Vitamin Information Center

Many start a diet with high hopes. However, after the initial enthusiasm of the diet rubes off, many people simply give up to go back to old habits. Moreover, people think that there must be an easier way to lose weight and go fad diet hunting! The fact is that you don’t need to throw in the towel so soon. This article will give you some diet skills that will help you stick to your diet and make long term change.

1. Diets that work take time Diet has become a dirty word. When people think of a diet they think that they have to starve themselves, eat foods they don’t like and in the back of their they are saying to themselves “how long will i stick to this one”? Diets that work long term will need long term discipline on your behalf. The pain of discipline is far less painful than the pain of failure and regret. Commit that you aim to lose .5kg per week on your new diet. Commit that the changes that you are making will be for life and not just for a few weeks.

2. Choosing the wrong diet Diet selection is critical. Many people chose the newest fad on the market thinking that they will get the results. Think again. Choose a diet that contains the foods you like. If you enjoy carbohydrates, choosing a plan that doesn’t allow for moderate carbohydrate intake would be unrealistic. Take a diet profile to help you with your selection.

3. Unrealistic Goals Don’t create goals that are unachievable. Your weight loss and diet goals need to realistic. On a diet and weight loss program losing about .5kg per week is attainable. Perhaps a little more at the beginning of the diet program due to some water loss, however, after week two back to more consistent weight loss. Also don’t weight yourself too often. Once per week is ample on any diet you choose.

CHEVY CHASE, Md.—Diets high in protein and cereal grains produce an excess of acid in the body which may increase calcium excretion and weaken bones, according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). The study found increasing the alkali content of the diet, with a pill or through a diet rich in fruits and vegetables has the opposite effect and strengthens skeletal health.
“Heredity, diet and other lifestyle factors contribute to the problem of bone loss and fractures,” said Bess Dawson-Hughes, M.D., of Tufts University, Boston and lead author of the study. “When it comes to dietary concerns regarding bone health, calcium and vitamin D have received the most attention, but there is increasing evidence that the acid/base balance of the diet is also important.”
Average older adults consume diets that, when metabolized, add acid to the body, said Dr. Dawson-Hughes. With aging, we become less able to excrete the acid. One way the body may counteract the acid from our diets is through bone resorption, a process by which bones are broken down to release minerals such as calcium, phosphates and alkaline (basic) salts into the blood. Unfortunately, increased bone resorption leads to declines in bone mass and increases in fracture risk.
“When fruits and vegetables are metabolized they add bicarbonate, an alkaline compound, to the body,” said Dr. Dawson Hughes. “Our study found that bicarbonate had a favorable effect on bone resorption and calcium excretion. This suggests that increasing the alkali content of the diet may attenuate bone loss in healthy older adults.”
In this study, 171 men and women aged 50 and older were randomized to receive placebo or doses of either: potassium bicarbonate, sodium bicarbonate, or potassium chloride for three months. Researchers found subjects taking bicarbonate had significant reductions in calcium excretion, signaling a decrease in bone resorption.
“In this study, we demonstrated that adding alkali in pill form reduced bone resorption and reduced the losses of calcium in the urine over a three month period,” said Dr. Dawson-Hughes. “This intervention warrants further investigation as a safe and well tolerated supplement to reduce bone loss and fracture risk in older men and women.”
Other researchers working on the study include Susan Harris, Nancy Palermo, Helen Rasmussen, and Gerard Dallal of Tufts University in Boston and Carmen Castaneda-Sceppa of Northeastern University in Boston.
The article “Treatment with Potassium Bicarbonate Lowers Calcium Excretion and Bone Resorption in Older Men and Women,” will appear in the January issue of JCEM.

Being a vegetarian may actually be bad for your brain, according to a study published in the Sept. 9 issue of Neurology, The Sun reported.

The study said those on a meat-free diet are six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage as the most vitamin B12 is found in meats, liver, fish and milk.

According to the study, vitamin B12 may protect older people against brain shrinkage.

A study of 107 people between the ages of 61 and 87 found that people who had higher B12 levels were six times less likely to experience a loss in brain volume compared to those who had lower levels of the vitamin in their blood. None of the people in the study had a B12 deficiency.

Brain shrinkage typically occurs after the age of 60 and has been linked to memory loss.

For the research, participants underwent brain scans, memory testing and physical exams. Researchers also collected blood samples to check vitamin B12 levels. Brain scans and memory tests were performed five years after the initial testing.

“Many factors that affect brain health are thought to be out of our control, but this study suggests that simply adjusting our diets to consume more vitamin B12 through eating meat, fish, fortified cereals or milk may be something we can easily adjust to prevent brain shrinkage and so perhaps save our memory,” said study author Anna Vogiatzoglou, of the University of Oxford, in a news release.

Vogiatzoglou said the study did not look at whether taking vitamin B12 supplements would have the same effect on memory.

A KEY vitamin found in fish, meat and milk may protect the brain as it ages, according to a new study.

