Filed under: Healthy Nutrition, supplements | Tags: cancer prevention, lead in vitamins, mental health, neurological health, Omega 3's, prevention, supplement concerns, supplements, toxins, Vitamin D, vitamins
There has been some bad press about supplementation. One of the challenges is that many of the studies done are isolating one nutrient and only looking at that. Our bodies are complex and food is complex also. Nutrients work in conjunction with each other. In addition, I wonder at the quality of the vitamins they are studying. Are synthetic vitamins received in the body the same as vitamins that come from food sources? I don’t think so and many of the responses I have been reading agree.
You are talking to a “supplement convert.” I recall sitting in my ob-gyn’s office when I was in my mid-20s and she asked me if I was taking a multivitamin or calcium. I said no to both that I didn’t like swallowing pills. She STRONGLY but kindly encouraged me to reconsider because folic acid is one of the leading things women can do to prevent birth defects. I wasn’t looking to get pregnant at that time but you never know what happens. I actually started out taking chewable children’s vitamins that have the adult dosage of folic acid.
Years passed and I started learning more about my body, proper nutrition, and the differences between supplements (how they are manufactured, types of vitamins/minerals, how my body will absorb the nutrients, etc). So I am sharing with you some of the latest news I gathered by Dr. Jamie McManus, Chairman of Shaklee Corporation’s Medical Affairs. She spoke in Michigan recently and this is what we are learning about two common supplements Omega 3’s and Vitamin D.
Omega 3’s have been known for years to provide for heart health and protection against heart disease. There is new information coming out that also shows support of:
- Macular degeneration
- Depression/stress reduction
- Menopause
- Neuro-protection (support brain health) (especially great for for pregnant woman to take)
- Kidney disease
- Rheumatoid Arthritis
Here is my primary concern about Omega 3’s…these fish oil supplements can be full of heavy metals, just like the fish are. So if we are going to recommend a supplement for pregnant woman it better not be loaded with mercury, dioxin, or any other dangerous contaminants. Need some guidance? Don’t just go to the drugstore and buy what is cheapest. Go with a company known for quality and thorough testing of EACH BATCH!
My secondary concern of Omega 3’s is how they are being combined in a “one a day” tablet along with all the other nutrients we are supposed to get in a day. Some of our nutrients absorb in different places throughout out digestive tracts. So first of all, those little pills are packed so tight your body can’t break them down to access the nutrition. Plus, you can’t get complex, whole food nutrition in a little pill. Those supplements are almost always synthetic which I believe our bodies are smart enough to know the difference and treat synthetics differntly.
Moving on to: Vitamin D, it’s not just for bones anymore.
60 to 80% of the population is deficient in Vitamin D. WOW!!! I was deficient up until my doctor ran a blood test and determined that I was low in Vitamin D. I didn’t realize it by how I felt, I didn’t connect it with any symptoms I was having. This should show the concern that we are obviously NOT getting our nutrients from our food sources. Also, living in a northern climate, studies have shown that we do NOT get our Vitamin D from the sun during the winter months. I don’t know why that is but I have read that from several sources. What is Vitamin D good for? Prevention of:
- Colon cancer
- Bone fracture
- Dental problems
- Cholesterol problems
- Multiple Sclerosis
Were there a couple surprises on the list? There were for me.
So as a “supplement convert” I rarely miss a day anymore. I can now swallow pills (although I do it one at a time!) and I consider my supplements as important to take as if I was on a prescrption (which I’m not on). I think in the long run I will be able to avoid prescriptions by taking care of my body from the inside out. Check out www.LandmarkStudy.com for more information about long-term supplement users having better health.
“Talk” to you soon!
Filed under: Healthy Nutrition | Tags: cardiovascular health, heart disease, heart disease prevention, prevention, soy protein, supplements, supplements for heart disease, weight loss
Did you know changing diet and exercise habits can prevent 90% of heart disease? What if there were 90% fewer people needing angioplasty or heart by-pass? I guess there would be some cardiologists twiddling their thumbs but beyond that, think of the vibrancy these folks would have. Heart disease is SO debilitating. It exhausts the human body and makes the simple tasks of day to day living impossible (or at least more challenging and less enjoyable).
So what to do, what to do? YOU know (but I’ll say it again)…
1) Lose that extra weight and keep it off!
2) Exercise regularly, get your heart rate up 3o minutes/day.
3) Get good fats (Omega 3 Fatty Acids) into your diet and PLEASE make sure they aren’t tainted with heavy metals.
