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Vitamins & Supplements: Help or Hype? Part 2
Help and Hype-Soy supposedly helps heart health, but thus far no studies have supported this. However, it is a good source of calcium and also a good source of non-animal protein and ‘dairy’ such as in soy milk.
Help-Folacin (folic acid) is key for the production and maintenance of new cells. You can get it leafy greens and many fortified foods. It is especially important for pregnant women, or women that are thinking about getting pregnant. It helps to prevent birth defects and has also been found to help lower the risk of colon and breast cancers.
Help-Folate and vitamin B12 work together to protect cognitive function, but any supplements which claim to improve your memory, hype.
Help-Vitamin K is good for bone health, though not for people with blood clotting issues.
Hype-Vitamin O, an extra oxygen molecule in water, is a scam.
Hype and Help-Antioxidants-while they are supposed to have cancer-fighting properties, to date, studies have not proven any benefit in their regard, or in reference to heart health. In fact, people taking multivitamins have actually been shown to have worse health outcomes, particularly regarding prostate cancer.
However, A, C and E are found naturally in many foods and so if you are eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, you should be getting your full daily allowance.
So there it is, a quick round-up of some of the grand claims made on behalf of certain vitamin and nutraceuticals.
So the next time you hear claims about huge health benefits supposedly coming from vitamins and supplements, save your money on them, and spend it at the supermarket on eating nutritious fresh foods.
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Nutrition, Protein, and the Brain
Your brain needs glucose (sugar) for energy. But to build cells, to produce chemicals necessary for nerves to communicate, and to repair damage, you need the basic building blocks of cells, proteins.
The proteins you eat do not go directly into the brain because a filter, called the ‘blood-brain barrier,’ protects the brain. Even though the level of some substances might be quite high in your blood, this filter keeps them from getting into your brain.
Otherwise rapid fluctuations and surges of substances that might be helpful at low levels, but harmful at higher levels, would pummel your brain. The blood-brain barrier excludes from the brain many substances, including protein from the foods you eat and medications, such as antibiotics.
In contrast, other substances, such as glucose, pass freely into the brain. The more glucose in your blood, the more there is in your brain. Other substances do get into the brain but at slow, controlled rates.
Since proteins cannot pass directly into the brain, your brain makes its own, using the substances that do cross the blood-brain barrier, namely, amino acids. Amino acids are the basic structural units of proteins, which connect together like beads on a string. When you eat protein in, say, soybeans or steak, your intestinal tract and liver digest it, breaking the protein’s long strings of amino acids into individual amino acids. These amino acids then circulate in your blood. Like glucose, these lone amino acids can enter the brain, which then assembles them to make the specific proteins it needs. At this level it does not make any difference to your brain if the source of the protein is beef or soybeans.
Of course, the other parts of the food consumed, like fat, do make a difference in your overall health, so a good quality diet rich in protein but not excessive amounts of animal protein is recommended.
Fish has often been touted as ‘brain food’ due to its high protein content, and other very good minerals known to affect the brain, such as zinc. It also has a good calories to protein ratio, and protein helps you feel full after eating (as does fat, but again, we want to limit it in the diet).
More studies need to be done on the role of fish in a brain-healthy diet, but one things is for sure, fish is generally a healthy food choice, though with increasing levels of mercury in the world’s oceans, you should do your research on which types of fish are considered least risky.
Nutrition, Co-enzyme Q10, and Brain Power
Co-enzyme Q10, sometimes called vitamin Q10, has a special role in maintaining healthy mitochondria, the small packets of enzymes that produce energy in all cells. Many physicians prescribe co-enzyme Q10 for prevention of heart disease.
Its beneficial role is believed to extend to the brain: One of the conditions suspected as a cause of Parkinson’s disease is a deficiency in how mitochondria function. That suspicion is strong enough that studies are in progress to determine if co-enzyme Q10 can either prevent or slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease. It is included in multi-vitamins, and can also be bought as a stand-alone supplement.