Donabee.com Health & Wellness


Cellular Nutrition

 
Oxidative Stress
Oxidative stress has now been shown beyond any shadow of doubt via medical research to be the root cause of  chronic degenerative diseases. Diseases like heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, Alzheimer’s dementia, macular degeneration, lupus, MS, and the list goes on and on. Read More.
 
 Cellular Nutrition
Cellular nutrition is simply providing ALL nutrients to the cell at optimal levels. This allows the cell to determine what it actually does and does not need. - Dr Ray Strand
 
Free Radicals
We need oxygen to survive. But during the normal chemical processes that take place in our bodies, oxygen can produce free radicals. These are highly unstable molecules that can set off chemical reactions that interfere with DNA and damage cells.
 Read More
 


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Cellular Nutrition

Imagine this. Every second of every minute in each day you are replacing the cells throughout your body. Your body is composed of 100,000 billion cells. For every cell there is a time to die. Cells make up tissues. Groups of specialized cells make up organs and muscles.

Dr. Stew Bittman also claims that "The human body is unfathomably intelligent. It builds itself from 1 cell into 100 trillion cells in 9 months. It rebuilds 98% of itself in 3 months! That's right- 98% of the atoms that comprise your body right now will not be in your body 3 - 6 months from now. They will have been replaced by atoms that you accumulate from your environment, mostly in the form of food."

The New York Times published an article titled "Your body is younger than you think", stating that Dr.  Frisen, a stem cell biologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm "has also discovered a fact that explains why people behave their birth age, not the physical age of their cells: a few of the body's cell types endure from birth to death without renewal, and this special minority includes some or all of the cells of the cerebral cortex."

Some cells are replaced very rapidly, in a matter of days. Others are replaced over a year. But it takes seven years for the cells in your skeletal structure (bones) to be dissolved and replaced.

According to Lon Brouse,  "When cells are replaced, the daughter cells are made up of the nutrients in the blood.  The atoms of these nutrients may have come from digested food that has been in your body less than 24 hours, or from other tissues in your body that are being recycled.  The iron in your hemoglobin, for example, is captured by your liver after the red blood cells break from being folded inside the very small capillaries in the spleen." (1)

So your body uses the nutrients that you feed it to build new cells. It goes without saying if you are consuming optimum levels of all the nutrients you need, your body can build healthy cells. But the converse is also true. If you are eating junk you are going to have cells based on junk. Sick cells lead to sick bodies.

Dr. Ray Stand described it this way, "Cellular nutrition is providing the body with all the antioxidants along with the supporting B vitamins and antioxidant minerals at optimal levels. This is "preventive medicine" at its best because we can literally attack the disease process at its core by preventing oxidative stress from occurring." (2)

"You may be wondering if we can control oxidative stress by simply improving our diet and eating more fruits and vegetables. This is definitely a good start. By simply eating 7 to 9 servings of fruits and vegetables each day you can decrease the risk of heart attack, stroke, Alzheimer’s dementia, and cancer, two to three fold. We certainly want to supplement a good diet—not a bad diet. However, even if you eat a great diet you can barely obtain the RDA level of all essential nutrients. Medical studies have shown that less than 1% of the American population accomplishes this on a consistent basis."(2)

The RDA (Recommended Daily Amount) of the vital nutrients we need is not the optimum amount. It is the minimum amount. If you get less than these levels, you can expect to get sick. These are not the optimum levels your body needs.

How optimum levels are determined depends on who is doing the determining. The FDA continues to promote the RDA levels supported by drug companies. And the FDA reminds people that there are maximum levels of these nutrients, take over this amount and it can be dangerous. Even though there is some truth to the concept of not getting too much of certain vitamins, people are not dying from getting too many vitamins. Yet prescription drugs kill thousands of people each year. Studies do show that getting optimum levels of vitamins and minerals can help your body avoid degenerative diseases. If you do not get a degenerative disease you don't need to purchase a drug to treat the symptoms.

I personally rely on the recommendations of USANA Health Sciences of Utah. Founder Dr. Myron Wentz and USANA's own scientists in conjunction with the Linus Pauling Institute have established recommended levels. Many medical professionals such as Dr. Ray Strand, Ladd McNamara MD among others endorse and consult with USANA.

Dr. Wentz refers to cellular nutrition as "invisible miracles." He states that if you feed your cell properly. Remove any negative impacts and protect your cells. You will have healthy cells and a healthy body beginning at the cellular level.