4) Take in soy that has been properly processed (low temperature, washed in water, not alcohol).
5) Eat your veggies (and try to avoid lots of fats and cream sauces with your veggies)
6) Increase your fiber intake. Here are some interesting facts on fiber:
- Men should have about 30 grams of fiber each day, Women about 25 grams.
- Most people get half (or less) of their recommended daily fiber allowance.
- Fiber helps with weight loss because it promotes a feeling of fullness.
- Fiber is found in high-nutrient, low fat foods (typically).
- Fiber binds to cholesterol that you eat and escorts it out of your body so the cholesterol doesn’t have the opportunity to get into your arteries.
- Look for darker grains, they tend to have more fiber and be more healthy (brown rice vs. white rice).
- Watch the fat and sugar content on cereals, don’t add fiber at the expense of your blood sugar!
Each year $100 billion is spent on angioplasty and cardiac by-pass. Isn’t that amazing? How much would each of our insurance premiums go down if 90% fewer procedures were done?
How much would quality of life improve for those people who are currently on the fast track for heart disease if they made the changes necessary?
Are YOU at risk?
Here’s a little secret…we are all at risk. Don’t think differently for a minute.
Filed under: Healthy Nutrition | Tags: cancer prevention, disease prevention, health care costs, prevention, prevention and early diagnosis
Am I the only one who gets annoyed to hear about “prevention” of breast cancer by getting a mammogram or “prevention” of colon cancer by getting a colonoscopy? These are the tools of early diagnosis, not prevention.
These are VERY important tools and I make sure I do my own monthly (minimum) breast exam (especially after my own brush with a growth in my breast) but let us not confuse FINDING something early and increasing our chances of survival with PREVENTING it from growing/becoming in the first place.
One of the things that grows ever clearer to me is that our current health care system is not sustainable, either financially nor for the health of the people. The health care system is failing. Just look at the rates of disease. People are NOT healthier because we spend tens of millions of dollars each year on health care.
Cancer is a great example. Diagnositic tools for cancer are improving all the time. Our treatment of cancer is improving all the time. My dad only lived for a year and a half after diagnosis (and he had some mis-diagnosis in that time) BUT when he was on chemo he didn’t have many horrendous side effects that people would experience 15 or 20 years ago. They gave him anti-nausea medicine at the same time he received the chemo.
Anyway, I digress. Rates of cancer are NOT decreasing, if anything they are increasing. More people are surviving longer after cancer diagnosis but we are not reducing the numbers of people that are getting cancer in the first place.
As individuals we have a lot to do about our health, short and long term. 75% of our health care dollars go to treat PREVENTABLE disease.
In my next couple blogs I will post some of what we can do to prevent disease and illness. In the meantime, take some personal responsibility for your own health and do something good for your body and soul…get some exercise today. Here in Michigan it is a lovely, sunny spring day. Jewel (my dog) and Keith (my hubby) and I will be off for a walk as soon as I post this.
Final thought…the top five causes of death (and where 80% of health care expenses go) as shared by Dr. Jamie McManus:
Heart Disease
Cancer
Stroke
Prescription Medicines (taken properly, not abused)
Diabetes
Post your comments and tell me what you think or contact me through e-mail at keithdonnacopeland@sbcglobal.net
Filed under: mental health | Tags: adoption, family, foster adoption, grief, grief support, grief therapy, hospice
I don’t think that grieving ever does end. I think it transforms and if we allow it, it transforms us in the process.
I just completed my final session through Arbor Hospice for “Adult Children who Have Lost a Parent” group. It was eight weeks long and what a wonderful process.
The women (sadly it was all women in our group) in my group were so open about sharing their feelings, their struggles, their relationships. In their sharing it was easier to become in touch with my own relationship with my dad and the losses associated with his death.
One thing that struck me is how many other things can get piled into grieving. Things that happen with career, family, other relationships, past losses, present struggles. They can all get balled into the same mess of emotions. It is so easy to have that happen.
I find myself thinking more about a legacy for myself and not having children. I find myself wanting children more strongly and I suspect it is due to a variety of factors including adding to a family that feels like it has been shrinking for the past ten years and because I think I am meant to be a mom. I feel it is part of my path to have the experiences of motherhood.
So Keith and I are thinking of adoption through the foster care system.
I bring that up just as an example of what is happening in my own heart that is being amplified by grief.
Many hospice groups offer free grief support groups. If you are working through grief this may be something for you to look into. It provided for me exactly what I was looking for…a time and a space to take the time to work through some of my grief for my dad.
