Why Should I Supplement My Diet?

Besides the fact that it’s a new year and an ideal time to get started on developing healthier habits, now is a great time because we are living in a new golden era of nutrition. A new era that brings a shift to where specific functional foods, also called “nutraceuticals”, are being proven for the prevention of chronic diseases and for providing health benefits beyond the traditional nutrients it contains.

From alfalfa as a diuretic, to CoQ10 as a cardiac function enhancer, plant complexes for immune modulation and Omega-3 for lowering cholesterol (to name just a few) functional food formulas have been designed to deliver health benefits that approach those of patented medications—without the side effects of medications.

This new golden age of nutrition is not in competition with traditional medical approaches, as they are in two separate fields of endeavor. The traditional medical establishment is trained to treat disease. Nutraceuticals, herbs and whole food supplements are all about building health.

Finally, new scientific discoveries are happening every year that advance the field of nutritional supplementation. Discoveries resulting from the human genome project are leading to greater individualized nutrition supplemental choices. And breakthrough scientific advances, like the development of vitamin/mineral strips with multi-patented delivery systems that produces 200% better absorption of ingredients compared to any previous formulas, are completely redefining the power of nutritional supplementation.

So there’s never been a better time to get started building optimum health and there’s never been a better daily nutrition program than this nutritional supplement, with 80 bio-optimized nutrients clinically proven to create a foundation for a longer, healthier life.

This vitalizing supplement comes in a convenient daily nutrition strip you take once a day and provides a full month of energy and vitality, and just as important, the building blocks for good, lifelong health.

March is National Nutrition Month

Making Smart Food and Dietary Supplement Choices

Greetings,

Research increasingly validates the connections between nutrition and health and the types and amounts of food we eat. Science also helps us understand the impact of nutrition on the likelihood of developing certain diseases as well as the likelihood of maintaining good health and increasing longevity. For example, we know that both dietary excesses and deficiencies are linked to certain diseases. Obesity and high fat diets are established risk factors for the development of:

1. coronary heart disease
2. many types of cancers
3. ischemic stroke
4. type 2 diabetes

In fact, these four conditions alone account for approximately 85% of all deaths in the United States.

On the other hand, nutrient deficiencies in our modern diets have also been connected to numerous health conditions. For example, we know that suboptimal intakes of calcium and vitamin D can lead to osteoporosis and inadequate intakes of folic acid at conception and during pregnancy can increase a women’s risk of having a baby with a serious birth defect. Yet many Americans fail to consume the recommended servings of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low fat dairy products to meet their nutritional needs. Many of us rely on fast and convenience foods that are highly refined and often low in vitamin and mineral content. And to make matters worse, as we age we tend to absorb nutrients from food less efficiently. So in honor of National Nutrition Month, vow to improve your nutrition, which in turn will help reduce your risk of disease and promote lifelong health and well-being. Commit to making smarter food choices, achieving or maintaining a healthy weight, and taking appropriate dietary supplements to fill in nutritional gaps, address your specific health needs or assist you in weight management.

Let’s start with making smarter food choices. Unless you’re a farmer or rancher growing, raising and harvesting your own food, chances are you’re like most Americans and find it a challenge to get back to basics and do some home cooking. Finding the time these days to make it to the grocery store to shop for healthy food choices may be difficult. And even if you do make it to the store, taking the time needed to rummage through the aisles and select the smartest food choices from over 40,000 items you’ll find there can be overwhelming. So, to help make your next trip through the grocery store a little bit easier, here are some basic supermarket survival tips:

• Most grocery stores are arranged in about the same way, with the freshest foods placed around the perimeter, or the “square," of the store. That’s where you’ll find the fresh produce, low fat dairy foods, lean meat (poultry, fish, etc.), and whole grain breads—and that’s where you should start.


• Make your first stop in the produce section, where you can choose fresh fruits and vegetables that are low in calories, high in fiber, and abundant in vitamins and minerals. Dark green and deep orange-yellow fruits and vegetables are better choices than pale colored produce. Take advantage of buying organic produce, if you can (less pesticide exposure).


• Next is a visit to the dairy section. Choose nonfat or 1% fat products, which are a great source of quality protein, calcium, and vitamin D without too many calories. If you are a soy milk drinker, you will probably find the ready-to-drink, refrigerated soy milk there, too. Look for a low-fat version.


• On to the meat section, where you should look for lean, protein-rich foods such as skinless chicken or turkey breast meat, fresh fish, extra-lean beef, and extra-lean ground turkey made from white meat. Diets higher in protein may aid in weight loss because studies suggest that protein helps control hunger.


• Then follow your nose to the bakery section. Skip the unhealthy stuff like muffins, donuts, and scones, and look for whole grain breads that are high in fiber and low in fat, such as 100% whole wheat bread, pitas, and tortillas.