So what are these levels? USANA offers a basic multi-vitamin called Essentials. These daily vitamins contain the optimum levels. But I take the Health Pak 100 which includes the Essentials plus calcium and additional anti-oxidants. These are bases on the optimum recommendations.

Do you need to add a supplement to achieve optimum levels of nutrients? Even if you assume the factory fruits and vegetables you buy in the grocery store contain nutrients today, you can not eat enough of them to get optimum levels.

bulletThe RDA for Vitamin E is 40 units. The Optimum level is 400 units. You would have to eat 33 lbs of spinach a day to get 400 IU of Vitamin E or 1.2 lbs of sun flower seeds or 2.2 lbs of almonds.
bulletA USDA survey in 1982 of 21,500 Americans found not one person obtained 100% of the RDA levels of ten essential nutrients from their diets and any other source. (3)
bulletOnly 1% of children met all the recommendations of the Food Pyramid Guide (4)
bulletOrganic fruits and vegetables have been found to contain many more times the nutrients than the commercially grown varieties.
bulletA 12-year German study found that organic food contains higher levels of minerals. The largest differences were for potassium and iron, but magnesium, calcium, phosphorus and vitamin C levels were also higher in organic vegetables.(5)
bulletAn American study found that organically grown food contained much higher average levels of minerals
than non-organic food. For example, there was 63 per cent more calcium, 73 per cent more iron, 125
per cent more potassium and 60 per cent more zinc in the organically produced foods. There was also 29
per cent less of the toxic element mercury.(6)

Not all supplements are created the same. A Yale New Haven Hospital study showed that the majority of multi-vitamins are woefully inadequate. Many were made with the wrong ratios of nutrients. Of the 257 products tests only 49 were judged to be adequate. Use a supplement that is science based and pharmaceutical grade. Make sure your supplement contains what you need and what is on the label is actually in the product and nothing more (contaminants) or less. Don't make the mistake of putting your trust in a supplement only to find out years from now you made the wrong choice. The Comparative Guide to Nutritional Supplements is an excellent reference for comparing supplements. Published in Canada, this Guide actually evaluates and compares over 2,000 different supplements. (USANA's Essentials are given the absolute top ranking.)

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Are Vitamins Safe?

"Vitamins and minerals are incredibly safe. According to a report compiled by New Zealand’s National Nutritional Foods Association, statistically you are less likely to die from taking any kind of food supplement than from a bee sting, lightning or animal bite. In fact, you are considerably more at risk from properly prescribed and administered orthodox medication from your doctor. Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) account for 1 in 16 hospital admissions in the UK, and the British Medical Journal has stated that nationally ADRs could be responsible for 10,000 deaths per year.

Vitamins and minerals have an exemplary safety record. Not only are they safe, they make an important contribution to good health. The UK government has identified the following groups of people as being at risk from low vitamin and mineral intakes: highly active people, menstruating women, vegetarians, vegans, the over 50s, slimmers, pre-conceptual, pregnant and breast-feeding women, smokers, drinkers and faddy eaters. Which makes up roughly everyone - who doesn’t need extra vitamins?" (7)

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Links:
bullet Organic Food vs. Non-Organic - Which is better?  - Organic Food Corner.com
bullet Risks of Organic vs. Conventional Foods - James A. Riddle, Endowed chair in Agricultural Systems, University of Minnesota, First World Congress on Organic Food:
bullet Organic Food and Farming: Myth and Reality - Soil Association.org - Link to PDF Report, click here
bullet Is Organic Better For You? - OrganicFoodee.com
bullet

Footnotes:

(1) Lon Brouse, Faculty, Chemistry, Mesa State College, Colorado
(2) Dr. Ray Strand - www. Bionutrition.org - Cellular Nutrition
(3) USDA National Food Consumption Survey, Gutherie & Crocetti, 1982.
(4) Dr. Christine Wood, study from the journal Pediatrics surveying 3,307 children
(5) W Shuphan, Nutritional value of crops as influenced by organic and inorganic fertilizer treatments, qualitas
plantraum; Plant foods for Human Nutrition, 23 (4), 330-358, 1973.
(6) BL Smith, Organic foods vs. supermarket foods: element levels, Journal of Applied Nutrition, 45, 35-39, 1993.
(7) The Good News About Vitamins - OrganicFoodee.com

 

 

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These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This web page or any products found here are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. If you find information here that is of interest to you, take it to your medical doctor for conversation and evaluation. Do not stop taking any prescription drugs without consulting with your medical doctor.

© 2007 Donabee.com - All Rights Reserved  Last updated on Monday, November 19, 2007