance of remaining healthy later.
It also gives them the tools they need in order to maximize their potential in every area of life: academically, emotionally, socially, and in sport. In addition, good child nutrition and a healthy eating pattern and mainly plant-based diet in early life will help your child develop good dietary habits later.
Start early
Making sure your child has a strong health profile can start even before they are born. As early as 1989, reports began to suggest that the foetal environment affected a child’s risk of developing non-communicable diseases in adult life, such as heart disease and diabetes. But it’s not just later life that good early child nutrition can help. Good food, exercise and a healthy dose of vitamins, minerals and omega oils can prevent children becoming overweight.
Childhood obesity
Obesity is a rising problem in all parts of the world, because of a lack of exercise and the unhealthy diet many people consume.
In addition, our food no longer contains all the nutrients it should, because it’s subject to long storage periods and chemical intervention; it’s grown in poor quality soil, and is often processed. This kind of junk food only offers us ‘empty calories’ with low nutritional content, and high levels of salt and fat.
Surprisingly perhaps, most overweight and obese people, including kids, are malnourished! That’s because to be ‘malnourished’ means the body is not getting the nutrients it needs in order to be healthy, and most obese people are eating the wrong foods, and putting unnecessary strain on their organs, which means everything works less efficiently and they don’t absorb the nutrients they need.
They’re also struggling against a load of oxidative stress as the body tries to cope with ‘poisonous’ elements of junk food and can’t sweep out free radicals produced by its own metabolic processes.
Childhood obesity leads to other problems
Unfortunately, this means overweight and obesity are risk factors for a whole range of problems, including heart disease, asthma, diabetes, and stroke.
Being overweight also causes some children to be rejected by their peers, to lose out on taking part in sports and social events, and to have a poor body image.
In addition, overweight/obesity in young adulthood and middle age has long-term adverse consequences for health care costs in older age.
Osteoporosis is a key example, as a major bone disease resulting in 1.5 million fractures and over $10 billion U.S. in medical expenditures annually. It now looks likely that there is a link between obesity and/or poor calcium intake in child nutrition, and risk of developing the disease in later life.
Scientists say it could be prevented by adequate diet, exercise, and quality dietary supplements to increase bone mass density (particularly calcium, vitamin D, vitamin K, and isoflavone), but about half of all American children and adolescents still consume less than the Recommended Dietary Allowance.
Get rid of the sugar and get the right fat!
In addition, a child’s bones can be damaged by large amounts of sugar. The body pulls minerals from the tissues and bones to buffer the sugar’s acidity; and it’s not just bones that suffer: blood sugar level soars (particularly after eating sweets, bread, sodas, chocolate, and processed carbohydrate) and either stays high (in diabetes) or is lowered too quickly (in hypoglycemia).
Stable blood sugar, not too high or too low, is one of the most important components of physical and emotional well being.
An optimal availability of omega-3 fatty acids for child nutrition also seems to be important in the development of normal emotional, brain and physical functions, especially intelligence and cognitive functions.
In one study, 20 children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) were treated with either the popular drug Ritalin, or with dietary supplements.
The results surprised everyone, by showing that dietary supplements were just as effective in improving the symptoms as Ritalin! And of course, supplements and good child nutrition come with a variety of other benefits, and without all the nasty side effects.
What role can supplements play?
In fact, multiple studies have shown that psychiatric symptoms like depression, mood swings, and aggression may be improved by supplementation with vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids: especially in young criminal offenders.
Adolescents who use multiple vitamin supplements also have more healthful dietary and lifestyle behaviors than nonusers, and supplements and good child nutrition may improve non-verbal intelligence and sporting performance. Dementia and Multiple sclerosis might also be related to an omega- 3 deficiency, so it’s wise to make a commitment to regularly giving your child good-quality (pure) omega oils from an early age.
Its your choice - Help your kids get healthy!
Taking action to give your children a healthy diet, good exercise, and a proper range of nutritional supplements can save them a world of pain and unhappiness later. Through good child nutrition, health is a gift you can choose to give your kid. The time to do it is now!
A word of warning: iron deficiency is common, but too much iron supplement can be lethal, and the younger the person taking the supplements, the higher the possibility of a lethal dose. Make sure you understand the importance of safety in nutritional supplements. Do consult a physician if you’re unsure.
Source: www.preventive-health-guide.com
One of the most important things you can do for your children is to bring them up on a healthy diet, because a strong nutritional foundation will give them highest chance of remaining healthy later.
It also gives them the tools they need in order to maximize their potential in every area of life: academically, emotionally, socially, and in sport. In addition, good child nutrition and a healthy eating pattern and mainly plant-based diet in early life will help your child develop good dietary habits later.
Start early
Making sure your child has a strong health profile can start even before they are born. As early as 1989, reports began to suggest that the foetal environment affected a child’s risk of developing non-communicable diseases in adult life, such as heart disease and diabetes. But it’s not just later life that good early child nutrition can help. Good food, exercise and a healthy dose of vitamins, minerals and omega oils can prevent children becoming overweight.
Childhood obesity
Obesity is a rising problem in all parts of the world, because of a lack of exercise and the unhealthy diet many people consume.