The study, of 107 people aged 61-87, found that vitamin B12 could help stop the brain shrinking and maybe prevent memory loss in older people and dementia.

The study showed that those with lower vitamin B12 levels in their blood were six times more likely to experience brain shrinkage compared with those who had higher levels of the vitamin.

Researcher Anna Vogiatzoglou, from the department of physiology, anatomy and genetics at Oxford University, said: “Many factors that affect brain health are thought to be out of our control, but this study suggests that simply adjusting our diets to consume more vitamin B12 through eating meat, fish, fortified cereals or milk may be something we can easily adjust to prevent brain shrinkage and so perhaps save our memory.

“Research shows that vitamin B12 deficiency is a public health problem, especially among the elderly, so more vitamin B12 intake could help reverse this problem.”

The study looked at brain volume and loss was measured every year for five years. None of the people enrolled in the study were suffering memory loss at the start of the study and had sufficient vitamin B12.

The participants were given yearly physical examinations, MRI scans of their brains, tests to check their cognitive and memory skills, and blood tests to determine their levels of vitamin B12.

The results showed decrease in brain volume was greater among those with lower vitamin B12 levels.

Elderly people who consume enough meat, fish and milk containing vitamin B12 may help prevent their brains from shrinking and may preserve their memories, Oxford researchers said.

People who had higher vitamin B12 levels were six times less likely to experience brain shrinkage compared with those who had lower levels, according to a study from the university’s Oxford Project to Investigate Memory and Ageing in the journal Neurology.

Vitamin B12 is important for the normal functioning of the brain and nervous system and the formation of blood. Deficiency of the vitamin is linked to tiredness, irritability and depression as well as decreased mental capacity, concentration and memory. A shrinking brain is associated with the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
“Simply adjusting our diets to consume more vitamin B12 through eating meat, fish, fortified cereals or milk may be something we can easily do to prevent brain shrinkage and so perhaps save our memory,” said lead Oxford researcher Anna Vogiatzoglou.

The researchers performed brain scans, memory testing and physical examinations on 107 people aged 61-87.

VIVIENNE PARRY

“VITAMINS may shorten your life” was the most unexpected headline of the week. It arose after the publication of a review of 67 studies involving nearly a quarter of a million people taking antioxidant vitamin supplements (such as A, E and C). Far from showing benefit, it indicated that some, such as vitamin A, seemed to increase mortality.

This is a long way from other stories that suggest the benefits of supplements. Confusing, isn’t it? The problem is that studying the real effect of vitamins is incredibly hard. Focusing on one nutrient in isolation has proved to be a fine way to explain specific symptoms of one disease, such as those typically caused by vitamin deficiency - vitamin C and scurvy, for instance. But it’s not that useful when trying to assess the impact of vitamins on chronic conditions or even on death rates.

This is partly because the way that supplements affect our health can be influenced by many factors, significantly our diet. Drinking tea, for example, can inhibit the uptake of iron from food. Other influences are genes, physical fitness, existing disease, income levels, whether we smoke or drink . . .

And when researchers try to keep track of all these variables, and what foods and supplements we take, there’s another problem: we’re very unreliable witnesses. We either get muddled about what we have or haven’t eaten, or we simply lie when confronted with a nice dietitian with a clipboard.

There’s yet another problem. Costly trials involving enormous numbers of people over long periods of time are required to demonstrate the long-term effect of vitamins. People’s diets and habits can change considerably over these periods, making the results less reliable.

Meanwhile, the waters are muddied by the booming supplements business, which is worth £330million a year in the UK alone, the financial health of which is dependent on persuading us that our health is in jeopardy without its wares. Ironically, those most likely to be seduced by the marketing hype are those with the least need for supplements: health- conscious middle-class types.

So what does this latest review mean for us? It certainly doesn’t mean that those of us taking multivitamins are going to suffer an early death - they were not covered in the review. For those of us who take supplements of individual antioxidants, the picture is still far from clear. What we can say is that if there are benefits in taking single antioxidant supplements, they are very small indeed.

Stopping them is unlikely to affect your health adversely and will have a positive effect on your bank balance.

More and more people are beginning to wonder about how to remove cellulite without dropping thousands of dollars on invasive cellulite treatments and surgical procedures. This is due to the fact that celulite is becoming a much more recognized problem among people, and not everyone has enough money for expensive, not to mention invasive, liposuction treatments.
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One of the reasons that many people choose body detox diets is because they think that it will actually help them and their bodies fight off infections, strengthen their immune systems, as well as give them a whole host of other benefits. Even though it’s true that these are some of the possibilities of a detox diet and process, there is one element of the human body that these individuals are underestimating, and that is the organs of the human body themselves. Continue Reading…

Did you know there is a diet that works because you get to eat four meals a day? Think about that, you actually can eat yourself thin if you know which foods to eat and when to eat them. This is exactly what the Fat Loss 4 Idiots diet plan does for you.
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In this day of fast foods, fad foods and highly processed foods a dose of multi-vitamins certainly will not harm you and most likely will supplement your diet.
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