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Vitamins
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What is a nutritional supplement?
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A nutritional supplement is a pill or capsule or powder which contains one or a combination of so called micronutritients.
This can be trace minerals, vitamins, anti-oxidants, probiotics, essential fatty acids, amino acids, phytochemicals and more.
Insufficiency of these nutrients in the daily diet can result in disease.
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Advice
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Foodsupplements and vitamines are not a replacement for a healthy dish and a healthy lifestyle.
Nutritional supplements and regular medication can influence each other. Keep your physician and the professional in your health store informed about what you use.
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Why using supplements?
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Less than 5 % of the dutch population eats a healthy diet. A healthy diet means.. organic, well balanced, not industrially processed food.
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But, even if there is the will to change, we can't escape the side-effects of our hectic modern times and the reality of a depleted or polluted evironment.
....free radicals in our body cause cell damage or cancer.
Our soils are depleted of many minerals. (magnesium). And what's not in the soil will never be in the food.
Preservatives or synthetic additives in our food disrupt our hormonal balance.
Antibiotics are supposed to kill germs. That's great. But they kill the 'good' germs in our digestive tract as well.
Some medicines, excessive drinking of prolongated stress drain our physical system of much more vitamines and minerals than we can ever replace by eating healthy food.
There is coincidence between bad digestion and allergic reactions.
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What can we do?
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We can limit damage. We can replenish shortages. We can mop up free radicals. We can prevent depletion and disease by the use of nutritional supplements.
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Indications.
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- Before, during and after pregnancy.
- After operations, after the use of antibiotics.
- During and after chemotherapy
- After disease in general, to gain strength, to replenish resources.
- During prolongated stress.
- If you smoke. After excessive use of alcohol.
- If you use drugs.
- After eating too fat and too much.
- If you are loosing weight fast.
- If you lack sunlight and after sunburns.
- If you lack clean, unpolluted air.
- If you are a veganist or vegetarian.
- While you are travelling. (Travel diarrhea)
- Endurance sports. (Jogging)
- To lessen damage in general from environmental hazards.
- To replenish shortages of trace minerals which are not in a sufficient amount in the daily diet anymore.
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The products
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Quality first. Keep this in mind when you buy your nutritional supplements.
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On the label of your product you should find at least this information.
- Who is the manufacturer?
- A good description of the product.
- The percentage if the active ingredients.
- Are there counterindications? (Can I drive my car?)
- Is it suitable for vegetarians or people with an allergy?
- How do I have to use it?
- How long can l keep it fresh?
- How do I have to store it?
- What is the 'RDA'*of the active ingredients of your product?
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* Recommended Daily Allowance
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The composition of a product is crucial for the absorbtion of it by the body. Some micronutrients need others in order to be absorbed.
Evidence shows that natural vitamins are accepted much better than some of their synthetic counterparts. Synthetic Vitamin C gives you a burning stomach and is destructive on the intestinal microflora.
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A good product is free of any contamination with pesticides, synthetic additives, gluten, sugar, colorants and it should be hypoallergenic.
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Serious manufacturers work together with scientific institutions and research departments of universities. Preparations are tested thoroughly before a product gets on the market. Claims are certified by publications in independant scientific journals. Some of the big manufacturers have extensive research departements on their own. Like with pharmaceutical producers, research and development and testing of a new preparation is very costly and it can take many years.
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After reading all this, it should be clear why good nutritional supplement are never really cheap.
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A class on its own among the nutritional supplements are the Probiotics.
Probiotics are life beneficial strains of organisms which live normally in huge numbers in our intestines. An inbalance...
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How to use...
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Do not swallow everything !!
Unapproppriate use can be dangerous! Don't trust producers with a vague informationpolicy and non-certified claims on the labels on their products.
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Take some time, go to a store equipped by professionals with a profound knowledge of the matter at hand.
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A good molecular advisor listens to you, but is asking you a lot of questions as well. What is your daily diet? The use of medicines or other supplements? Allergies? Your medical background, diseases, your worries.
It's all necessary to make a profound diagnosis and to provide you with the approppriate preparation.
More about vitamins:
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Vitamins in history
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A long time before the discovery of vitamines people knew about the relation between food and disease.
In ancient Egypt, liver was fed to patients with nightblindness. (Vitamin A)
Crusaders in the the 13th century faced incredible losses, countless sailors suffered and died on their boats from a disease called scurvy. In 1747 the scottish physician JamesLind found a way to cure and prevent scurvy by feeding the patient lots of fresh vegetables and citrus fruit. (vitamin C)
An english biochemist, Frederick Hopkins, postulated in 1906 that foods 'must contain' accessory factors, (in addition to proteins, carbohydrates, fats, etc.) that were necessary to the human body.
Around that time, Christiaan Eijkman, a dutch physician, demonstrated that patients, eating brown rice were less vulnerable to beri-beri.
Kazimierz Funk, a polish biologist, came in 1912 with the first formulation of the concept of so called 'Vitamins'.
Together with Sir Frederick Hopkins, he was awarded the 1929 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
Linus Pauling... (to be continued)
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Health Quest by Joyce....Spiegelgracht 4.....1017 JR Amsterdam.....T:+31(0)20-421 82 06 .....Mailto:
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