In addition, our food no longer contains all the nutrients it should, because it’s subject to long storage periods and chemical intervention; it’s grown in poor quality soil, and is often processed. This kind of junk food only offers us ‘empty calories’ with low nutritional content, and high levels of salt and fat.
Surprisingly perhaps, most overweight and obese people, including kids, are malnourished! That’s because to be ‘malnourished’ means the body is not getting the nutrients it needs in order to be healthy, and most obese people are eating the wrong foods, and putting unnecessary strain on their organs, which means everything works less efficiently and they don’t absorb the nutrients they need.
They’re also struggling against a load of oxidative stress as the body tries to cope with ‘poisonous’ elements of junk food and can’t sweep out free radicals produced by its own metabolic processes.
Childhood obesity leads to other problems
Unfortunately, this means overweight and obesity are risk factors for a whole range of problems, including heart disease, asthma, diabetes, and stroke.
Being overweight also causes some children to be rejected by their peers, to lose out on taking part in sports and social events, and to have a poor body image.
In addition, overweight/obesity in young adulthood and middle age has long-term adverse consequences for health care costs in older age.
Osteoporosis is a key example, as a major bone disease resulting in 1.5 million fractures and over $10 billion U.S. in medical expenditures annually. It now looks likely that there is a link between obesity and/or poor calcium intake in child nutrition, and risk of developing the disease in later life.
Scientists say it could be prevented by adequate diet, exercise, and quality dietary supplements to increase bone mass density (particularly calcium, vitamin D, vitamin K, and isoflavone), but about half of all American children and adolescents still consume less than the Recommended Dietary Allowance.
Get rid of the sugar and get the right fat!
In addition, a child’s bones can be damaged by large amounts of sugar. The body pulls minerals from the tissues and bones to buffer the sugar’s acidity; and it’s not just bones that suffer: blood sugar level soars (particularly after eating sweets, bread, sodas, chocolate, and processed carbohydrate) and either stays high (in diabetes) or is lowered too quickly (in hypoglycemia).
Stable blood sugar, not too high or too low, is one of the most important components of physical and emotional well being.
An optimal availability of omega-3 fatty acids for child nutrition also seems to be important in the development of normal emotional, brain and physical functions, especially intelligence and cognitive functions.
In one study, 20 children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) were treated with either the popular drug Ritalin, or with dietary supplements.
The results surprised everyone, by showing that dietary supplements were just as effective in improving the symptoms as Ritalin! And of course, supplements and good child nutrition come with a variety of other benefits, and without all the nasty side effects.
What role can supplements play?
In fact, multiple studies have shown that psychiatric symptoms like depression, mood swings, and aggression may be improved by supplementation with vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids: especially in young criminal offenders.
Adolescents who use multiple vitamin supplements also have more healthful dietary and lifestyle behaviors than nonusers, and supplements and good child nutrition may improve non-verbal intelligence and sporting performance. Dementia and Multiple sclerosis might also be related to an omega- 3 deficiency, so it’s wise to make a commitment to regularly giving your child good-quality (pure) omega oils from an early age.
Its your choice - Help your kids get healthy!
Taking action to give your children a healthy diet, good exercise, and a proper range of nutritional supplements can save them a world of pain and unhappiness later. Through good child nutrition, health is a gift you can choose to give your kid. The time to do it is now!
A word of warning: iron deficiency is common, but too much iron supplement can be lethal, and the younger the person taking the supplements, the higher the possibility of a lethal dose. Make sure you understand the importance of safety in nutritional supplements. Do consult a physician if you’re unsure.
Source: www.preventive-health-guide.com
Monday, March 30, 2009
Is poor cellular nutrition the true cause of degenerative diseases?
What is the secret to cellular health?
Cellular Nutrition: When we think of health and nutrition, few of us imagine the cell. But actually, the cell is the source of the body’s energy supply; it’s what keeps you not only functioning at optimal health, but functioning at all.
In fact, as soon as the cells lose any of their capacity to produce energy for the body, the result is a decline in health and the emergence of degenerative conditions.
Healthy cell life produces what we call “vitality” – a healthy level of energy and resistance to stress.
But how do we make sure our cells are working at full pump on the energy front? Fortunately, it’s not as hard as it sounds, because scientific research shows that good nutrition is the key.
Cells and energy
To understand how eating a particular diet can affect your cells, and therefore your energy levels, it’s useful to have a rough idea of how the cells actually work: how the cell produces its energy.
That particular task falls to the mitochondria, the "power plants" of the cell. There are hundreds of these in a typical cell, every one containing a unique pattern of DNA, and their job is to facilitate cellular respiration, a process through which they transform oxygen and nutrients into energy and water.
The many finger-like folds in the mitochondrial inner membrane house respiratory chains where this process happens.
The "bad" side of oxygen
So far, so good. Except that unfortunately, oxygen is actually toxic to biological molecules and cells. That means that all processes involving oxygen, including the oxygen used in cellular respiration, leads to the formation of free radicals.
It’s just a consequence of normal metabolism. The bad news is that these free radicals tend to oxidize biological molecules, just as iron oxidizes when it rusts. Eventually, this assault on the cells can damage them, and inactivate the cellular respiration, leading to the death of the cell.
