The Great Debate: Do We Need Vitamin (and other) Supplements?

Check out my "pro side" of the great vitamin debate on Helium.com.

Swine Flu Explained in Kindergarten Terms....

Well, maybe not kindergarten, but very simple terms. Here is a WASHINGTON POST LINK to a nicely crafted analogy used to explain how the "swine" flu and other influenza viruses are named and disguise themselves. H for Hair and N for Nose is easy to understand and remember! Stay tuned for more nutrition boosters too! Glutamine is next on the plate...

Vitamin C... Our Long Lost Synthesis.

Vitamin C has been used for decades for everything from curing the common cold to fighting cancer. Actually Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling may have been right on the money after all! CLICK HERE for and excellent review article. It truly is a versatile nutrient and one that we cannot live without! While most mammals synthesize their own Vitamin C, we humans don't. Oops, they may be a big mistake because without vitamin C, we can't fight off infections, we can't build tissue and we can't chew! Check out the whole story on my AC website. CLICK HERE for the full story.

How important is our own immune system in fighting swine flu?

See my Associated Content article on SWINE FLU versus a healthy immune system. Of course Swine Flu appears to be a threat, perhaps a pandemic (a disease prevalent throughout the country or throughout the world). It is certainly nothing to minimize. However, we must look at how well we are equipped to handle, and hopefully defeat, infectious disease. Check out my article and follow some simple steps to help maintain your own immune system at its best. Individual requirements for and tolerance to nutrition support can vary, consult a qualified healthcare professional... I recommend an R.D., CCN!

Water, Water Everywhere, Nor any Drop to Drink!

Hi... yesterday was blogless for me but today we cover a new topic! Water... what is it and why do we need clean water to survive? Is it true that the "Clean Water Act" may not cover some sources of our drinking water? Wow... that would be ironic! Bottom line is, our drinking water has been found to be contaminated with RADIATION, unwanted pharmaceuticals, rocket fuel contaminant, pesticide runoff... need I go on? It is a scary thought but there are things we can do to remove some of these toxins before we drink. Please see my AC article about safe drinking water, healthy beverages and caffeine content of common beverages. If you can't get to the whole article, use water purified by REVERSE OSMOSIS and also carbon filtration and ozonation until you can read the whole article! There is light, and water, at the end of the tunnel!

Cholesterol is Your Friend!

Follow the label "Nutriton 101" for some basics about nutrition that you'll find you can't live without!

I receive a lot of questions about cholesterol... people are made to believe it is some kind of poison when it is actually a critically important molecule. It is produced in your body for many reasons and serves many uses. The liver produces cholesterol and sends it out in the bloodstream to destinations all over the body. Where needed, it is converted into "Vitamin" D, cortisol, DHEA and other vital hormones. Cholesterol is also incorporated into cell membranes and brain tissue. These are just a few reasons why we can't live without it!

Get this, cholesterol is cholesterol, there is no "good" or "bad" cholesterol, only healthy cholesterol and damaged or "oxidized" cholesterol. Cholesterol's fate may be determined by whether it is carried on the "LDL bus" or the "HDL taxi" but cholesterol is still just cholesterol, not some poison we should be afraid of!

I hope I have gotten your attention! I invite you to read my latest article about your friendship and dependence on cholesterol at AssociatedContent.com.

Is it true that toxins can affect our health, can cause disease?

ABSOLUTELY!

Our bodies are designed to handle a certain amount of toxins but an overload can cause serious problems including neurological disorders, hormone disruption and even obesity!

When toxins enter, the body tries desperately to break them down and eliminate them before they can cause harm. The body uses nutrients including vitamins, minerals, amino acids, phytonutrients and water to accomplish this. If the toxic load is too great or our nutrient stores are inadequate, the toxins wreak havoc on our system. Metabolic functions are disrupted and disease is the result.

The toxins I am most concerned with are radioactive elements (see radiation.org and I will have a separate blog about Strontium 90 and cancer), plastics and their constituents such as phthalates (see "Our Stolen Future"), pesticides and herbicides especially those organochlorines such as dioxin (see Environmental Working Group EWG) and mercury and other heavy metals (see Mercola.com). Another grave concern is the dumping of pharmaceuticals into what eventually becomes our drinking water! I don't know about you but I don't want to unknowingly consume 'antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones ' or any ingredients used to make drugs! See the AP's story on the 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals and ingredients dumped into our waterways. As far as we can tell REVERSE OSMOSIS will remove the pharmaceuticals and even the radioactive Strontium 90. Make the extra effort to consume water purified by REVERSE OSMOSIS.

Of course our body has to detoxify many other things, including our own hormones! How you detoxify estrogen can determine if it will promote cancer or not. If our body, especially the liver, is overwhelmed with toxins, then it will attempt to send them in to long term storage. Where might that be? In our fat cells! They become toxic waste depots and the body does not want to re-release those toxins. That is why weight loss/fat loss can be so difficult for so many!

Toxins also build up as you go up on the food chain, so choose foods at the bottom. For many reasons, choose plant based foods over animal based foods and certified organic whenever possible. Animal based foods and seafood will build up toxins... the bigger they are, the more toxic they are! See the EPA's list of "Mercury Levels in Commercial Fish and Shellfish."

In short, try to MINIMIZE your toxic burden and MAXIMIZE your nutrition status!!