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Fibromyalgia Monthly Newsletter
Fibromyalgia Newsletter – November 2005
Brought to you by: Jane Oelke, N.D., Ph.D.
DoctorOelke@aol.com
Do you take any nutritional supplements?
I am often surprised at the number of people who do not enhance their diet with nutritional supplements. We may hope that our food contains all of the vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids, etc. that we need on a daily basis. And some days it might, if you eat only foods with high quality and quantity of nutrients. But most of us do not.
Any time you have excess stress in your life, your body requires at least 4 times the minimum Recommended Daily Allowance of nutrients. This is very difficult, if not impossible, to do on a daily basis, when trying to eat all of your nutrients. If you are a parent, work full-time, or run your own business, you have increased extra stress. Or if you have a chronic pain syndrome like fibromyalgia or have any other chronic disease, you also have to look for additional support.
Question: Do you believe you can survive at minimum wage in your financial life? Most of us would not think of taking a full-time job to support a family at only $5.15 per hour. That would keep us in the poverty level for a long time. But we are doing the same thing to our health when we do not get the level of nutrition we need in our body.
Why do we need nutritional supplementation?
As we age, our digestive system does not break down food into nutrients as well. This is what causes many of the chronic diseases we have today, especially diabetes. Whole food capsules that are made from real whole food nutrition are easy for our digestive system to find the nutrients we need on a daily basis, absorb them and use them.
We also do not want to take in too much of any one nutrient. When we do take in too much any one nutrient, or any synthetic version, it actually creates more stress to our liver, over time causing liver toxicity. There are reports of people taking excess vitamin supplements and getting very sick. These excess supplements cause liver stress that show up later as auto-immune diseases, including fibromyalgia, cancer, or diabetes. I have also seen excess weight gain and high blood pressure in clients who take too many different supplements.
Processed foods with inorganic nutrients, or excess food additives, also cause our body to require more good quality nutritional supplements to counter act the toxins that these foods contain. More nutrients will be required to repair damaged cells. When we eat processed foods our liver and adrenals have to work harder using more of the good nutrients to compensate for the food additives, fillers, sugars, etc. that they contain.
What is the best type of nutritional supplement?
As you can probably tell, I am for whole food supplements, not fragmented vitamins. Whole food supplements come fruits, vegetables, and herbs that already contain a balanced form of nutrients. Not too much of one or too little of another. A good nutritional supplement will have antioxidants, minerals, and enzymes at the very least, and usually have some amino acids that help the other nutrients to get absorbed better. These amino acids may not even be listed since they are found in small quantities in herbs, yet they are there.
So if you are taking a multi-vitamin, look at the label.
· Does it contain any digestive enzymes, such amylase, protease, or lipase?
· What is the source of vitamin C? Hopefully not ascorbic acid, which is not whole food vitamin C.
· Is vitamin K listed? Vitamin K is found in whole foods and helps many minerals get absorbed better.
· Is the calcium and magnesium in a 2 to 1 ratio, with twice as much calcium as magnesium? And what are the sources of calcium and magnesium? Not calcium carbonate or magnesium oxide, which are the cheapest and least absorbed forms of these minerals.
If your multi-vitamin does not fit the above criteria, it is not even trying to be from a whole food source – throw it out and get something new.
In fact in truly whole food source supplements you may not even get a specific listing of the various nutrients in the supplement, because there are so many antioxidants, minerals, enzymes, amino acids, and other beneficial plant chemicals that they will not fit on the label. So read what the labels says, and know that when it lists recognizable foods that your body will recognize it also.
This is why for the past 10 years I have taken the same concentrated fruit and vegetable capsules. They contain the concentrated nutrients from ripe, juiced fruits and vegetables. It contains the variety of colors that we need to get the whole range of phytochemicals. And it has been tested and proven to help improve our immune system and repair DNA damage. It also has just been reported that these capsules are the number one selling nutritional capsule in the world. If you are not one the millions of happy Preferred Customers, you still can be. Check out my new website.
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