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Archive for the ‘Supplement Recommendation’ Category

Here in America, and in many other countries, there is a wide selection of healthy nutritious foods available to the general public. The Food And Drug Administration (FDA) regularly states, as do many professionals in the nutrition sector, that Americans can get all the vitamins and minerals they need for good health from a diet comprised of these foods. They say that supplementation with vitamins is not needed for most people.

However, almost everyday we hear or read about someone whose health has suffered because of a “vitamin deficiency” of some sort or another! How can this be happening? Is the FDA lying to us? Is there something wrong that we don’t know about?

Here’s just a few points to consider.

Let’s take an average American, or citizen of England, Germany, France. Let’s take you.

What did YOU eat for breakfast yesterday? How about lunch and dinner? What snacks did YOU have? Did you smoke or drink alcohol? Are you pregnant, nursing, or overweight?

So, breakfast (if you ate any at all) was a bowl of cold cereal with milk or some toast with coffee, there was that candy bar halfway through the morning, then for lunch, you went to McDonald’s…you get the picture, right?

I’m sure that before fixing or selecting each meal, you took a look at the FDA’s food pyramid…what’s that? Oh, you’ve got it memorized and always select the proper number and size of portions throughout the day. Right! Well, maybe you at least counted calories and checked the nutritional labels… Oh, you…er…didn’t do that either, huh?

Do you see my point?

The nutritional elements we need ARE probably there in the foods available to us, but the choices we make, and the knowledge we have, are not the choices we should be making.

But who has the time, or the will-power, to lug around a copy of some book on nutrition, or memorize calorie charts, or check the menu against them even if we had them? I don’t, and I bet that you don’t either.

Maybe that’s why we see people with vitamin deficiencies!

How about this one?

We’re all different, and we have different eating patterns, or we don’t have a lot of money, so we eat a lot of starchy food (carbs…very bad carbs), or we just never learned that much about nutrition.

Tell you what! Let’s try to eat all the foods we need to eat to get all the natural nutrition we need. What’s that? You tried that, and gained weight because it required you to eat so many calories?

What if you are trying to lose weight? Maybe you are eating a healthy diet, but you are restricting or avoiding certain foods. Maybe you are also avoiding some of the vitamins and minerals you need.

How about the food itself? Has that radish or apple been processed or stored so long that it may have lost some of it’s nutritional value?

That smoking and drinking thing: Did you know that smoking and drinking actually interfere with your body’s ability to process or effectively use some essential vitamins?

It seems as if it’s a losing battle. Actually, there are a lot of things that someone can do to make sure they get all the vitamins and minerals they need. Knowing something about nutrition is good, planning meals or selecting carefully from the menu based on nutrition is good, and so is getting the proper amount of exercise and rest. But, it seems plain to me that making sure you are getting the appropriate amounts of the various vitamins and minerals can be difficult the way we live our lives today.

Recommendation? Take a daily multivitamin supplement…just to be safe. A bottle of vitamins doesn’t cost much, but it can potentially head off major and minor health problems in you and your family.

Colon cleansers offer great health benefit. Now they are being considered as a sure help in reducing weight. This is particularly after the recommendation of colon cleansers on the Oprah Show. The panel of experts there said, “a healthy digestion system is a reliable proof to a perfect health.” They have suggested a 2 way process of weight reduction, that is now being followed by the host Oprah Winfrey herself: acai berry diet &colon cleansing. While acai itself is a great colon cleanser, here one must take a colon cleanser individually.

For that the one most talked about these days is Cologenix. With so many colon cleansers being sold in the market, how do you know that Cologenix is all above the rest? That is because – it is perhaps the only product that is willing to explain its functions & benefits in detail.

