Vegan Nutrition

Osteoporosis is a very serious disease of your bones that can lead to breakdown of the bone density, causing it to be weak enough that it is susceptible to breakage.  People sometimes do not believe osteoporosis to be serious, since it is a gradual disease with a gradual onset of symptoms. In other words, nobody that gets osteoporosis is metaphorically hit over the head with a crux of issues all at once.  Unlike cancer or another serious illness, there is no immediate life-threatening problem when one develops osteoporosis.  However, being diagnosed with osteoporosis can truly remove the quality of a person’s life. Luckily, there are precautions that can be taken to prevent the development of this disease which generally affects the elderly. It is very important to take measures early in life so as to avoid this progressive disease later on.

Exercise is a great way to fight osteoporosis early in life.  Believe it or not, exercise is critical for the prevention of weak bones and, besides its other positives, this is just another reason why exercise should be a daily part of your routine.  Any weight-bearing exercise is particularly good for osteoporosis, such as weight training, running, or other high-impact sports and activities.  While you have probably heard that running is hard on the knees or hips, in reality your bones are getting stronger the longer one continues this type of activity.  The striking and impact of your foot on the pavement or hard ground actually works to harden the bones to breakage over time.

Weight training is another very popular exercise that is good in preventing osteoporosis.  Weight training has become increasingly more popular over the years, and gym memberships have risen drastically as men, women and children alike can now be found lifting weights for good health.  Weight training also helps to increase bone density, as well as improve your posture, improve your mood, and many report an improvement in self-confidence.

Other than exercise, you can help prevent osteoporosis with certain supplements.  Some of the most common supplements for the prevention of osteoporosis are calcium and vitamin D.  Most people are aware that calcium is important for strong bones and teeth.  They hear it on commercials and their parents tell them from the time they are little to drink their milk. However, most people probably do not take it as seriously as they should.  It really is a good idea to supplement with calcium every day to help prevent osteoporosis down the road.  Calcium supports bone density and bone healing.

While it is true that milk and other dairy products are a good source of calcium, you may not be getting all the calcium you need from these sources.  If you are a vegetarian or vegan especially, who does not consume any dairy products, it is especially important for you to take a calcium supplement.  Broccoli and fortified orange juice contain good amounts of calcium, but you probably cannot stomach enough broccoli to make it worthwhile.

Vitamin D occurs naturally with sunshine, so getting your exercise outdoors can help provide you with the vitamin D you need.  Remember to wear your sunscreen, of course. While outside activity in the sun can be a wonderful and fun source of Vitamin D, you will likely not get enough of it without supplementation.  Some areas of the country are sunnier than others, and then there are the winter months to consider when people tend to stay indoors more often.  With the amount of Vitamin D supplements available, it can easily be incorporated into your daily routine.

In keeping up with your protein consumption, and also increasing your Vitamin C and Vitamin K intake, you can also help keep your bones stronger and prevent osteoporosis.  Again, you can do this by supplementing if you are uncertain as to whether your diet provides sufficient amounts of these important vitamins.

A supplement called glucosamine chondroitin, which is actually two supplements generally sold in a compound as one, is very helpful with joint pain associated with age and increased activity level.  While not directly helpful for the prevention of osteoporosis, it is used to treat osteoarthritis.  You may want to consider adding this supplement to help prevent the aches and pains that sometimes occur in your bones as you age and try to maintain the same level of activity and fitness.

Supplementing with these vitamins, minerals, and aminos can be very beneficial when used in combination with a healthy lifestyle and diet.  Make sure to keep your alcohol consumption in moderation for healthy bones as well as cut out any smoking habit you may have, since smoking and heavy drinking both increase the risk of osteoporosis.  Follow these simple rules and you will increase your chances of having strong, healthy bones for life.