The body’s response to all this is to unleash a grand defense mechanism, using antioxidant molecules (good guys) against the free radicals (bad guys).
It doesn’t always get the response right, however, or it can’t produce enough antioxidants for the task. The result is that free radicals ravage the body’s proteins, fats, and DNA/RNA. The body also removes and repairs some damaged macromolecules, but often the sheer volume of free radicals overwhelms the repair system.
Oxidative stress
In 1956, Professor Denham Harman propounded the famous "free radical theory of ageing." The theory holds that as we age and the oxidative damage the body has sustained over the years takes its toll, the level of oxidative stress itself rises.
That means that oxidative damage increases over the course of a lifetime and advances especially quickly in old age. At that point, we tend to see a prevalence of degenerative diseases, and the most obvious signs of ageing.
Oxidative stress and chronic degenerative diseases
In fact, scientists and doctors now widely agree that oxidative stress figures prominently in atherosclerosis and heart disease, cell transformation and cancer, all kinds of inflammatory conditions, eye problems such as cataracts and macular degeneration, as well as brain and nervous system conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.
Neutralizing free radicals and disease prevention
So how can we try to reduce or prevent free radical damage to the cells?
If oxidative stress increases when antioxidant defenses weaken, or free radical levels rise, it follows that we can decrease oxidative stress by bolstering the body's antioxidant defenses and reducing the amount of free radicals floating around the blood and tissues.
Optimal cellular nutrition
Many experts now agree that this is most easily done by boosting your natural defenses through optimal cellular nutrition.
This simply involves providing ALL nutrients to the cell at optimal levels, which allows it to decide what it actually does and does not need.
In this way, you can make sure there aren’t going to be any nutritional deficiencies – because nutrient levels will automatically be corrected within a few months of regaining optimal cell nutrition. Which nutrients are needed for optimal cellular nutrition?
Basically, getting optimal cellular nutrition means giving your body all the Research often shows that the antioxidants, in addition to the supporting B vitamins and antioxidant minerals. These also need to be ingested at optimal levels.
recommended daily allowance (RDA) of each nutrient may not be enough to prevent many health conditions.
That’s because the RDA levels were originally determined during the years of last century’s World Wars, and they really only apply to the minimum levels of nutrients needed to ward off certain acute deficiency diseases which are no longer particularly common (e.g. scurvy, rickets, pellagra).
As a result, they don’t account for conditions such as chronic degenerative diseases, which are far more prevalent today.
Optimal levels to prevent degenerative disease
Nowadays, the optimal levels of nutrients known to provide health benefits are significantly greater than those suggested by the RDA levels. For example, some studies show that the optimal level of vitamin C is approximately 1200 to 2000 mg daily, while the RDA is only 60 mg.
To benefit from the optimal levels of cellular nutrition, you’d need to eat 17 kiwifruit, or 18 oranges, or 160 apples!
When you look at it like that, it seems obvious that the best way to get these levels of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients is to take a good quality supplement. Think of cellular nutrition as a very wise way of using the supplement and your food as “preventative medicine” to stop the disease process before it even begins.
Source: http://www.preventive-health-guide.com/cellular-nutrition.html
Drop me a line at gohtan88@gmail.com if you need to know more about what you can do to ensure the continued good health of you and your loved ones.
Cellular Nutrition: When we think of health and nutrition, few of us imagine the cell. But actually, the cell is the source of the body’s energy supply; it’s what keeps you not only functioning at optimal health, but functioning at all.
In fact, as soon as the cells lose any of their capacity to produce energy for the body, the result is a decline in health and the emergence of degenerative conditions.
Healthy cell life produces what we call “vitality” – a healthy level of energy and resistance to stress.
But how do we make sure our cells are working at full pump on the energy front? Fortunately, it’s not as hard as it sounds, because scientific research shows that good nutrition is the key.
Cells and energy
To understand how eating a particular diet can affect your cells, and therefore your energy levels, it’s useful to have a rough idea of how the cells actually work: how the cell produces its energy.
That particular task falls to the mitochondria, the "power plants" of the cell. There are hundreds of these in a typical cell, every one containing a unique pattern of DNA, and their job is to facilitate cellular respiration, a process through which they transform oxygen and nutrients into energy and water.
The many finger-like folds in the mitochondrial inner membrane house respiratory chains where this process happens.
The "bad" side of oxygen
So far, so good. Except that unfortunately, oxygen is actually toxic to biological molecules and cells. That means that all processes involving oxygen, including the oxygen used in cellular respiration, leads to the formation of free radicals.
It’s just a consequence of normal metabolism. The bad news is that these free radicals tend to oxidize biological molecules, just as iron oxidizes when it rusts. Eventually, this assault on the cells can damage them, and inactivate the cellular respiration, leading to the death of the cell.
The body’s response to all this is to unleash a grand defense mechanism, using antioxidant molecules (good guys) against the free radicals (bad guys).
It doesn’t always get the response right, however, or it can’t produce enough antioxidants for the task. The result is that free radicals ravage the body’s proteins, fats, and DNA/RNA. The body also removes and repairs some damaged macromolecules, but often the sheer volume of free radicals overwhelms the repair system.
