Vitamins & Minerals
General Multivitamin-Mineral Supplements
Posted under Vitamins & Minerals on Tuesday, 5 July 2005 by Drnutrion
Should dietetics professionals advise general multivitamin-mineral supplements at modest doses to help meet dietary recommendations? As already indicated, a variety of good foods wisely selected is the basis of a nutritious diet, will meet dietary recommendations for most nutrients, and is the best...
Sodium
Posted under Vitamins & Minerals on Friday, 1 July 2005 by Drnutrion
Healthy American adults should eat no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day. This is about 1 teaspoon of sodium chloride (salt). To illustrate, the following are sources of sodium in the diet.
1/4 teaspoon salt = 600 mg sodium
1/2 teaspoon salt = 1,200 mg sodium
3/4 teaspoon salt =...
Potassium
Posted under Vitamins & Minerals on Friday, 1 July 2005 by Drnutrion
Potassium is an element (and an electrolyte) that's essential for the body's growth and maintenance. It's necessary to keep a normal water balance between the cells and body fluids. Potassium also plays an essential role in the response of nerves to stimulation and in the contraction of muscles....
Calcium
Posted under Vitamins & Minerals on Friday, 1 July 2005 by Drnutrion
Many physicians encourage women to eat fat-free and low-fat dairy products to get
calcium. This helps reduce their risk of developing the bone disease osteoporosis. In this disease, the bone loses calcium and becomes less dense and breaks more easily.
AHA Recommendation
Women should...
Vitamin K
Posted under Vitamins & Minerals on Friday, 1 July 2005 by Drnutrion
Vitamin K helps make six of the 13 proteins needed for blood clotting. Its role in maintaining the clotting cascade is so important that people who take anticoagulants such as warfarin (Coumadin) must be careful to keep their vitamin K intake stable.
Lately, researchers have...
Vitamin E
Posted under Vitamins & Minerals on Friday, 1 July 2005 by Drnutrion
For a time, vitamin E supplements looked like an easy way to prevent heart disease. Promising observational studies, including the Nurses' Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study, suggested 20% to 40% reductions in coronary heart disease risk among individuals who took vitamin E...
Vitamin D
Posted under Vitamins & Minerals on Friday, 1 July 2005 by Drnutrion
If you live north of the line connecting San Francisco to Philadelphia, odds are you don't get enough vitamin D. The same holds true if you don't, or can't, get outside for at least a 15-minute daily walk in the sun. African-Americans and others with dark skin tend to have much lower levels of...
Vitamin C
Posted under Vitamins & Minerals on Friday, 1 July 2005 by Drnutrion
Vitamin C has been in the public eye for a long time. Even before its discovery in 1932, nutrition experts recognized that something in citrus fruits could prevent scurvy, a disease that killed as many as 2 million sailors between 1500 and 1800. More recently, Nobel laureate Linus Pauling promoted...
Folic Acid and Cancer
Posted under Vitamins & Minerals on Friday, 1 July 2005 by Drnutrion
In addition to recycling homocysteine, folate plays a key role in building DNA, the complex compound that forms our genetic blueprint. Observational studies show that people who get higher than average amounts of folic acid from their diets or supplements have lower risks of colon cancer and...
B Vitamins and Heart Disease
Posted under Vitamins & Minerals on Friday, 1 July 2005 by Drnutrion
In 1968, a Boston pathologist investigaed the deaths of two children from massive strokes. Both had inherited conditions that caused them to have high levels of a protein breakdown product called homocysteine in their blood, and both had arteries as clogged with cholesterol as those of a...