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More that a million Americans die of heart disease each year. One of the major causes of this heart disease the high cholesterol levels in the blood.
Cholesterol plays a central role in many biochemical processes, but is best known for the association of cardiovascular disease with high levels of
cholesterol in the blood.
Konrad Bloch and Feodor Lynen shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1964 for their discoveries concerning the mechanism and regulation of the cholesterol and fatty acid metabolism.
Cholesterol is a sterol (a combination steroid and alcohol) and a lipid found in the cell membranes of all body tissues. It is transported in the blood plasma of all animals. The average amount of blood cholesterol varies with age, typically rising gradually until one is about 60 years old.
In recent years, the somewhat imprecise term “bad cholesterol” has been used to refer to LDL (low density lipoprotein) which, according to the lipid hypothesis, is thought to have harmful actions, and “good cholesterol” to refer to HDL (high-density lipoprotein), thought to have beneficial actions.
The American Heart Association provides a set of guidelines for total blood cholesterol levels and risk for heart disease. The desirable LDL level is considered to be less than 100 mg/dl. However the 1987 report of National Cholesterol Education Program suggest the total blood cholesterol level should be less than 200 mg/dl normal blood cholesterol, if the cholesterol level is between 200 and 239 mg/dl it is considered borderline-high, and higher than 240 mg/dl is considered high cholesterol level.
Conditions with elevated concentrations of oxidized LDL particles are associated with fatty deposits forming on the walls of arteries, a condition known as Arteriosclerosis, which is considered the principal cause of coronary heart disease and other forms of cardiovascular disease.
In contrast, however, if LDL particle number is low and a large percentage of the HDL particles are high, then fatty deposits forming on the walls of the arteries are usually low, and can even be negative, for any given total cholesterol concentration.
Cholesterol is found in animal fats: all food containing animal fats contains cholesterol. Plants have trace amounts of cholesterol, so even a Vegan diet, which includes no animal foods, has traces of cholesterol.
Cholesterol is not necessarily dietary in origin, it can be turned into cholesterol by the liver from unburned food metabolites. The liver converts unburned food metabolites into very low density lipoproteins (VLDL) and secretes them into plasma where they are converted to low-density lipoprotein LDL) particles and fatty acids, which can affect other body cells. There appear to be seasonal variations in cholesterol levels in humans because of the unburned food metabolites the amount of cholesterol is higher in winter.

Cholesterol is required to build and maintain cell membranes; it regulates membrane fluidity over a wider range of temperatures. Cholesterol also aids in the manufacture of bile (which stored in the gallbladder and helps digest fats), and is also important for the metabolism of fat-soluble vitamins, including vitamins A, D, E and K.
Cardiologists suggest that the public need to change its diet. To reduce cholesterol levels by lowering saturated animal fats and increasing polyunsaturated fats. Lowering cholesterol is a good start but it is far from all that is needed.
Common Vitamins and over the counter products can help with High Cholesterol such as Vitamin C, Lecithin, Pectin, Garlic, EPA, Niacin and Phytosterols.
Vitamin C has been shown to combat the development of cholesterol deposits in the arteries. Within a few hours after receiving vitamin C patients showed a sharp decline in the cholesterol levels of the blood.
Lecithin has the potential to protect against fat clogged arteries when take daily.
Pectin limits the amount of cholesterol the body can absorb. High pectin count in apples may be why “One a day keeps the doctor away”.
Garlic counteract the usual result of high fats in the diet and to help reduce high blood pressure.
Studies of the Greenland Eskimos lack of heart attacks have show that Eico-Sapentaenoic Acid (EPA) lowers blood cholesterol considerably, even more than polyunsaturated fat does. It also triggers a major drop in triglycerides. Salmon Oil is one of the best known sources of natural EPA.
Niacin is the closest thing available to a perfect treatment that corrects most causes of coronary heart disease. Niacin blocks the release of fatty acids from fat cells. Niacin plays a critical role in energy production, gene expression, and hormone synthesis. You cannot live without it. Niacin also tends to shift LDL particle distribution to larger particle size and improve HDL functioning. The intake of 3 grams Niacin for as little as two weeks can reduce serum cholesterol by 26 percent.
Phytosterols is found in flax seed and peanuts, which are suggested to help lower serum cholesterol.
Always consult your doctor before using this information.
This Article is nutritional in nature and not to be construed as medical advice.

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Have you ever heard of Acai (ah-sigh-ee), the dietary superfood?  Just what is it anyway?  It is a fruit, a berry that is harvested in the rain forests of Brazil, Central and South America.  Itâ??s inch long reddish, purple fruit is a relative of the cranberry, blueberry, and other dark purple fruits.

There has been a lot of false hype promoted by unscrupulous marketers of Acai berry products.  The truth is, it doesnâ??t cure cancer, male baldness, or even guarantee you a flat tummy.  But donâ??t let the preponderance of false claims diminish the value of this amazing superfood.