Oxidative stress
In 1956, Professor Denham Harman propounded the famous "free radical theory of ageing." The theory holds that as we age and the oxidative damage the body has sustained over the years takes its toll, the level of oxidative stress itself rises.
That means that oxidative damage increases over the course of a lifetime and advances especially quickly in old age. At that point, we tend to see a prevalence of degenerative diseases, and the most obvious signs of ageing.
Oxidative stress and chronic degenerative diseases
In fact, scientists and doctors now widely agree that oxidative stress figures prominently in atherosclerosis and heart disease, cell transformation and cancer, all kinds of inflammatory conditions, eye problems such as cataracts and macular degeneration, as well as brain and nervous system conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.
Neutralizing free radicals and disease prevention
So how can we try to reduce or prevent free radical damage to the cells?
If oxidative stress increases when antioxidant defenses weaken, or free radical levels rise, it follows that we can decrease oxidative stress by bolstering the body's antioxidant defenses and reducing the amount of free radicals floating around the blood and tissues.
Optimal cellular nutrition
Many experts now agree that this is most easily done by boosting your natural defenses through optimal cellular nutrition.
This simply involves providing ALL nutrients to the cell at optimal levels, which allows it to decide what it actually does and does not need.
In this way, you can make sure there aren’t going to be any nutritional deficiencies – because nutrient levels will automatically be corrected within a few months of regaining optimal cell nutrition. Which nutrients are needed for optimal cellular nutrition?
Basically, getting optimal cellular nutrition means giving your body all the Research often shows that the antioxidants, in addition to the supporting B vitamins and antioxidant minerals. These also need to be ingested at optimal levels.
recommended daily allowance (RDA) of each nutrient may not be enough to prevent many health conditions.
That’s because the RDA levels were originally determined during the years of last century’s World Wars, and they really only apply to the minimum levels of nutrients needed to ward off certain acute deficiency diseases which are no longer particularly common (e.g. scurvy, rickets, pellagra).
As a result, they don’t account for conditions such as chronic degenerative diseases, which are far more prevalent today.
Optimal levels to prevent degenerative disease
Nowadays, the optimal levels of nutrients known to provide health benefits are significantly greater than those suggested by the RDA levels. For example, some studies show that the optimal level of vitamin C is approximately 1200 to 2000 mg daily, while the RDA is only 60 mg.
To benefit from the optimal levels of cellular nutrition, you’d need to eat 17 kiwifruit, or 18 oranges, or 160 apples!
When you look at it like that, it seems obvious that the best way to get these levels of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients is to take a good quality supplement. Think of cellular nutrition as a very wise way of using the supplement and your food as “preventative medicine” to stop the disease process before it even begins.
Source: http://www.preventive-health-guide.com/cellular-nutrition.html
Drop me a line at gohtan88@gmail.com if you need to know more about what you can do to ensure the continued good health of you and your loved ones.
Friday, March 6, 2009
The Use Of Vitamins And Minerals In Finding An Insomnia Cure
Vitamin supplements may be used to provide you with some relief from insomnia. This is particularly true if you are deficient in certain vitamins, amino acids, minerals, or enzymes that are necessary for healthy sleep.
Try adding one of the following nutritional supplements to your daily well-balanced diet:
Calcium
When combined with food, calcium can have a sedative effect on your body. Calcium deficiencies in your body can cause wakefulness and restlessness. The recommended amount of calcium supplement per day is 600mg.
Calcium should be taken along with food and may be combined with a magnesium supplement.
Magnesium
Take a magnesium supplement of 250g each day. This can help induce sleep since a magnesium deficiency can cause nervousness which may prevent you from sleeping. Studies show that low levels of magnesium can lead to shallower sleep and cause you to wake more during the night.
Try to add magnesium-rich foods to your diet. These include wheat bran, almonds, cashews, blackstrap molasses, and kelp.
Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine)
50 to 100mg of Vitamin B6 per day can help prevent sleeplessness. Your body needs adequate B6 in order to produce serotonin which it requires for the manufacture of the sleep-triggering hormone - melatonin. An excellent source of vitamin B6 is a tablespoon or two of nutritional yeast which can be stirred into a glass of fruit juice.
Vitamin B12 (cobalamin)
This is another important supplement in the cure for sleeplessness. If you are deficient in vitamin B12 you may experience confusion, loss of memory, and a general feeling of tiredness. The recommended daily dose is 25mg and this can be combined with Vitamin B5.
Vitamin B12 and B5 can be found in walnuts, sunflower seeds, bananas, tuna, wheat germ, peanuts, and whole grains.
Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid)
This vitamin is good vitamin for relieving stress and anxiety. Deficiency of B5 can cause sleep disturbances and fatigue. The daily recommended dose is 100 mg.
Folic Acid
A deficiency of folic acid may be a contributing factor to sleeplessness. The recommended daily dose is 400 micrograms. Folic acid can be found naturally in orange juice, leafy green vegetables, fortified breakfast cereals, and beans.
It should be noted that the synthetic form of folic acid found in over-the-counter vitamins is more easily used by your body than the natural product.
