What I don’t like about acai is that because of its excessive, over-rated hype, marketers have tried to pull the wool over your eyes and sell the acai mixed in to a supplement as a weight loss aid! Beware. If you have ever lost weight in your life, you know that it is not any ONE food or any ONE supplement that will help you. Since supplements aren’t regulated you really want to make sure you trust the company is making a pure product.

Bottom line: nobody is going to change for you. If you want to change, believe in yourself! You have the power to do this without an expensive supplement. Use this website, get support, and commit.

Here’s a segment I did recently on Fox 5 in Washington, D.C. on acai. Watch it. You’ll get my take and at least two other recipes. Also, find out what food is very high in antioxidants that if you are dieting you’re probably cutting out… but maybe you shouldn’t!

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Thinking of Acai for Weight Loss? Think Again.

Me. Now. I’m thinking about it now.

The most abundant mineral in the body, calcium is indeed a multi-functional miracle. Used for muscle contraction as well as to support bones and teeth, calcium is stored in the bones and teeth and said storage fluctuates during a person’s life. The bones absorb calcium for growth in the younger years, and that absorption decreases as you age, almost reversing in the later years. A lack of the optimal amounts of calcium in youth can lead to bone loss that increases the risk of osteoporosis and bone deformities such as the well known Dowagers hump. Falls and bone breaks are very common in older people, due to a combination of loss of balance and poor bone density.

I started taking a calcium supplement the day that I witnessed an elderly woman fall and experience a compound wrist fracture. That was a crystal clear indicator to me that I needed more calcium in my diet, and if I wasn’t going to drink milk, I was going to have to supplement it in other ways.

Milk and other dairy products are the most obvious and the richest sources of calcium, but not the only ones. Broccoli, kale and Chinese cabbage are relatively high in calcium, and now many foods are calcium fortified. Take advantage of orange juice, cereals, breads and even bottled water that are all calcium fortified.

One other benefit that I’ve noticed since I began to supplement with a calcium/magnesium supplement is an almost complete disappearance of the dreaded leg cramps that I have experienced at night.

The RDA for a woman aged 19-50 years is 1,000 mgs a day. A cup of skim milk has 30% of your daily allowance, and a cup of yogurt an astounding 40%. A bowl of cereal for breakfast – drink the milk! – and a yogurt in the afternoon and you are 75% of the way to your goal.

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Calcium – The Wonder Mineral

Fruits and vegetables are the best sources for vitamin C; although I myself take a supplement as it ensures I get the right amount my body needs daily. Being that vitamin C may also protect against certain types of cancer and heart disease you should be sure to eat the following foods to get your daily dose:

• Peppers
• Oranges/Orange Juice
• Grapefruit
• Broccoli
• Kale
• Kiwi

Additional good sources include brussel sprouts, cabbage and tangerines.

The recommended dietary allowance is as follows:

• Adolescents 14-18 years old: 65-75mg/day
• Adults 19 years and older: 75-90mg/day
• Pregnancy: 80-85mg/day

Examples of how to reach the daily dietary allowances, although you should check with your doctor to make sure you know your correct allowance, are as follows:

• Medium green or yellow peppers – 225mg/serving
• Medium orange – 80mg/serving
• Medium baked potato – 20mg/serving

Stay tuned next week, 12/19, as the vitamin guide continues with vitamin D.

View the entire vitamin guide:

Vitamin A

Vitamin B12

Vitamin C

Vitamin D

Vitamin E

Vitamin L

Zinc

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Vitamin Guide A to Zinc: Vitamin C

My wife and I have been giving my three-year-old daughter gummy bear vitamins for a year or so now. We’ve found it an easy way to get her to supplement her very finicky diet. And I even find myself occasionally dipping into her stash.

Then, a few months back I see a commercial for gummy vitamins… marketed to adults! It must have gotten back to them that we parents like ‘em too. I don’t recall the maker, just that there was a guy acting child-like in the supermarket. A quick “Googling” only unearthed a company called Slice of Life that makes allergen- and gluten-free gummy vitamins for adults.

Not only do the Slice of Life vitamins come in a multi-variety, but there are ones for special needs such as Vitamin C, omega-3, B12, among other even more specialized nutritional needs.

Some people have a hard time remembering their daily vitamins, or just don’t look forward to them enough to make it a habit. If you have a soft spot for gummy candy like I do, maybe try one of these.