• Once you’ve shopped the square, make a brief trip to the inner aisles to grab some brown rice and whole grain cereal.

Next, if you’re like 65% of Americans, overweight or obese, now is the time to achieve a healthy weight that’s right for you. And the good news is that you don’t have to lose a lot of weight to reduce your risk for disease and improve your health. A modest weight loss of 5-10% in body weight (10 lbs. for example) can significantly reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease and can also help lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Achieving a healthy weight starts by watching your caloric intake and the best way is to make modest decreases in the amount of food you eat each day combined with a significant boost in your level of physical activity. Commit to a comprehensive weight management program, designed to help your body preserve lean muscle which is essential to weight management success. Preserving lean muscle while you lose weight from fat helps preserve your metabolic rate or your ability to burn calories.

And while you’re making those smarter food choices and achieving a healthy weight, remember to make wise supplement choices a part of your daily routine. Despite our best efforts to eat healthier, it never hurts to get some nutrition insurance with a balanced multivitamin/mineral supplement. Supplemental calcium, vitamin D, and the antioxidant vitamins C and E should also be considered. In fact most of us fall short in getting the recommended amount of calcium each day, so taking at least 1,000 mg of supplemental calcium each day is a smart choice, especially for women who are at higher risk of developing osteoporosis.

Adding in other supplemental nutrients that are supported by strong scientific evidence for their potential health benefits is also highly recommended. For example, the research supporting the health benefits of omega 3 fatty acids continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Increasing one’s intake of the omega 3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, has been associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease and significant improvements in various inflammatory disorders. Higher intakes of EPA and DHA also help to retain normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Although omega 3 fatty acid rich fish is a great way to get omega 3 fatty acids, many people are concerned today about heavy metal and PCB contamination in fish. Therefore, one of the best and safest ways to get your omega 3s is to choose a highly purified omega 3 fatty acid rich fish oil supplement each and every day.

Certainly, the old adage from our mothers and grandmothers continues to be valid: “we are what we eat.” So again, make a special effort on behalf of National Nutrition Month to improve “what you are” by eating plenty of fresh vegetables, fruits, lean protein and whole grains. Achieve a healthy weight by cutting your portion sizes, boosting your physical activity and following a weight management program designed to help you preserve lean muscle, and be sure to include a wise array of appropriate dietary supplements to fill in your nutrition gaps, address specific health needs and assist in your weight management efforts.

Here’s to being the best you can be!

Health Alert: Not All Vitamins Are Created Equal

MSNBC.com recently tested vitamins found on store shelves. Of 21 brands of multivitamins on the market in the United States and Canada selected by ConsumerLab.com and tested by independent laboratories, just 10 met the stated claims on their label or satisfied other quality standards. (Do you know how to pick a quality vitamin? Read the Quality Vitamin Checklist so you know where your money is going.)

Most worrisome, is that one product, The Vitamin Shoppe Multivitamins Especially for Women, was contaminated with lead.

"I was definitely shocked by the amount of lead in this product," ConsumerLab.com's Dr. Tod Cooperman stated. "We've never seen that much lead in a multivitamin before."

Other products contained more or less of a particular vitamin than listed on the label. Some did not dissolve in the correct amount of time, meaning they could pass through the body without being absorbed.

ConsumerLab.com independently evaluates hundreds of health & nutrition products and periodically publishes reviews. In the news report, released to MSNBC.com, the company purchased a selection of the popular multivitamins on the market as well as some smaller brands and sent them, without labels, to two independent laboratories to be tested.

"I think this confirms the advice often given: you are safer choosing a well-known brand of vitamins sold by some company that you have confidence in."

In the reports, tests show that the Vitamin Shoppe women's product contained 15.3 micrograms of lead per daily serving of two tablets. This same product also contained just 54% of the 200 milligrams of Calcium listed on the label.

This amount of lead is more than 10 times the amount permitted without a warning in California. This mineral is stored in the body and could build up over time.

"I would be concerned about a woman taking a multivitamin that contains 15.3 micrograms of lead per daily serving," stated Judy Simon, a dietician at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle. "Among other health effects, lead can contribute to high blood pressure."

ConsumerLab.com also found that Hero Nutritional Yummi Bears, a multivitamin for children, had an extra 216% of the labeled amount of vitamin A, delivering 5,400 International Units in a daily serving. That's substantially more than the tolerable level of 2,000 IU for kids ages 1-3 and 3,000 for kids 4-8.

"Because too much vitamin A can cause bone weakening and liver abnormalities, the Yummi Bears could be doing more harm than good. Vitamin A is one of those vitamins you don't want to get too much of," Dr.Cooperman noted.