Acai berries have five outstanding features that are genuine.  Lets take a look at them.

Much of our grocery food these days is depleted of much of the vitamins they once had.  These days we really do need to supplement our diets with, well, dietary supplements if we want to feed our body with all that it needs to be healthy.

The information listed above is not medical advice.  Rather, it is meant to increase the readerâ??s awareness of potential health care alternatives.  For medical attention, advice, diagnosis and treatments, see your qualified health-care professional.

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This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni’s The Healthiest Year of Your Life Program which can be found at http://www.thehealthiestyearofyourlife.com. In this excerpt, Mike Adams shares his personal health transformation and an important look at shopping for and choosing healthy foods.The Healthiest Year of Your Life Excerpt with Mike Adams, founder of the Consumer Wellness Center and on-line retailer, Better Life Goods. An author and speaker, Mike’s mission is to spread the message of natural nutrition and healing. Kevin: Here’s what scares me a little bit here and let’s start talking about dairy, because it’s a big argument, or just even like people are almost dogmatically either believe dairy is what they need to eat, or they dogmatically believe that it’s not something that you should eat at all. What are some other things that we should really be cautious about when dealing with milk and cheese and things like that?Mike: Well, the first thing we should be cautious about is what you hinted at. There’s sort of a psychological momentum. This is a well-known phenomenon in human psychology, which is that tend to find reasons to justify own behavior. So if we are drinking milk right now and we’re enjoying it, we’ll find reasons to support that and if we’re not drinking milk and just avoiding all dairy products entirely, we tend to find reasons to support that and we tend to be dogmatic about that, too. So there are very few people in the center, but the first point is take a very close look at your own psychology and ask why am I supporting this, or not supporting it. What’s behind my decisions? In other words, most people drinking milk should ask themselves why am I drinking milk. Why do we take the liquid from another species that is infant formula? Let’s be clear about this. Milk is infant formula. Why are we taking that and processing it? We’re homogenizing the milk fat. Why are we killing it? We’re pasteurizing it to kill it, so that it can be put in the stores and then consumed by humans, adult humans.
In other words, why are we, as adult human beings, drinking infant formula for a furry, bovine species? That’s the real question. You can honestly ask yourself that question and start investigating it and then you can make some progress into this issue, but if you have resistance to that very idea, because you’re enjoying your milk with your cereal in the morning, then you’re not ready to go down that path yet.
At some point, hopefully you’ll be ready and you can check it out. You can start looking at the issue. Now, here’s the conclusion that I’ve come to. I don’t do any dairy at all anymore, other than fermented raw dairy. I only do that occasionally, but my conclusion is that processed milk is very dangerous for human health. I think the epidemiological studies have really shown that. There’s a book called The China Study that’s a good one to look at it that talks about that.
Secondly, raw milk that fresh, farm milk, right out of the cow, once it’s fermented so that the proteins are more digestible and it’s a living food that can be very beneficial to human health. So you see, you can’t just say milk is this, or milk is bad. You have to look at different profiles of milk. There’s living milk and then there’s dead milk. Dead milk, dead, processed milk to me is just like dead, processed snack food. It’s very dangerous to your health, but living milk is like eating sprouts in a way. It’s alive. It’s got friendly flora in there and it’s more digestible in that way. Those are the conclusions that I came to, but I always invite others to draw their own conclusions. I drank milk most of my life, but I certainly don’t touch it now unless it’s fermented and raw and fresh milk. So how’s that, Kevin?Kevin: It sounds great. When it comes to dogmatism is just questioning the best way to get through to the answers, or just investigating more, because I see it across the board. I see it from people who eat steak and eggs for breakfast, to people who eat nothing but 100% raw food even to the point where they only eat one specific food at a time and they don’t eat anything else. To me it seems that each side is almost too stiff.Mike: I think the main thing that I encourage people to do is to be skeptical consumers and always question their own beliefs. So we need to have this philosophical flexibility. Otherwise, we too become stuck in our own ways and we become dogmatic and that drives everybody else nuts. No one likes a vegan that marches around insisting that everyone else has to be vegan just like them.