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Gummy Vitamins For Adults

“A police offer who had been encouraged by his doctor decided to try a weight-loss supplement to help him shed his extra pounds. But instead of losing weight, he lost his job. His diet pills, which were imported from Brazil and sold in the United States, contained vitamin E, centella, senna, and cascara, among other “natural” ingredients. Not included on the label was the amphetamine detected in his urine drug screen. The now-unemployed sergeant is not alone. Such contaminated supplements represent an emerging risk to public health.”

The bottom line is you really have to be careful with what you trust as “safe.” In August 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found more than 140 supplements that contained undeclared active pharmaceutical ingredients. DRUGS! These represent only a fraction of the contaminated supplements on the market.

The culprit is lack of regulation in a market where “empty promises” and “quick fixes” sell. Today, dietary supplements are presumed to be safe and can be marketed with very little oversight. Supplements manufacturers are required to report serious supplement-related adverse events to the FDA, but by and large they don’t. The FDA estimates 50,000 adverse events each year go unreported.

As a nutrition expert, I make it my a priority to look at the medications and supplements my new client is taking and ask them what they take each for. It is shocking to see what they are taking and how little they can explain about what the supplement is supposed to do. While I can’t go into detail and review every supplement in this post, here is what I would recommend.

1. Think before you buy. What is in it? Do you need it? Are all the ingredients safe? Do any of the ingredients compromise a pre-existing health condition or interact with medications? What is the cost? Is it effective?
2. Research the company. Has the company been around for a long time? Does it appear reputable? What is its Better Business Bureau rating?
3. Consider the messenger. I’ve heard it all from my clients, anything from “my co-worker sells them to me and they cured her brother’s skin cancer” to “my chiropractor said this cleanse would help me lose five pounds” to “the person at the supplement store said this was the best.”

There is no assurance that hazardous dietary supplements will be identified or removed from the market in a timely fashion. You have to be the cop.

Via New England Journal of Medicine

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Do You Know What’s in Your Dietary Supplements?

1. Calcium – According to the National Institute of Health, the recommended total calcium intake is 1,000 mg a day for women between 25 and 50 years of age, 1,200 – 1,500 for pregnant or lactating women, and 1,500 mg per day for postmenopausal women. The average calcium consumption among North American women is currently only 600 mg per day. I take a calcium magnesium supplement and find that it really helps me with nighttime leg cramps.
2. Fish Oil – fish are rich sources of Omega 3s, most especially EPA and DHA, highly specialized fats that cannot be made by our bodies in the levels we need. Taking these essential oils also has an added skin benefit, and because we all know that fish is brain food – well, the thought of improved brain function never fails to sway me. Make sure it’s an encapsulated version so as to avoid fish oil burps. (I take mine at night.)
3. Vitamin D -The major biologic function of Vitamin D is to maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus. Vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium, helping to form and maintain strong bones. The FDA has increased the levels of Vitamin D recommended, and a low level of this important vitamin has been shown to affect mental stability.
4. B Complex – The Vitamin B Complex is comprised of the essential B Vitamins – Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B3, Vitamin B5, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B9, Vitamin B12 plus the vitamins Biotin, Choline and Inositol. Vitamin B Complex is needed for the proper functioning of almost every process in the body, including energy production, healthy digestion and great looking skin, hair and nails – a wonderful side benefit!
5. Multi-Vitamin – My other choice would be a quality multi-vitamin, one balanced in the key nutrients and close to 100% of the RDA without going over with enormous numbers. Many of those high numbers are impressive, but they are often water soluble vitamins and can cause you to have nothing more than “expensive pee.”

What would you add or subtract?

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Five Key Supplements For Good Health

A new study examined 12 healthy college students who were not regular exercisers. They were given quercetin supplements for seven days. What the researchers found was that the antioxidant appeared to boost exercise endurance, where a separate 7-day period without supplements did not.

Quercetin is a compound found in abundance in red apples, red onions, berries, cabbages, broccoli, and green and black teas. It’s believed to have multiple antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and cell-energy activation properties that can be beneficial.

Most previous studies on quercetin involved animals. To see if the testing on humans was going to work, and boost energy in the subjects, investigators measured students’ maximum oxygen uptake and the number of minutes they could ride a stationary bike.

For seven days, the participants drank Tang with a placebo, then another seven days with 500 milligrams of quercetin.

The quercetin supplement periods showed a moderate four percent increase in maximum oxygen uptake as compared to the week of no supplementation. In terms more understandable to the layperson, the participants were able to ride the stationary bikes for a 13 percent longer duration taking quercetin than they were without.