Here are the details of the same:

1. Actually cleansing is merely the clearance of the toxins stored in the bowel area.
2. Mainly these toxins get stored in your lower intestine.
3. These toxins are the primary cause of several day-to-day as well as chronic ailments.
4. What ever cleanser one may choose to take, a thin layer of the toxins always remains as a residual in the intestine.
5. Cologenix removes these stored toxins right from the core.
6. It is made up of all natural ingredients and hence is utmost harmless with no side effects.
7. With these pills, you do not have to change your lifestyle.
8. You also do not need to forcibly cut down on your diet.
9. Besides weight reduction, Cologenix also keeps you fresh & energetic always.
10. It decreases or almost eliminates the digestion problems such as bloating, gas, water retention, etc.
11. It improvises your immune system.
12. It helps you have a healthier skin, teeth & hair.
13. It guides you through better absorption & spread of the vitamins & minerals in the body.
14. It reduces the occurrence of bad breathe.
15. It prevents the acne breakouts on the skin.

Is the use of iodized salt enough to provide our bodies with the iodide it needs for optimal health or must we use an iodine supplement?

Let’s look at a little history and some basic chemistry.

Morton added iodide to their salt in 1924 to prevent an epidemic of enlarged thyroid glands (goiter) due to an iodide deficiency. Even though the result of including iodide in salt was successful science has yet to establish what amount of iodide human beings require for optimal health. Our MDR (minimum daily requirement) of 150 mcg is enough to prevent goiter and cretinism but not nearly enough to maximize thyroid hormone production or to protect us from other disease conditions related to iodine and iodide deficiencies.

Many studies (WHO & National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey) have shown that the general population of both the U.S. and worldwide are suffering from an insufficiency of these two essential trace elements. So the first question is can we rely on iodized salt to provide us with our daily needs for maximum health?

Iodized Salt

A teaspoon of iodized salt contains the following:

2,300 mg of sodium (Our U.S. Department of Health and Human Sciences recommends that a healthy adult should not consume more than 2,300 mg of sodium. If they have high blood pressure, kidney disease, diabetes, are black, or if they are middle-aged or older they should not consume more than 1,500 mg. The ‘Surgeon General’s Report on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention’ of 1979 even condemned salt. 2,700 mg of chloride 300 mcg of iodide (0.3 mg)

From this information and taking into consideration our intake of salt added to prepared and restaurant foods iodized salt may not be the best and healthiest source of iodide.

Iodine & Iodide

The next logical question then is how much of these two trace elements do we require for health, not just to sustain life, but for vital health.

There’s a general consensus about vitamin and mineral requirements yet with iodine and iodide there’s a huge gap between physicians when considering a safe and effective dose. And both sides have very convincing research to support their point of view.

The conservatives believe that all the nutrients we need can be found in our food. This theory may have been true 60 years ago but our consumption of foods grown in nutrient depleted soils and manufactured foods has greatly reduced the essential nutrients we require. The conservative view also does not take into account people’s reluctance to use table salt.

Then there is the other extreme, physicians prescribing upwards of 50 mg of iodine and iodide per day. That’s 50,000 mcg compared with 150 mcg, 300 times the MDR. There may be some initial benefits to flooding the body with this much iodine and iodide but taken long-term there will be consequences.

Words of Caution

I used to be one of those high-dose prescribers until I repeated lab tests focusing on thyroid hormones. I was horrified by the results. I immediately stopped prescribing iodine and iodide and dove into the research myself.

The endocrine system’s reaction to high doses is a little too deep for this article but the primary result of high dosing is inflammation of the thyroid and over years the increased risk of a condition called Hashimoto’s.

One patient, before starting her on high-dose iodine and iodide, tested negative for Hashimoto’s but within 6 months her Hashimoto’s test turned positive.

Research

I was surprised to find so much research on these two trace elements coming up with over 100 articles on their use in the prevention and treatment of numerous diseases.

Some of the research indicated a safe and effective dose while many articles agreed that people around the world, and not in just the less developed countries, are not getting anywhere near what they require.

Several articles pointed to between 3 and 6 mg a day as being safe. I tend to stand on the conservative side, recommending 3mg of iodine and iodide per day. This moderate dose slowly saturates the tissues and because it’s not the ‘flood-the-system’ high-dose approach the body will easily excrete what it does not need.

