Is Your Vitamin of Value?

One of the most common questions I’m asked is, “What is a good vitamin?”  Before I share advice on this, why should you take a vitamin in the first place?  Our bodies require many building blocks and of the most important of these are vitamins and minerals.  Normally, we should get these building blocks from our diet in the form of fruits and vegetables.  Unfortunately, it is estimated that even if you are eating the recommended amount, because of mass production farming methods and excessive herbicides and pesticides, our conventional fruit/vegetable sources provide only around 40% of the nutrients that they should.  Likewise, most of our diet is made of processed food devoid of nutrients.  Similarly, chemicals such as caffeine, nicotine, excessive sugars, and most medications are known to bind to our vitamins and minerals and deplete our system of these nutrients as the chemicals are detoxified.  A good quality vitamin is critical to supplement these lost or lacking nutrients.

Unfortunately, not all vitamins are created equal.  The highest quality vitamins are usually derived from whole food sources.  Most the vitamins you find in the store are synthetics and their ingredients are incomplete parts bound together.  A whole food vitamin will be made of natural ingredients that work synergistically as nature intended.  Many of the popular vitamins have two other shortcomings.  First they focus only on vitamins and lack adequate mineral sources.  Think of minerals as the catalyst that turns the vitamins on allowing them to work.  Secondly, many vitamins do not digest or assimilate into the body effectively.  This means they are not even being absorbed and are wasting your money!  While it is impossible to know if your vitamin is completely being absorbed, at the least you should see a color change in your urine to a bright (almost fluorescent) yellow once you’ve been taking one for awhile.  If you truly want the best vitamin, you need to do some research and I assure you the popular ones will not be on the top of the list.  Look to the “Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements” to learn more. 

Water Bottles & the Dangers of Plastic

Water is essential for our joints, muscles and nearly all the millions of chemical reactions going on in our bodies.  In order to stay hydrated, many of us use plastic water bottles.  Some of us also reuse these water bottles. Unfortunately, research has revealed some alarming information about this habit.

Nearly all disposable bottles are made from a type of plastic called PET that does not stand up to repeated use, washing, heat, or harsh handling. After a few uses, the plastic starts to break down and leach into the water we drink and we digest this undesirable chemical. Some believe this toxin can contribute to different cancers.  The longer the bottle is used, the more likely the breakdown can occur. If you keep a bottle in your car, the summer heat will further speed up the process. Other studies have found that even if you wash your bottles frequently, you may not be able to prevent bacteria from building up on them.

Check the bottom of your plastic bottles; if there's a “1” inside the recycling symbol, it's only meant for one-time use and keep it out of the heat.  When reusing plastic bottles, you want the number to be greater than “3”.  Even a better solution is to put your daily water supply into glass or invest in a stainless steel water bottle.  Either way, keep drinking your water!

For more information about each type of plastic, check out this article on Mercola.com http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/04/11/plastic-use.aspx.

Stress

I recently found some new stats on stress.  In a survey of 30,000 people in 30 countries, it was reported that women who work full-time and have children have the greatest level of stress.  Half of the population reports that their stress level has gone up in the last year.  Eighty-one percent of Americans report that money is their number one source of stress.  As I’ve reported in the past, this chronic stress takes a toll.  The six leading causes of death have been linked to stress including cancer, heart disease, lung disease, suicide, accidents and cirrhosis of the liver.  Add to this the other diseases related to stress (diabetes, stroke, digestive disorders, depression/anxiety, hormone and reproductive problems and immune disorders) and stress is the greatest cause of death and disease we are facing.  Medical researchers estimate that stress is the underlying cause of 80% of all illness.  But I somehow doubt this comes as much of a shock to most people.

So what do we do about stress?  The first thing is to realize that stress is a perception that occurs in the brain.  I’ve heard it said, “It’s not the stress, it’s how we respond or react to the stress.”  We need to realize that the stress response is a programmed reaction that starts in the brain and is carried through different hormones and chemicals to change our physiology so that we can better respond to a threat.  This cascade of chemical reactions is measurable, reproducible, and predictable – it happens to some degree every time we perceive stress.  You also need to realize that the stress response is a perfect reaction!  The response is programmed in all of us in order to increase our chances of survival.  The problem is that when stress is perceived the process starts and the brain does not know or care whether we are threatened by money and taxes or confronted by a tiger – the reaction is the same.  The response that would be of benefit if we were running from a tiger is devastating over time with daily stresses of modern life.  The other problem is that our brain and nervous system is always learning and adapting.  In the same way that practicing the piano will make us a better player, practicing the perception of stress will send us more easily into the stress response.  Realize that stress is a habit that must be interrupted and then retrained and this takes practice.  Please check in next week and I will share several strategies on how to start this process that can make the biggest difference between health and disease.

No More Excuses

The weather is nice again, the daylight hours are longer, and the excuses to put off exercising are running thin.  Exercise is well known to decrease pain, reduce stress, improve immune function, boost the brain, lower blood pressure, improve cardiac function, lower risk of cancer, boost energy, improve sleep and maintain body weight.  If there were a pill that did all this, they couldn’t charge enough for it or be able to keep it on the shelves.  But exercise is available to all of us and it’s free!

Perhaps you just need a little more motivation.  A 2005 study showed that ten months of moderate exercise was more effective in decreasing depression than prescription anti-depressants; cutting depression symptoms over 50%.  In 2001, researchers concluded that people with the highest level of physical activity were half as likely to develop Alzheimer’s or dementia.  In 2005 they found that women who had already had breast cancer and exercised 3-5 hours per week were half as likely to die from the disease as those who were inactive.  Exercisers typically fall asleep a half hour faster and get an extra hour of quality sleep.  In a 2002 diabetes study they found that those who exercised had double the results in controlling blood sugar as those who were taking a medication for diabetes.  A 1997 study done in nursing homes found that those who participated in lifting weights for two months tripled their walking speed and improved their balance by half.  The simple fact is that regardless of your age and current level of health, you are not as good as you could be if you were exercising more.

There are more options and opportunities in this area than ever before with exercise.  My only advice is to plan out your time in advance and commit to something you actually enjoy because a different study showed that forced exercise that people did not like actually had a negative effect by increasing their stress level.