So I always encourage people to take their own journey discovering things on their own and in the meantime I’m happy to hear some of what I discovered. It doesn’t mean that it necessarily is going to apply to you. The other thing, Kevin, is that we’ve got to be sensitive to what our bodies are telling us. If we are sensitive, then we can experiment with these dietary changes. We can try milk for 30 days, or try no milk for 30 days and see which one feels better. In fact, I used to do something. I would put this on the website and challenge people to a 30 day dairy free diet. Just challenge them. You’re going to live many, many decades. Take 30 days and go without milk and see what happens. Find out if it’s better, or worse and people would write me after the 30 days and say, “Wow. My sinuses cleared up. My constipation went away. My joints feel better. I have more energy. My acne disappeared.” It’s just one benefit after another and my answer back to them would be, “That’s great. Now that you discovered that, which way do you want to live the rest of your life?” It’s pretty simple at that point for those people. They chose to live without milk. There might be others out there who are immune to the negative effects of milk for some reason, so maybe they have no benefit and that’s fine, too.
The important thing is to listen to your body and be aware of what kinds of effects you are getting. It’s that feedback mechanism. If you have a health goal of where you want to get to, how do you know if you’re getting there? You know by paying attention to what your body is telling you and then you can just start experimenting with your diet, or with nutritional supplements, or super foods, or exercise, or sunlight, or meditation, yoga, Pilates. You name it. You can put all these things in and find out what’s working for me and that becomes the basis for personal growth.Kevin: I think you’ve done a good job at providing information to people who don’t necessarily have the time, or have not been able to justify the time to being able to really learn about their health and you have a few different resources. I just want to talk about them now, The Herb Reference Resource. Just why don’t you run down a few of those where people can go? The Drug Side Effects Resource, as well that you’re putting together. Let’s just run down those and just tell everyone what they can see when they go to each one of those.Mike: Oh, yeah. Well, there is a lot of information out there, but we’ve tried to condense it as much as possible. Herbreference.com gives you look at all the benefits of various herbs, all the health benefits and this is taken from dozens of different books. I’ve studied herbs. There are probably 10,000 scientific studies in all behind that information. Newstarget.com is the main website where we put up daily news about super food nutrients and how to prevent and reverse and even cure degenerative diseases. We also talk about the dangers of pharmaceuticals and the dangers of Western medicine and actually, if you go to newstarget.com it will actually be naturalnews.com. That’s what we’re shifting to. That’s our long-term URL, naturalnews.com. You can find a lot of resources there. So I just encourage people to go there, register for the free e-mail newsletter and they’ll be kept informed of what we’re working on and I’ve approached this, by the way, Kevin, I want to mention I approach this from kind of a nonprofit standpoint.
I made my fortune in the software industry. I started a software company in 1993 and it earns millions of dollars a year. I took that money and the benefits from that and I put it into creating newstarget.com several years ago and so I do this without taking any money from supplement companies. I don’t sell vitamins. I don’t sell supplements, or herbs, or are herbs, or anything like that. I don’t ask for money from these companies to write about their products. So that means I approach this from a really independent viewpoint and when I make a recommendation on a product out there that I really like, like Ron Teeguarden’s Dragon Herbs, you know I’m making that recommendation with 100% objectivity. It’s an honest, independent, genuine recommendation and that’s why people like the website, because they know they can trust it. They may not always agree with everything I say and that’s fine, but they know I’m not taking a bribe to push some junk product out there. I wouldn’t do that just for my reputation. I wouldn’t even think about pushing a junk product out there.Kevin: We’re shifting gears into supplements now. How do you know? There are hundreds out there and I know how easy it is to make a supplements lie. What kind of knowledge can you impart to everyone to explain the whole process and what it takes to make something really good?Mike: Okay. I’m going to reveal a secret here and this is one of my little industry secrets of how I know who to trust and who to recommend. First off, you’ve got to look at the ingredients, but that’s obvious. You look at what goes into the supplement. A lot of supplements are junk. The form of vitamin B12 they use, for example, is cyanocobalamin, which is a cyanide molecule combined with a cobalamin.Kevin: Okay.Mike: Not a good thing. So I can look at a label and see what level of quality they have for that supplement. The other is the source. If you’re looking at herbs, like Chinese herbs in particular, you don’t want them to be sourced from China probably, because I’ve been to China. I speak Chinese and I know what goes on over there and it’s some scary stuff.Kevin: Really? With mercury and lead right? That’s two of the big issues.Mike: Not only that, but I’ve even seen cases where, for example, black sesame seeds were not really roasted sesame seeds. They were just white sesame seeds that were coated with black ink. The stuff I’ve seen, you would not believe it.
The third thing is, this is a secret part. This is why I go to trade shows, because I can meet the person and when I see that person I’m assessing their health. That is, the founder of the company, the CEO. Are they healthy? Are they vibrant? Are their eyes clear? What is their level of health and if they’re not healthy, I don’t recommend their product. I’m looking for really healthy people with fantastic ingredients.