Which Iodine Supplement?

In products from the sea nature provides the combination of both iodine and iodide. With supplements you’ll find the ingredient is often only iodine. It will also be the elemental form and not made from food.

This means that most iodine supplements do not include iodide which is absolutely necessary for our thyroid to make its hormones. So to me supplements with iodine alone are out.

Iodine and Iodide Supplements

The most popular combination supplements (Iodoral & IodinePlus-2) fall into the category of the high-dose, usually 12.5 mg (12,500 mcg), and I recommend avoiding them even if your physician is doing lab tests. You can’t predict when you’ll reach that saturation threshold and start having thyroid inflammation.

Kelp Tablets

Kelp contains both iodine and iodide. There have been a number of survey studies showing how the cultures consuming higher amounts of seafood and sea vegetation have a much lower incidence of various illnesses including cancer. Yet these studies are from the 60′s and 70′s.

In the last 40 to 50 years our oceans have become our industrial waste sewage system with kelp, chlorella, plankton and reef life our only means of preserving the purity of our waters.

I recently approached a very large and well-known herbal supplement manufacturing company (Gaia Herbs) to have them formulate a kelp concentrate to deliver 3 mg of iodine and iodide. After a week of their research they informed me that they would be unable to make this product because the concentration of arsenic in the 3 mg dose would exceed California’s limit of acceptable levels.

Besides, these articles of the 60′s and 70′s studied the ‘nutritional’ intake of various cultures and even though they cite iodine and iodide being the primary variable for improving health we need to take into consideration all the nutrients in their diet, selenium being second in line.

My Recommendation

Obviously, some attention needs focus on iodine and iodide supplementation to secure the health of you and your loved ones. Here are a few suggestions.

Use sea salt for cooking and for flavor. It contains many trace minerals which we no longer find in our produce. Sea salt does not contain nearly enough iodide. In fact the concentration of iodide in iodized salt is about 45 times that of sea salt. Use the combination of iodine and iodide at 3 mg a day for an adult, about half this for a child. The ratio is about 1.25 mg of iodine and 1.75 mg of potassium iodide. Always, always take selenium when taking any iodine product. I suggest between 200 and 400 mcg in the methionine form. Selenium plays hundreds of important roles in health and especially with thyroid hormones.

You’ll find more information on the safe uses of iodine and iodide on my blog while I continue to contribute to the ezine platform.

All the best,

Dr. Alexander Haskell, N.D.

If you have ever looked for supplements, you may find it overwhelming, trying to find the supplements that are just right for you. Well, it doesn’t have to be that complicated, let me explain why. First thing to do is determine your goals, simply how you want to look and feel, for example, maybe you want to put on 20 pounds of lean muscle, or you want to tone that midsection and chest, whatever your goal, it needs to be defined, make sure you have it written down, not just an idea in your head, goals unwritten are called dreams, and sometimes dreams can be lost or forgotten, so write it down and place it where you can see it daily.

After you have set your goals and are now trying to decide what the best bodybuilding supplements are to help with obtaining the goal, understand you are looking for supplements to help with achieving your goal, you don’t want to take a weight gaining supplement while you are trying to cut pounds, and you shouldn’t be looking for supplements marketed as miracles in a plastic container. Many supplements will make promises to do things for you without you providing any effort, you need to realize that for the supplements to work properly, you too will have to work, these supplements are designed to supplement you efforts.

One of the first choices for me was to add protein to my daily regimen or sometimes called stack; a stack, basically defined, is a combination of supplements you are using regularly as part of a diet and workout program. Why protein supplementation you may ask, I do a lot of different weight training and endurance workouts, weight and endurance training although good for the body, puts a lot of stress on it as well, the muscles become depleted of the stores of carbohydrate/glycogen, amino acids, and phosphagens like phosphocreatine and ATP, even a negative protein state can occur during these types of workouts, the muscles suffer damage from the strenuous workout, and even immune system functions becomes weakened. The body however allows for us to provide it with proper nutrition and thus begins repairing the damage almost immediately.