Via Fox News

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Antioxidant Quercetin Key to Better Fitness Endurance

Trichotillomania is classified as an impulse control disorder in the DSM-IV; however, some consider it self-injury, a tic, or an obsessive-compulsive disorder. When someone suffers from trichotillomania they experience urges to pull out their hair; this can be hair from the scalp, eyelashes, eyebrows, or any body hair. Generally sufferers experience tension building with a desire to pull that is relieved once they have pulled the hair out. Pulling tends to increase during times of high stress and may disappear entirely during times of low stress. Pulling can result in bald patches or complete absence of hair in certain areas of the body. In some cases sufferers are also driven to bite the bulb at the root of the hair, chew on, or even swallow hair.

The research conducted at the University of Minnesota was a double-blind study, involving 50 people for a period of 12 weeks. The experimental group was given N-Acetylcysteine, an amino acid often found in health food supplements. (N-Acetylcsteine is also knows as N-acetyl cysteine or NAC.) They were started at a dose of 1200mg daily for six weeks; this dose was increased to 2400mg per day for the following six weeks. The control group was given a placebo.

At the end of the study, 56% of the experiment group reported feeling “much or very much improved,” while only 16% of the control group reported the same. A significant reduction in symptoms was noted after only 9 weeks.

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OTC Treatment for Trichotillomania

There are now many resveratrol supplements on the market that contain a very high concentration of resveratrol.  In fact, to receive the amount of resveratrol in these supplements you would have to drink 1,000 bottles of wine a day, which obviously would not be recommended.

What does and doesn’t resveratrol do for health and weight loss?
The information I found on the product is that resveratrol “activates the body’s natural, genetic defenses against diseases.”  Also, this supplement is supposed to be effective even if you have a poor diet, including consuming a high amount of fat.  The product may not be able to improve your health directly, but it could “slow down” the path that your health is on.  This is where huge red flags come up for me.  So much research is out there displaying how a poor diet is linked to and associated with many diseases and cancer. I’m very skeptical that a supplement would be able to counteract a high fat diet.  How can one lose weight while maintaining the same diet (calories consumed) and not adding any exercise?  Any product that claims to do that is too good to be true.

Is the supplement better than just drinking wine?
As discussed above, in order for one to obtain the potency of this supplement they would have to drink 1,000 bottles of wine a day.  Still in my eyes, eating the whole food is better than taking a supplement for it.  I’m not certain if the drinking 1,000 bottles has any truth behind it, but I’m not ready to depend on a pill to improve my health. Relying on a healthy diet and exercise to improve your life to make you healthier has decades of evidence underneath its belt.  Try to look past the hype of this supplement because it sounds (at the moment) just too good to be true.  To the best of my knowledge there are no long-term studies of this supplement in humans and until there is we will have no proof of knowing whether or not this pill is truly valid and what affects it has on your body over the years.

Before I began taking this product I would research it more and speak to both your doctor and pharmacist.

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Is Resveratrol Really Reversing the Aging Process?

So in order to offset those days when we just don’t quite fuel our bodies with enough free radical-fighting and antioxidant-rich foods there is Pure Inventions. Pure Inventions is kind of like giving your body that B12 shot it so desperately needs.

Started by two women who are clinical nutritionists, Pure Inventions combines health and beauty research into six product lines that deliver nutrition in a tiny dropper. All you do is combine with water or top on your oatmeal and let Pure Inventions do the rest of the work.

Ranging from cocoa extracts (think Hershey’s chocolate syrup with no calories and a hint of vanilla) to tranquility extracts that combine passionflower with the calming effects of magnesium, Pure Inventions has a beauty-starts-from-within product for you.

The company sent DietsInReview two samples: A Fruit Extract and the Fit & Slender. The extracts are a bit more dense and gritty than you might suspect. Since they are concentrated forms of berry extracts like acai, pomegranate, grape and elderberry, the taste by itself is strong so I recommend diluting it with water or even mix in a thick yogurt like a low-fat Greek yogurt.

I definitely felt healthy taking the extracts, but I can’t tell if it was the placebo effect working or the extermination of all the disease-causing free radicals that had suddenly left my body, or perhaps a mysterious combination of the two.

All of the Pure Inventions elixirs are calorie-free and don’t contain any artificial sweeteners, alcohol, stimulants or preservatives. Each 2-ounce bottle ranges in cost from $25 to $40.

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Pure Inventions: An Elixir of Antioxidants