That isn’t done in eight weeks or six months or one year. There is no magical time frame that grieving stops. I know the next time we have a family wedding to go to and there is dancing I will miss not having my dad to dance with. I found some pictures the other day of us dancing at my cousin Mark’s wedding.
Life continues. My dad’s legacy continues. What is my legacy?
Filed under: supplements | Tags: Calcium, Calcium and colon cancer, colon cancer, health, medicine, minerals, prevention, studies, supplements, Vitamin D, vitamins
I cannot take credit for the information in this post. The information came from a letter written by Dr. Jamie McManus (a family practice MD who is the Chairman of Medical Affairs at Shaklee Corporation). I read this yesterday and thought you might appreciate the information. It is pretty cool.
Three studies published in the February 23, 2009 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine paint a very positive picture for dietary supplements. And given the tendency for the media to focus on bad news for diet and health, we wanted to make sure that these important studies didn’t get buried by the recent onslaught of negative press relating to the economy, the banking system, or most importantly, your health.
First, National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers following nearly half a million older adults found that increasing calcium consumption in women was associated with a lower risk of developing cancer. The beneficial effect seemed to peak at about 1,300 mg of calcium daily. A similar effect on total cancer wasn’t seen in men perhaps because women were more likely to take a multivitamin/mineral supplement that contained calcium, and much more likely to take a calcium supplement regularly.
But men and women were found to be in agreement on at least one thing. A diet rich in calcium from foods and supplements was associated with a lower risk of developing cancers of the digestive system, including colon cancer. In fact, men and women with the highest calcium intakes had a 16 and 23% lower risk respectively for digestive system cancers compared to those with the lowest calcium intakes.
Click here to read an abstract of the article
Need help battling colds this winter? Maybe you should make sure you’re getting enough vitamin D. Intrigued by the recent studies suggesting vitamin D is a key immune system player, NIH researchers examined blood vitamin D levels in the US population to see if there was any relationship to frequency of colds. Sure enough, the higher the blood level of vitamin D, the lower the frequency of reported upper respiratory tract infections.
Those with the lowest vitamin D levels had a 36% increased risk of catching a cold when compared to those with the highest levels. The link was even stronger in those with existing respiratory conditions. For example, asthmatics with the lowest vitamin D status were nearly six times as vulnerable to colds as those with the highest vitamin D blood levels.
Click here to read an abstract of the article
Observational studies, including the two just mentioned, are important for identifying associations between nutrients and risk for disease, but clinical trials are the gold standard of scientific research because of their rigor and their ability to determine causality. The third study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine is an important clinical trial on the use of B vitamins for the prevention of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). AMD is the leading cause of irreversible vision loss in older Americans and an estimated 1.75 million in the US have an advanced case of AMD, while 7.3 million have it in the early stages.
In this study, 5442 women, 40 years of age and older, who had some evidence of heart disease, were randomly assigned to take a dietary supplement of folic acid, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12, or a placebo. After an average of 7.3 years of taking the dietary supplements, those taking the supplemental B vitamins had a 34% lower risk of developing AMD than those taking the placebo. Supplementation with B vitamins as shown in this study is the first public health measure ever identified that reduces the chance of developing AMD, other than the avoidance of cigarette smoking.
Click here to read an abstract of the article
These studies should remind us all of the importance of diet and supplements including calcium, vitamin D, and critical B vitamins to support optimum health. For those seeking more information on these studies, we’ve provided direct links to the study abstracts published on PubMed, a service of the US National Library of Medicine that includes over 18 million citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: action, apology, commitment, follow through, weight loss
Sorry about my long, long, long absence from my blog. It is funny that I was doing pretty good when I made a commitment to write three or four times per week. THEN (in a fit of enthusiasm) I made a commitment to myself to write once per day and I haven’t submitted a single word since then. What is that about?
So I am getting over myself and getting back in the game. I have been speaking with some friends that are trying to get a handle on their weight and fitness and it occurs to me that any major goal we are attempting to achieve is about staying in the game.
So I benched myself for a while and now I am back. My apologies for staying out of the game so long.
I really believe “how you do anything is how you do everything” and that gives me food for thought. Where else in my life do I shy away when I step up my commitment level? When else have I dropped the ball just when things were getting serious?
Do you see any of yourself in here?
Where have you been disappointed in yourself recently and how does that reflect in other areas?
So for today I am going to leave my message here. I will write again very soon.