This is where a good protein supplement comes in, the body needs something that is can readily use and doesn’t need to be broken down for a long period of time. Enter Whey Protein, or Whey Protein Isolates, or any of the other forms of whey protein available. Whey protein accounts for 20% of the protein in milk, the other 80% is a protein called Casein. Whey protein is quickly dissolved and allows your body to start benefiting from it quicker; some studies have even shown that whey protein increase protein synthesis and boost immune function. Whey is a byproduct of cheese-making from milk, it is rich in branch chained amino acids, minerals, vitamins, and other nutrients; it has also been shown to have great antioxidant properties. My recommendation is a shake that mixes well, does not stay all clumped up, and has a good flavor, and make sure you are getting what you are paying for, some protein shake supplements will have more fillers than protein, the shake mix I use provides 25 grams of whey protein in one rounded scoop, others available provide less protein with more scoops. Protein shakes are easy to mix, and can be used post or pre-workout, you can even use them during a workout if you would like; the key is to provide your body the nutrients it needs to start repairing itself.

I also use protein bars for morning or afternoon snacks, this helps curb my snacking tendencies, and provides and additional amount of protein. An average person should take in a minimum of 25 grams of quality protein per day, athletes who do strenuous workouts should consume substantially more, an example, professional bodybuilders will intake around 150 grams a day.

Hopefully, this article has been helpful, the next time I will be talking about the best bodybuilding supplements for pre-workout supplementation, and how they work. If you like this article the link to my blog on this topic will follow. Until next time, live well and be strong.

Most people do not eat a balanced diet rich in a variety nutrients, vitamins, and minerals. I often hear people complain because they do not like fruits and vegetables so they cannot eat right. However, our bodies were not designed to live off cheese burgers and French fries. We were designed to kill animals and harvest fruits and vegetables. I do understand that it’s tough to get the recommended 6-10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day. That’s where nutritional supplements come in. They can help you reach the necessary daily intake of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients when you cannot get enough through diet alone. While there is NO substitute for a well balanced, fruit and vegetable rich diet, supplements will help on your road to good health.

Vital Nutrients We Need Every Day:
Calcium: 1,000-1,300 mg a day
Sources of calcium: ½ cup cooked spinach = 120mg.
8 oz plain, low-fat yogurt = 415mg. 8 oz 2% milk = 297mg
Why we need it: Calcium helps prevent risk or decrease severity of osteoporosis. It helps our bones to become strong and hard. Calcium is also necessary for muscle action. Several studies have also shown a link between higher calcium intakes with lower body weight.

Vitamin D: 500-2000 IU a day
Sources of Vit. D: fortified milk or orange juice = 100-125 IU. 1 whole egg = 25 IU The majority of our vitamin D is synthesized (made) by our body from exposure to sunlight
Why we need it: Vitamin D helps our bones absorbed calcium thus helping prevent osteoporosis. Vitamin D has been shown to reduce the risk of many types of cancers. Vitamin D consumption also has links to reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes.

Fiber: 20-35 g a day
Sources of fiber: Apple = 3g. 1 cup black beans = 19g. ½ cup raw broccoli = 7g
Why we need it: Fiber aids digestion by working in your colon to create solid waste and to keep the colon functioning. Fiber also reduces risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes by reducing triglyceride levels in the blood and helping the body excrete unneeded waste.

Probiotics: No set recommendation for daily intake
Sources: Yogurt
Why we need it: Our bodies have good bacteria in them all the time. These bacteria help with absorption of nutrients, breakdown of food, removal of waste, and fighting off disease and bad bacteria. We need to build up our good bacteria to stay healthy and keep our immune system working properly.

