Vitamins, Minerals & Nutrients

Autism Linked to Vitamin D Deficiency
Autism* linked to Vitamin D deficiency *and other brain development issues 30 years ago, the rate of autism was no more than 1 child in 2,500. Today, it is 1 in 100 according to the UK National Autistic Society. It may even be as high as 1 in 68 in the USA, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s an astonishing 3,500% increase (using the US figures) in a generation, or 35 times more common. Vitamin D deficiency in pregnancy a key factor Although it is undoubtedly partly due to better... Read more...
I Eat Healthily – Why Do I Need a Supplement?
Why you need a supplement even if you eat healthily The short answer is that there is a big difference between adequate nutrition and optimum nutrition. Most of the food we eat will adequately support life.  But it does not necessarily sustain ideal health. Witness the latest alarming data (2015) from the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS), which shows that life expectancy is increasing, but healthy life expectancy is not. Even people in the upper income levels face, on average, living the last 8 years of their life in poor health, and being reliant on an increasing array... Read more...
Supplement Labels – Let the Buyer Beware!
Read labels carefully I’ve got two top-selling “daily” multi-nutrient nutritional supplements in front of me. BRAND A One announces: ‘Lutein helps maintain healthy eyes’. That’s true, it does. And it’s a “health claim” permitted to be reproduced on a food label. But when I check the level, it says: Lutein: 250 µg Now µg stands for microgram (the other abbreviation is mcg). So that means there are 250 micrograms of lutein in their formula. We have examined hundreds of research papers on lutein. The conclusion is that the level of lutein needed to protect eye health... Read more...
How Much Omega-3 Should I take?
Despite the fact that millions of people take an Omega-3 supplement or cod liver oil, neither the UK nor the USA has an official recommended daily intake (RDA/RNI) for these beneficial polyunsaturated fatty acids. That’s despite the fact that Omega 3 has been linked to reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, reduced risk of depression, improved asthma condition and improved mobility for arthritis sufferers. The two main beneficial nutrients (fatty acids) found in Omega-3 fish oil are EPA and DHA (respectively eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid). Health authorities in other countries, however, have issued EPA/DHA recommendations. These... Read more...
What are the Best All-In-One Supplements?
What do you want from an all-in-one vitamin and mineral nutritional health supplement? To make sure you are not deficient in any important vitamin or mineral? A one-a-day A-Z supplement pill at 100% of the RDAs will do that. On the other hand deficiency diseases like scurvy and rickets are rare. Or do you want to reduce the risk of long term health problems – age related diseases like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, arthritis and even cancer? Unfortunately extensive research shows that the one-a-day vitamin pills are unlikely to have... Read more...
The Case for Optimum Vitamin D
Scientific medical research shows that optimal levels of Vitamin D have the potential to: Reduce the risk of many cancers Lower the risk of dementia Reduce asthma symptoms Reduce the risk of bone fractures … and even increase life span Yet, according to the leading vitamin D researchers, the majority of us have well below optimum levels of vitamin D in the blood, and a significant percentage fail to reach even the Recommended Daily Allowance, which experts are now labelling as inadequate. The NHS recognised in July 2016 the importance of vitamin... Read more...
1-A-Day Vitamin Pills Inadequate Even for Under 50s
A one-a-day A-Z vitamin pill similar to the one below will ensure that you get the RDA/RNI (Recommended Daily Amount/Reference Nutrient Intake) of most standard vitamins and minerals. Many people take them as a sort of insurance. Since your body tends to absorb nutrients from food less efficiently as you get older, and since the nutritional quality of many foods has somewhat declined, the principle is right. And B complex vitamins do help boost energy, while vitamins C and E help maintain skin elasticity. The UK National Diet and Nutrition... Read more...
Vitamin D Depletion
Vitamin D isn’t really a vitamin. Whatever the original source – sunlight, food or supplements – vitamin D is turned by your liver into a hormone called calcitriol – or ‘activated vitamin D’. Without supplementation, you get most of your vitamin D from sunlight, because surprisingly small amounts are found in a relatively few foods – oily fish, eggs and fortified spreads. Indeed, the NHS website confirms: ‘It is difficult to get enough vitamin D from food alone.’ Consequently, many people in the northern hemisphere are unknowingly vitamin D deficient against... Read more...
Vitamin K and Calcium
Dr Paul Clayton’s Health Newsletter Autumn 2015 Vitamin K, and especially vitamin K2, has an important role in maintaining healthy calcium levels in various tissues. Specifically, it is one of the keys to keeping calcium and magnesium in the bones, where they are wanted, and preventing these minerals from building up in the soft tissues where they are definitely not wanted. Vascular calcification is a major problem in diabetes and drives both vascular and renal disease. It is particularly prevalent when the picture is complicated by chronic kidney disease (CKD),... Read more...
Nutrients Against Inflammation
The anti-inflammatory diet There is a consensus among health professionals that inflammation in cells and the body’s arterial system is a major cause of degenerative disease. So lowering the level of inflammation is an important contribution to long-term health. The first priority is to increase the amount of anti-inflammatory foods in your diet. These include fruits, vegetables, and omega-3-rich oily fish. Fish high in omega-3 fatty acids include wild salmon, mackerel, herring, tuna, sardines, and pilchards. Fruits with high anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant scores include blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, cherries, and blackcurrants. High-scoring vegetables include... Read more...
Inflammation Demands Anti-Inflammatory Vitamins and Minerals
Internal inflammation – the health danger that threatens us all Health researchers now believe they have identified a, or probably even THE, key reason why health seems to inevitably decline with age, and why we therefore need anti-inflammatory supplements to counter it. It’s called ‘chronic, sub-clinical inflammation.’ “Inflammation is an underlying contributor to virtually every chronic disease … rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, diabetes and depression, along with major killers such as heart disease and stroke. “The connection between inflammation and cancer has now moved to center stage in the research... Read more...
What Vitamins Should I Take?
Most people consider a vitamin supplement for two reasons. First, to make sure they are not deficient in any important vitamin or mineral. The second reason is to help reduce the risk of long-term health problems. Important research shows that achieving the first (preventing deficiency) does not necessarily achieve the second (reducing the risk of declining health as you get older). Preventing DeficiencyWe still often hear that you can get all the nutrition you need from a well-balanced diet. That might well have been true 50 or 60 years ago,... Read more...