Copper
Studies show that a low intake of copper in pre-menopausal women may inhibit them from falling asleep quickly. The study showed that those women who received a 2 mg copper supplement each day fell asleep faster and felt more rested in the morning. You are probably getting 1 mg of copper each day which wouldn't cause enough of a deficiency to cause any obvious symptoms but may be affecting the way that you sleep. Try to include more copper in your diet.
One of the best sources of copper is to be found in cooked oysters and lobster.
If you eat a well-balanced diet you should find that you have no problem with vitamin deficiencies.
You may want to add one or two of the above supplements to your diet for a short period of time to see if you notice a significant difference.
Source: http://help-me-to-sleep.com/insomnia
Try adding one of the following nutritional supplements to your daily well-balanced diet:
Calcium
When combined with food, calcium can have a sedative effect on your body. Calcium deficiencies in your body can cause wakefulness and restlessness. The recommended amount of calcium supplement per day is 600mg.
Calcium should be taken along with food and may be combined with a magnesium supplement.
Magnesium
Take a magnesium supplement of 250g each day. This can help induce sleep since a magnesium deficiency can cause nervousness which may prevent you from sleeping. Studies show that low levels of magnesium can lead to shallower sleep and cause you to wake more during the night.
Try to add magnesium-rich foods to your diet. These include wheat bran, almonds, cashews, blackstrap molasses, and kelp.
Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine)
50 to 100mg of Vitamin B6 per day can help prevent sleeplessness. Your body needs adequate B6 in order to produce serotonin which it requires for the manufacture of the sleep-triggering hormone - melatonin. An excellent source of vitamin B6 is a tablespoon or two of nutritional yeast which can be stirred into a glass of fruit juice.
Vitamin B12 (cobalamin)
This is another important supplement in the cure for sleeplessness. If you are deficient in vitamin B12 you may experience confusion, loss of memory, and a general feeling of tiredness. The recommended daily dose is 25mg and this can be combined with Vitamin B5.
Vitamin B12 and B5 can be found in walnuts, sunflower seeds, bananas, tuna, wheat germ, peanuts, and whole grains.
Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid)
This vitamin is good vitamin for relieving stress and anxiety. Deficiency of B5 can cause sleep disturbances and fatigue. The daily recommended dose is 100 mg.
Folic Acid
A deficiency of folic acid may be a contributing factor to sleeplessness. The recommended daily dose is 400 micrograms. Folic acid can be found naturally in orange juice, leafy green vegetables, fortified breakfast cereals, and beans.
It should be noted that the synthetic form of folic acid found in over-the-counter vitamins is more easily used by your body than the natural product.
Copper
Studies show that a low intake of copper in pre-menopausal women may inhibit them from falling asleep quickly. The study showed that those women who received a 2 mg copper supplement each day fell asleep faster and felt more rested in the morning. You are probably getting 1 mg of copper each day which wouldn't cause enough of a deficiency to cause any obvious symptoms but may be affecting the way that you sleep. Try to include more copper in your diet.
One of the best sources of copper is to be found in cooked oysters and lobster.
If you eat a well-balanced diet you should find that you have no problem with vitamin deficiencies.
You may want to add one or two of the above supplements to your diet for a short period of time to see if you notice a significant difference.
Source: http://help-me-to-sleep.com/insomnia
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Do You Want Ford Or Cadillac Vitamins
"What brand of vitamins should I buy?" is a question readers often ask when I write about them. I've never been able to provide any good answer with so many brands available. But I recently read "A Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements" written by Lyle MacWilliam. I was shocked to learn that some well known brands I'd often purchased failed to make the grade. As a Scot, wanting to get value for the dollar, I interviewed MacWilliam who gave me course 101 on how to buy vitamins.
MacWilliam, a biochemist, used the published recommendations of seven nutritional authorities to determine what vitamins, minerals and other nutrients should be present in a multivitamin pill considering our state of scientific knowledge. He then analyzed over 500 nutritional supplements sold in Canada and the United States. The perfect score was 100 and no vitamin product reached that goal.
I'd never heard of the brands that were rated the best. For instance, Vitamin Research Products', "Extend Plus", scored 93.1 I'm sure my Scottish ancestors would have taken me to task when the ones I'd spent my dollars on didn't even hit a 10!
Faced with such an incredible difference between these scores I asked MacWilliam the obvious question, "Had I been mislead for years thinking I was buying a Cadillac vitamin and only getting a Ford?" His answer, "Quality is a function of price". Or as we have been told many times, "you get what you pay for".
MacWilliam added, that in terms of purity, safety and quality there is no problem with the brands I'd been taking. What these products say is in the bottle, is in the bottle. The problem is that their potency is based on old outdated recommended daily allowances (RDAs). They do not recognize that most people today fall short of recommended nutritional intake of fresh fruits and vegetables.
MacWilliam continued that these old potencies were developed 50 years ago to avoid diseases such as scurvy and rickets. But these strengths fall woefully short of meeting the nutritional needs of today's toxic world. Now we are talking about optimal health.
