Supplements
Fish Oils
Fish oils are considered good for you because of their fatty acids – EPA, Eicosapentaenoic acid, and DHA, Docosahexaeonic acid. Found in abundance in oily fish, a 4 oz portion of lightly cooked fish will contain between 1-2 g of EPA/DHA, or roughly 32-64ozs of cod! Many people are aware of cod liver oil being a healthful supplement, and although it does contain omega-3 it tends to be less concentrated than the amounts found in other types of fish oil. Cod liver oil typically contains 700-900mg per 5ml teaspoon of EPA/DHA whereas fish oils typically contain between 1,000-2,000mg EPA/DHA per 5ml teaspoon.
The benefits of supplementation with fish oils are massive – here are a few:
- Fish oils turn on the lipopytic genes, those that burn fat, and turn off the lipogenic genes, those that store fat.
- Fish oils are an anti-inflammatory. They diminish C-reactive proteins, a risk factor associated with such inflammatory diseases as atherosclerosis, coronoary heart disease, heart attack, angina, diabetes and stroke. This also makes them good for pain management – anti-inflammatory.
- DHA can reduce blood pressure. Primarily through increasing the vasodilatory compound, reducing vascular inflammation and blocking of the vascular wall by such elements as calcium.
- Fish oils increase the utilisation of fat stores for energy – they preference fat stores from the adipocytes
- Fish oils improve your cardio-vascular health by lowering VLDL, triglycerides and fibrinogen and increase your HDL levels.
- Fish oils are a stress buster. They inhibit the adrenal activation of aldosterone, epinephrine and norepinephrine – your stress hormones. Meaning, in a stressful situation your body feel less stress symptoms.
Fish oils are good for brain nerve development, and increase serotonin levels – the happy neurotransmitter
If they sound like a panacea that maybe because they are “Essential” fats, essential to many of your body’s everyday functions.
Good quality fish oils go through a filtration process to remove the pollutants found in fish – all water is polluted . With fish oils being 25 times more susceptible to damage in this filtration process than plant oils, you must be sure the source of your oils is an excellent one.
Vitamins
You should be able to get your nutrient requirements from your diet, however it is near impossible to have a perfectly and sufficiently balanced diet.
Vitamins are essentially nutrients and organic matter that serve as the workings of enzymes and coenzymes. Enzymes are essential for speeding up chemical reactions that take place in your body. Coenzymes support enzymes in implementation of their life-sustaining functions. This is what controls your body's metabolic processes. Vitamins and minerals basically manage your metabolic processes meaning that they are vital in helping your body to produce energy, grow and are responsible for the reproduction and health of your cells.
There are essential vitamins including A, C, D, E, and the B-complex vitamins, which provide the regulation of crucial bodily functions. If you have a deficiency in even one nutrient you can end up with serious health problems because they often work synergistically with other nutrients, minerals, enzymes and coenzymes.
A 100-plus page report -- titled The Benefits of Nutritional Supplements -- reviewed more than a decade's-worth of the most scientifically-significant studies measuring the health benefits of multivitamins and other nutritional supplements, including antioxidants (vitamins C and E), calcium, long chain omega-3 fatty acids (fish oils), vitamin D, vitamins B-6 and B-12, and folic acid.
"The medical and scientific communities are rapidly accumulating powerful evidence about the role of nutritional supplements in both health promotion and disease prevention," said Annette Dickinson, Ph.D., author of the report -The Benefits of Nutritional Supplements, and Council for Responsible Nutrition vice president, scientific and regulatory affairs.
"This growing critical mass of data underscores the need for health professionals to do more to encourage patients to get into a regular, defined routine of supplementation. While it is never too late to start incorporating supplements into a healthy lifestyle, there is compelling evidence that consistent, long-term use provides the strongest benefits. For as little as a dime a day, the cost of a basic multivitamin, you can make a sound investment in good health," she said.
Many nutritional supplements available are for the most part just hastily formulated with no scientific reasoning causing many of the ingredients to end up cancelling each other out, as in one a day vitamins, some can even have harmful consequences. In addition, multi vitamins that aren't scientifically formulated generally have poor bioavailability, meaning that most of the ingredients will simply pass through your system with no benefit. Very few one a day multi vitamins and multi vitamins available today contain ingredients that are more than minimally bioavailable. Bioavailability is a gauge of how much of a particular substance can be absorbed by your body. Not all vitamins and minerals are alike and some are absorbed better than others.
You must choose a manufacturer that follows pharmaceutical compliance, and is of the highest standard possible otherwise you're wasting your money and jeopardizing your health. Of 21 brands of multivitamins on the market in the United States and Canada selected by ConsumerLab.com and tested by independent laboratories, just 10 met the stated claims on their labels or satisfied other quality standards.
Whole supplementation with vitamins & minerals is the only effective way to ensure that all the essential interactions take place and this is why high-quality multi vitamins and mineral supplements are usually needed.
