Luckily the search to understand and prevent the cause of diseases such as heart disease, cancer, osteoarthritis, arteriosclerosis, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, is being considered in a much more holistic sense now. Kelle Bryan, member of the girl band Eternal, had, by March 2005, beaten Lupus, even though doctors had told her that she would be medicated for the rest of her life and may not be able to have children. She looked at her recovery holistically, and supplements played a big part for her.
I discovered that I had breast cancer some years ago. I was lucky. I found it very early and was able to have it removed without tremendous trauma to my life. At this time I started to learn a lot more about health and healthy living. I have discovered that there are various factors that we can self-administer to perhaps build up our strength to fight potential degenerative disease.
We need more
We have put so many toxins into our world now that it is difficult to avoid them. They are in the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink. Toxins are in the furniture in our houses, such as the glue that holds together units as well as constituents within materials like mdf, (plants can be very helpful in counteracting this, especially, apparently, Spider plants!). We can smell pollution in the air whenever we go out. Our water is chlorinated and must always be filtered, ( I’ve been told that water left to stand for 24hrs loses its chlorination). Our cleaning fluids and washing up liquids leave chemical residues. Our cosmetics, toothpastes and soaps hold yet more chemicals, and to top it all our soils are depleted. So, as stated in Healthy Foods, eating an organic, balanced diet is going a long way to counteract this chemical barrage, but it may not be able to give us the full quota of nutrients we need in our present day environment. Today we need more nutrients because we are dealing with far more toxins.
Free Radicals
What these toxins are doing, is creating a lot more free radicals in our bodies. It’s normal to have free radicals, but now with all the toxins in our environment, a whole host of them are being created. And they are the culprits in starting the degenerative diseases. How do we fight them off? With antioxidants. You see with our defenses lowered the free radicals can gang together to create mutant cells – these are what form the cancers and arteriosclerosis and etc. It’s a bit like rust on a car. If the paintwork is damaged the underlying metal is exposed and starts to oxidise in the weather. Our immune system is being damaged and our cells are oxidising. To fight this we need some damn good antioxidants. So we not only need the nutrients that our soils can no longer provide us with, we also need extra antioxidants to fight the effects of the free radicals.
What are the optimal nutrients?
After some years of buying various supplements because of something that I had read, I found that my cupboards were full of bottles that I had bought for a variety of reasons. I had forgotten most of the reasons I had bought them but was assured by the news that I needed them. For instance I had vitamins E, B, Iron, C, Omega oils and a whole variety of herbs. Then I gradually read that I shouldn’t be taking some of them. Iron for instance should only taken under medical guidance. On top of that, it was important to take them in balance to ensure that minerals were included, and that trace minerals form part of the essential nutrients. I realised that not supplementing my diet was akin to living without any savings for a rainy day, insurance, there would be nothing for when the time came that I needed it. To take balanced supplements and eat healthy food, I was preparing for the future, and it had to be done daily. I couldn’t just be healthy one week then eat junk food and no supplements the next, I had to build up my health for my future. Most importantly, children need to start learning from a very young age to eat healthily and to supplement their diets as you may have read in my optimal health article. Unfortunately it’s virtually impossible to obtain an optimal level of all nutrients. For example, we need 400 IU of vitamin E a day, that’s equal to 12.2 kg butter, or 2.3 kg wheat germ, or 15 kg spinach, or 1L safflower oil, or 1 kg almonds, or 0.54 kg sunflower seeds ... daily.
Now I have got to a state where I know that what I am taking is what I need. A book that really helped me with that was Lyle MacWilliam's Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements. Let me take you through some of the requirements of balanced vitamin and mineral supplements. But remember, research is coming up with new results all the time, so things change and are updated regularly.
Supplementation
Supplementation needs to include a comprehensive formula of the right amounts of high potency vitamins, antioxidants and other nutrients for daily nutrition and to help counteract the effects of those harmful free radicals. Comprehensive antioxidant protection offers support for sound cardiovascular function, healthy pregnancies, optimal vision, a sound immune system and efficient energy metabolism.
Chelated minerals and trace elements ensure that our bodies will receive, along with the antioxidants, the nutrients that are sadly lacking in today’s food. Minerals and trace elements represent less than one half of one percent of the nutrients we consume each day, yet without them we would not be able to efficiently use the carbohydrates, proteins and fats in our diet. The supplements also need to be taken in a way that the body can readily use and absorb them, this means that the ingredients must be put together with this in mind. Science is catching up all the time with research on how our cells utilise nutrients. It was only discovered in the mid 90s that boron plays a critical role in the metabolism of calcium and magnesium in healthy bone growth. I certainly couldn’t do this on my own, I’d need to take a course in micro-biology!
Rather than having a lot of bottles of vitamins and minerals and mixing and matching, I realised that it is far easier to use high quality multi vitamins and minerals that are already prepared to the absolutely optimal level according to current research.
Next - Specific Ingredients - Antioxidants