But what makes Vitamin Research Products and other high ranking vitamins so different? MacWilliam says that many popular products do not contain the full spectrum of minerals, or fail to use bioavailable chelated minerals that are more easily absorbed. Or if they contain the right minerals their potency is below ideal standards.
He cited other cases in which popular brands fail to fully look after cardiac health. For instance, they contain synthetic vitamin E rather than natural E, have insufficient magnesium and no coenzyme Q10, all three vital to proper functioning of the heart.
Consumers also have to ask whether the product they're taking contains adequate amounts of flavonoids, vitamin C and the B vitamins. And is there sufficient vitamin D, calcium, boron and silicon necessary for bone health?
Lyle MacWilliam admitted the large brand names were not happy with these findings. But the facts are supported by scientific studies.
Some readers may be tired of opening several vitamin containers daily to swallow a bucket-full of pills. If so, Vitamin Research Products and other higher potency brands get around this nuisance. It also takes the guess work out of what vitamins to buy and provides a balanced intake of vitamins.
Buying vitamins "a la carte" can also be like flying by the seat of your pants and may trigger unknown consequences. For instance, taking iron can interfere with the absorption of several minerals. And high amounts of folic acid can mask a vitamin B12 deficiency.
MacWilliam reports that when researchers initially started this study the price of purchasing individual vitamins was more expensive than the more up-to-date multivitamin pills. That got my Scottish blood working overtime. But I couldn't find the high potency brands in any pharmacy.
Source: http://www.canadafreepress.com/medical/vitamins061506.htm
MacWilliam, a biochemist, used the published recommendations of seven nutritional authorities to determine what vitamins, minerals and other nutrients should be present in a multivitamin pill considering our state of scientific knowledge. He then analyzed over 500 nutritional supplements sold in Canada and the United States. The perfect score was 100 and no vitamin product reached that goal.
I'd never heard of the brands that were rated the best. For instance, Vitamin Research Products', "Extend Plus", scored 93.1 I'm sure my Scottish ancestors would have taken me to task when the ones I'd spent my dollars on didn't even hit a 10!
Faced with such an incredible difference between these scores I asked MacWilliam the obvious question, "Had I been mislead for years thinking I was buying a Cadillac vitamin and only getting a Ford?" His answer, "Quality is a function of price". Or as we have been told many times, "you get what you pay for".
MacWilliam added, that in terms of purity, safety and quality there is no problem with the brands I'd been taking. What these products say is in the bottle, is in the bottle. The problem is that their potency is based on old outdated recommended daily allowances (RDAs). They do not recognize that most people today fall short of recommended nutritional intake of fresh fruits and vegetables.
MacWilliam continued that these old potencies were developed 50 years ago to avoid diseases such as scurvy and rickets. But these strengths fall woefully short of meeting the nutritional needs of today's toxic world. Now we are talking about optimal health.
But what makes Vitamin Research Products and other high ranking vitamins so different? MacWilliam says that many popular products do not contain the full spectrum of minerals, or fail to use bioavailable chelated minerals that are more easily absorbed. Or if they contain the right minerals their potency is below ideal standards.
He cited other cases in which popular brands fail to fully look after cardiac health. For instance, they contain synthetic vitamin E rather than natural E, have insufficient magnesium and no coenzyme Q10, all three vital to proper functioning of the heart.
Consumers also have to ask whether the product they're taking contains adequate amounts of flavonoids, vitamin C and the B vitamins. And is there sufficient vitamin D, calcium, boron and silicon necessary for bone health?
Lyle MacWilliam admitted the large brand names were not happy with these findings. But the facts are supported by scientific studies.
Some readers may be tired of opening several vitamin containers daily to swallow a bucket-full of pills. If so, Vitamin Research Products and other higher potency brands get around this nuisance. It also takes the guess work out of what vitamins to buy and provides a balanced intake of vitamins.
Buying vitamins "a la carte" can also be like flying by the seat of your pants and may trigger unknown consequences. For instance, taking iron can interfere with the absorption of several minerals. And high amounts of folic acid can mask a vitamin B12 deficiency.
MacWilliam reports that when researchers initially started this study the price of purchasing individual vitamins was more expensive than the more up-to-date multivitamin pills. That got my Scottish blood working overtime. But I couldn't find the high potency brands in any pharmacy.
Source: http://www.canadafreepress.com/medical/vitamins061506.htm
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Fat Around the Heart: A Danger to Your Health
By: Jody Cross Published: Monday, 4 August 2008 & originally appearing in http://www.healthnews.com/disease-illness/fat-around-heart-a-danger-your-health-1522.html
Belly fat is more dangerous to your health than the subcutaneous fat that lies just under your skin, but did you know that the fat that surrounds your heart, called pericardial fat, is more dangerous to your health than either subcutaneous or belly fat?
The accumulation of pericardial fat has long been regarded as a normal feature of the aging process and may play a key role in the development of coronary heart disease. Pericardial fat can collect unnoticed. It is known to secrete high levels of inflammatory proteins called cytokines, and constant exposure of the heart to these proteins can lead to inflammation of the coronary arteries and to calcified coronary plaque which in turn can lead to coronary atherosclerosis, the main cause of coronary heart disease.