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Vitamin B-12 is an essential nutrient, but humans cannot depend on the absorption of bacterially-produced B-12 from the gut. Thus, our B-12 must come from food.1

The B-12 synthesized by bacteria is mainly concentrated in the bodies of predatory organisms, so meat, milk, eggs, fish, and shellfish all contain B-12. 2 Comparatvely, the B-12 in eggs seems to be the most poorly absorbed among these sources.2

Some plant foods, such as blue-green algae (cyanobacteria), contain large amounts of B-12, 2 but the B-12 compounds in algae appear to be inactive in mammals.3 Most of the blue-green algae used for human supplements predominately contain pseudovitamin B-12, which is inactive in humans.2 Cyanocobalamin, also used in most supplements, is readily converted to the coenzyme forms of cobalamin in the human body.4

The major signs of B-12 deficiency are megaloblastic anemia and neuropathy.5 Since the bioavailability of crystalline B-12 is not altered in people with atrophic gastritis, the Institute of Medicine has recommended that adults over the age of 50 should get most of their recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of B-12 from foods that are fortified with crystalline B-12 or B-12 supplements.5

While the RDA of B-12 for adults is 2.4 mcg/day in the United States and Japan; the daily loss of the vitamin is estimated to be between 2 and 5 mcg/day.5 Bor et al.6 reported that a daily B-12 intake of 6 mcg/day appears to be sufficient to maintain a steady-state concentration of plasma B-12 and B-12 related metabolic markers. However, B-12’s bioavailability significantly decreases with increasing intake of vitamin B-12 per meal. 2

Studies with vegans have shown that despite the physiological recycling and conservation that become increasingly efficient as B-12 intake falls, the likelihood is high that B-12 deficiency will eventually develop. This may only develop after 20 years or more in vegans who do not consume any animal-based products or take B-12 supplements.7

In summary, the inability of humans to absorb bacterially-produced B-12 in the colon, and the evidence that vegans will eventually show negative B-12 balance8,9 indicate an evolutionary history of animal-based foods in human diets.

References

1. Herbert V (1988) “Vitamin B-12: plant sources, requirements, and assay.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 48, pp. 852-858.

2. Watanabe F. Vitamin B12 sources and bioavailability Exp Biol Med 232:1266 –1274, 2007.

3. Watanabe F, Takenaka S, Kittaka-Katsura H, Ebara S, Miyamoto E. Characterization and bioavailability of vitamin B12 -compounds from edible algae. J Nutr Sci Vitaminol 48:325–331, 2002.

4. Ball GFM. Vitamin B12 In: Bioavailability and Analysis of Vitamins in Foods. London: Chapman & Hall, pp 497–515, 1998.

5. Institute of Medicine. Vitamin B12 In: Dietary Reference Intakes for Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6 Folate, Vitamin B12, Pantothenic Acid, Biotin, and Choline. Washington, DC: Institute of Medicine, National Academy Press, pp 306–356, 1998.

6. Bor MV, Lydeking-Olesen E, Møller J, Nexø E. A daily intake of approximately 6 mcg vitamin B-12 appears to saturate all the vitamin B-12-related variables in Danish postmenopausal women. Am J Clin Nutr 83:52–58, 2006.

7. Herbert V (1994) “Staging vitamin B-12 (cobalamin) status in vegetarians.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 59 (suppl.), pp. 1213S-1222S.

8. Majchrzak D, Singer I, Männer M, Rust P, Genser D, Wagner KH, Elmadfa I. B-vitamin status and concentrations of homocysteine in Austrian omnivores, vegetarians and vegans. Ann Nutr Metab. 2006;50(6):485-91.

9. Herrmann W, Schorr H, Obeid R, Geisel J. Vitamin B-12 status, particularly holotranscobalamin II and methylmalonic acid concentrations, and hyperhomocysteinemia in vegetarians. Am J Clin Nutr. 2003 Jul;78(1):131-6.

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