Other vitamins we need every day for various reasons:
C: 45-100mg/ day – Antioxidant

E: 15 mg/ day – Antioxidant

Folate: 400 ug/ day – Works with amino acids (proteins)

A: Aids vision, aids gene expression and reproduction.

Niacin – Required for energy production

Thiamin – Aids in metabolism of carbohydrates

B12 – Works with nucleic acid (part of DNA) metabolism

B6 – Aids amino acid (protein) metabolism

Riboflavin – Coenzyme

Vitamin K – Involved in blood clotting and bone metabolism

Iodine – Aids thyroid hormone function

Zinc – Helps regulate gene expression

Iron – Component of hemoglobin (blood)

Potassium – Regulates fluid levels

Chromium – helps regulate blood glucose (sugar)

Going on a multi-vitamin can help you achieve all of the recommended daily allowances. These recommendations are the United States Department of Agriculture dietary guidelines.
At Arkansas Physical Medicine we have a variety of nutritional supplementation that we recommend to patients to help them achieve better health. The supplements that we offer here are backed by extensive research and are held to higher regulation than supplements sold in the United States.

Kidney stones come in all shapes and sizes. They form when substances filtered by the kidneys do not dissolve and begin crystallizing in the kidneys. This happens when the body is dehydrated and has low levels of certain chemicals normally found in the body- citrate, magnesium and pyrophosphate. These help keep the body non-acidic (a normal pH balance). They also help break down minerals that naturally occur in your body, like uric acid, calcium and oxalate, but which can crystallize into stones when they are present in excessive amounts. In addition, after months or years of consistent dehydration, the body cannot effectively flush toxins, impurities and calcium. And one result of many is calcium buildup in the kidneys.

The most common type of kidney stone is known as a calcium stone and forms when there is too much calcium present in urine. Calcium stones make up for about 80-85% of all kidney stones. Calcium is usually removed from the blood as it is filtered through the kidneys and expelled during urination. When fluid or chemical levels in the body are imbalanced, calcium may not dissolve. It typically binds with other substances such as oxalate or phosphate, or both.

It has been revealed that avoiding calcium may do more harm than good when it comes to kidney stone sufferers who have, in the past, been warned to avoid foods rich in calcium. It was once believed that dietary calcium was responsible for calcium stones, and the recommendation was to avoid calcium rich dairy products. Recent studies have shown that foods high in calcium, including dairy products, may actually help prevent calcium stones. Many calcium rich foods also contain potassium and magnesium; two nutrients that might assist in preventing kidney stones.

It seems that high dietary calcium actually blocks a chemical action which causes the formation of kidney stones by binding with oxalates from foods in the intestine which then prevents both from being absorbed into the bloodstream and then is transferred to the kidneys. An important constituent of many stones is oxalate. Research has now shown that calcium is actually needed when ingesting oxalate-rich foods in order to assist with decreasing the absorption of the oxalates. The body produces most of the oxalate in the urine as a by-product, while a portion is derived from one’s diet. Oxalate is found in high levels in spinach, rhubarb, cranberries, strawberries, blackberries, chocolate, nuts, wheat bran, beet greens, squash, cocoa, tea, coffee, and cola. Calcium oxalate stone formers should avoid consuming large amounts of these foods and drinks in their diets.

A high-calcium diet does not appear to increase the risk for kidney stones, however, taking calcium in pill form, may increase the risk of developing stones. If you have calcium kidney stones, it may be wise to avoid calcium supplements. Instead, you could try to meet your calcium needs through foods such as milk, yogurt, and calcium-fortified drinks.

Another intervention that may help eliminate all types of kidney stones, including calcium stones, is taking an all natural product Renavive. Renavive dissolves the kidney stones composition, works to cleanse the kidneys and helps pass stone particles safely and painlessly. Renavive’s 100% natural formulation has been designed so that it can also be taken as a daily supplement to help prevent stones from occurring in the future. By taking Renavive and keeping your body hydrated will help ensure that the kidney stones will be flushed out of your body.