Dr. Jingzhong Ding, and researchers at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., conducted a study of pericardial fat, selecting 159 North Carolina residents between the ages of 55 and 74 years, both black and white, and none of whom had a history of coronary heart disease. All participants were given a computed tomography (CT) scan to measure the amount of their calcified coronary plaque.
Through testing it was determined that a full 58 percent of the participants exhibited some calcified coronary plaque, but those people with the highest levels of pericardial fat were found to be five times more likely to also have high levels of calcified coronary plaque.
Distribution of body fat varies among people, but obesity and an excess amount of body fat is a well-established risk factor for coronary heart disease. Excess accumulation of fat around the upper body is associated with a higher risk of coronary heart disease regardless of total body fat.
Inflammation due to fat deposits tends to be localized in their surrounding tissues and organs; therefore, pericardial fat may be the principal suspect in regard to coronary heart disease. Researchers think it is the constant exposure of the heart to these inflammatory proteins that speeds the development of hardening of the arteries.
Pericardial fat, not gender, weight, or ethnicity determined the amount of calcified coronary plaque seen in participants of Dr. Ding’s study. The higher the level of pericardial fat, the higher the risk of coronary atherosclerosis was for these people.
The study was published in the journal Obesity in 2008, and accentuates the fact that the amount of fat around your heart may be more important to heart health than even your total body fat, as Dr. Ding said, “Even a thin person can have fat around the heart.”
Low Levels of Vitamin D Linked to Higher Death Risk
People with lower blood levels of vitamin D are more likely to die from all causes, researchers have found.
"We took into account 30 different variables - including age, weight, diabetes, cholesterol, high blood pressure, whether they exercise, smoking - and we found that low vitamin D levels, independent of all these other risk factors for heart disease, predicted an increased risk of dying from any other cause. So we found a new risk factor for death," said study author Erin Michos.
Michos and colleagues from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Albert Einstein College of Medicine analyzed vitamin D and mortality data from more than 13,000 adults over the age of 19 who had participated in the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANESIII). The NHANESIII participant pool had been carefully selected to give an accurate representation of the general U.S. population, although it might not be representative of other countries.
The vitamin D blood levels of all participants had been tested once between 1988 and 1994. Because the body synthesizes vitamin D upon exposure to sunlight and blood levels consequently tend to be higher in the summer, participants from southern states had their blood taken in the winter, while northern participants had theirs taken in the summer. This was done to ensure similar conditions for assessing overall deficiency.
Participants were divided into four groups, based upon vitamin D status. The researchers then used the National Death Index to determine which participants had died by the year 2000, as well as their cause of death.
A total of 1,807 study participants had died by the year 2000, 777 of them (43 percent) from cardiovascular disease. Among these, 76 percent had died from atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. The second most common cause of mortality was cancer, accounting for 23 percent of deaths.
The researchers found that participants in the quartile with the lowest vitamin D levels (an average of 17.8 nanograms per liter) were 26 percent more likely to have died than participants in the highest quartile. Altogether, the researchers estimated that vitamin D levels could account for up to 20.6 percent of mortality risk.
Being in the lowest vitamin D quartile was also associated with a 70 percent increase in death rate from cardiovascular causes. This correlation dropped to close to 26 percent when the researchers adjusted for other cardiovascular risk factors, however, and was no longer statistically significant. According to Michos, more research is needed to determine if vitamin D plays a role in heart health.
"We also need to prove if we give additional vitamin D, will it prevent a heart attack?" she said.
Initially, researchers also found a correlation between low vitamin D status and increased cancer mortality. This association quickly vanished when only a few complicating factors were adjusted for, however. No association was found between vitamin D levels and death from infectious diseases.
The researchers admitted that the study could not determine if vitamin D deficiency was actually a cause of early death, or if it was merely a marker for other factors. But they noted that a stronger relationship between vitamin D levels and mortality was seen in participants without cardiovascular disease or risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension or male sex. The researchers interpreted this as evidence "against low vitamin D levels being only a marker of poor general health."
"If a causal relationship exists, [vitamin D] deficiency may play a role before cardiovascular disease is established," they wrote.
The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Also known as the "sunshine vitamin," vitamin D plays a critical role in the development and maintenance of bones and teeth. Deficiency has long been known to lead to bone deformities in children, and osteoporosis and other bone disorders in adults. Recent research has also suggested that low levels of vitamin D may increase the risk of immune disorders, cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes.
The average light-skinned person can get all the vitamin D they need from just 15 minutes of sun per day on the face and hands, while a darker skinned person may need up to twice as much. In extreme northern or southern latitudes, however, the weaker sun may not provide sufficient ultraviolet radiation for adequate vitamin D synthesis, particularly in winter. For this reason, many grain and dairy products are regularly fortified with vitamin D.
Nevertheless, a number of studies suggest that vitamin D deficiency remains widespread, with 53 percent of women and 41 percent of men in the United States testing for less than 28 nanograms per milliliter in their blood. In the mortality study, deficiency was more common in those who were older, female, nonwhite, diabetic, smokers, less physically active, had a higher body mass index, or who were tested in the winter.
Levels of 30 nanograms per milliliter or more are considered adequate, levels below 20 nanograms per milliliter are considered deficient, and levels in between are considered insufficient.