The lead and Vitamin A findings are worrisome because vitamins are generally taken every day, potentially building up to toxic levels and leading to problems down the line. In particular, women with high levels of lead in their bodies who get pregnant could pass on problems to their baby.

In other findings, Eniva VIBE, a liquid multivitamin sold in packets, had only 54% of the claimed Vitamin A.

The ConsumerLab.com report also found that some vitamins did not break apart within the 30-minute standard set by the United States Pharmacopia. Nature's Plus Especially Yours for Women required more than an hour to disintegrate, while AARP Maturity Formula took 50 minutes. These products could go through your body without releasing the nutrients.

Editor's Note: Shaklee's Vita-Lea won a "disintegration derby" conducted by NBC several years ago that showed Vita-Lea disintegrating in under 20 minutes-- faster than all other multivitamins tested.

There are many, many reasons that set Shaklee apart from all other vitamins, herbs and nutritional supplements on the market today, and one of the most important is found right in the Shaklee Guarantee.

1. 100% guarantee that the ingredients listed on the label are in the product
2. 100% guarantee of quality-controlled product formulations that ensure product safety, purity, reliability, and product performance
3. 100% guarantee that we use the finest quality ingredients available

As you can see with Shaklee, it's not just an unconditional money back guarantee, but a whole philosophy and commitment to making Shaklee products the very best. With Shaklee you never have to worry or wonder if what's on the label is in the bottle. And you can rest assured that you're getting the very best quality and formulation based on solid scientific research and unprecedented testing.

A handy one page view with links to all the vitamins and minerals, herbs, botanicals and nutritional supplements.

Dr. Weil recommends daily supplementation

Sunday, Jan. 7, 2009, I watched Good Morning America and saw Dr. Andrew Weil, an integrated medicine specialist and author of the bestselling "Healthy Aging," share his tips on what supplements people should be taking every day. I have admired Dr. Weil for many years and so I pass his recommendations on to you.

• Multivitamin:

  People should take a quality multivitamin every day because the body needs vitamins every day. Our main dietary source of vitamins are fruits, and vegetables and whole foods. Most people are not eating those in sufficient amounts, or even every day. So the multivitamin is insurance for gaps in the diet. And even if you are eating fruits and veggies everyday, it's not a bad thing.

  Choose a multivitamin by reading the labels. There are some things that definitely should and shouldn't be on the label. The multivitamin should not contain any pre-formed vitamin A, which is usually called retinol. Don't get a multivitamin that has iron in it unless your doctor has recommended you do so. (Learn more about choosing a quality multivitamin.)

  You do want vitamin D3. If the label says vitamin D2, then it's not the good kind of vitamin D.

• Vitamin D:

  There's research coming out really month by month showing vitamin D prevents many kinds of cancer and multiple sclerosis. We used to think vitamin D was just necessary for bone health, but now we're seeing it prevent a lot of other diseases.

  But make sure you're taking D3. So often, you see orange juice or foods that say they're vitamin D fortified. But many times, those are fortified with D2. Vitamin D has to be taken with fat. Taking a vitamin D pill with orange juice isn't going to work; it won't stick to you.

• Omega 3 Fatty Acids: Take one gram of fish oil every day. The body needs adequate intake every day for optimum mental and physical health, and there are not many dietary sources. You can really only find it naturally in oily fish from cold water (salmon, herring, sardines). It helps prevent heart disease, aging, cancer and dementia.
• CoQ10: People should also take the antioxidant CoQ10. It helps muscle function, heart function and brain function. It is absolutely necessary for people with heart disease. Co-Q-10 is made naturally in your body, but more doesn't hurt.
• Herbal Tonics: Tonics are natural substances, which, taken over time, increase general resistance to illness and encourage longevity. There are many different ones, and they're worth learning about and experimenting with. If you're lacking in energy or get sick a lot, these could be very useful to you.

Dr. Weil also had recommendations about how to choose a supplement. He said that when it comes to supplements, there's not necessarily a correlation between price and quality, which is important to know. Start by reading the label. Be careful of the milligram amount you're getting per capsule.

If the recommended dose is 1,000 milligrams and the pill only contains 200 milligrams, then you're going to be taking a lot of pills every day just to reach that dosage, so pay attention to the details.

Try to get brand-name recommendations. Sadly, many doctors haven't learned about supplements in medical school, so your doctor may not be able to advise you on that. To find the best brands, do your homework. Either get names of products from people you trust, or go on the Internet and look these supplements up. Check how the different brands do quality control. Ideally, pharmacists will be able to help; but again, they aren't getting this in their education any more than our physicians are.

We hope this information is of help to you and yours. Optimal health requires knowledge and action on our part.