Researchers are split on how much dietary vitamin D people should ingest to avoid deficiency. While 400 IU per day appears to be sufficient to ward off bone disorders, levels of 1,000 IU per day are now recommended by many experts as necessary for protecting against cancer and other diseases.
The British National Health Service (NHS) recommends that people try to get as much of their vitamin D as possible from sunlight and dietary sources.
"In the absence of definitive research indicating that taking extra vitamin D can reduce risk of death, it is advisable to try and maintain vitamin D levels naturally through diet and sensible sun exposure," the NHS said.
Sources for this story include: www.usatoday.com; www.medpagetoday.com; www.nhs.uk.
Article reproduced from: http://www.naturalnews.com/025660.html
"We took into account 30 different variables - including age, weight, diabetes, cholesterol, high blood pressure, whether they exercise, smoking - and we found that low vitamin D levels, independent of all these other risk factors for heart disease, predicted an increased risk of dying from any other cause. So we found a new risk factor for death," said study author Erin Michos.
Michos and colleagues from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Albert Einstein College of Medicine analyzed vitamin D and mortality data from more than 13,000 adults over the age of 19 who had participated in the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANESIII). The NHANESIII participant pool had been carefully selected to give an accurate representation of the general U.S. population, although it might not be representative of other countries.
The vitamin D blood levels of all participants had been tested once between 1988 and 1994. Because the body synthesizes vitamin D upon exposure to sunlight and blood levels consequently tend to be higher in the summer, participants from southern states had their blood taken in the winter, while northern participants had theirs taken in the summer. This was done to ensure similar conditions for assessing overall deficiency.
Participants were divided into four groups, based upon vitamin D status. The researchers then used the National Death Index to determine which participants had died by the year 2000, as well as their cause of death.
A total of 1,807 study participants had died by the year 2000, 777 of them (43 percent) from cardiovascular disease. Among these, 76 percent had died from atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. The second most common cause of mortality was cancer, accounting for 23 percent of deaths.
The researchers found that participants in the quartile with the lowest vitamin D levels (an average of 17.8 nanograms per liter) were 26 percent more likely to have died than participants in the highest quartile. Altogether, the researchers estimated that vitamin D levels could account for up to 20.6 percent of mortality risk.
Being in the lowest vitamin D quartile was also associated with a 70 percent increase in death rate from cardiovascular causes. This correlation dropped to close to 26 percent when the researchers adjusted for other cardiovascular risk factors, however, and was no longer statistically significant. According to Michos, more research is needed to determine if vitamin D plays a role in heart health.
"We also need to prove if we give additional vitamin D, will it prevent a heart attack?" she said.
Initially, researchers also found a correlation between low vitamin D status and increased cancer mortality. This association quickly vanished when only a few complicating factors were adjusted for, however. No association was found between vitamin D levels and death from infectious diseases.
The researchers admitted that the study could not determine if vitamin D deficiency was actually a cause of early death, or if it was merely a marker for other factors. But they noted that a stronger relationship between vitamin D levels and mortality was seen in participants without cardiovascular disease or risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension or male sex. The researchers interpreted this as evidence "against low vitamin D levels being only a marker of poor general health."
"If a causal relationship exists, [vitamin D] deficiency may play a role before cardiovascular disease is established," they wrote.
The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Also known as the "sunshine vitamin," vitamin D plays a critical role in the development and maintenance of bones and teeth. Deficiency has long been known to lead to bone deformities in children, and osteoporosis and other bone disorders in adults. Recent research has also suggested that low levels of vitamin D may increase the risk of immune disorders, cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes.
The average light-skinned person can get all the vitamin D they need from just 15 minutes of sun per day on the face and hands, while a darker skinned person may need up to twice as much. In extreme northern or southern latitudes, however, the weaker sun may not provide sufficient ultraviolet radiation for adequate vitamin D synthesis, particularly in winter. For this reason, many grain and dairy products are regularly fortified with vitamin D.
Nevertheless, a number of studies suggest that vitamin D deficiency remains widespread, with 53 percent of women and 41 percent of men in the United States testing for less than 28 nanograms per milliliter in their blood. In the mortality study, deficiency was more common in those who were older, female, nonwhite, diabetic, smokers, less physically active, had a higher body mass index, or who were tested in the winter.
Levels of 30 nanograms per milliliter or more are considered adequate, levels below 20 nanograms per milliliter are considered deficient, and levels in between are considered insufficient.
Researchers are split on how much dietary vitamin D people should ingest to avoid deficiency. While 400 IU per day appears to be sufficient to ward off bone disorders, levels of 1,000 IU per day are now recommended by many experts as necessary for protecting against cancer and other diseases.
The British National Health Service (NHS) recommends that people try to get as much of their vitamin D as possible from sunlight and dietary sources.
"In the absence of definitive research indicating that taking extra vitamin D can reduce risk of death, it is advisable to try and maintain vitamin D levels naturally through diet and sensible sun exposure," the NHS said.
Sources for this story include: www.usatoday.com; www.medpagetoday.com; www.nhs.uk.
Article reproduced from: http://www.naturalnews.com/025660.html
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