Ever wondered more about the life supporting vitamins and minerals we depend on and never stop hearing about. This is definitely for the interested and/or nerdy.

Vitamins and minerals are nutrients required in very small amounts for essential metabolic reactions in the body. Some diseases caused by vitamin deficiencies, such as scurvy, have been recognized since antiquity, but it was only in the 20th century that systematic nutritional studies identified the chemical structures of many of these essential compounds. In 1913, Vitamin A was recognized for its importance in vision, and in 1932, Vitamin C was found to be necessary to prevent scurvy. The following paragraphs give some information about the most important vitamins and minerals.

MINERALS

The term “minerals” is applied to chemical elements present in the ash of calcined tissue. Dietary minerals may be present in inorganic salts, or as part of carbon-containing organic compounds. For example, magnesium is present in chlorophyll, the pigment that makes plants green. Six minerals are required by people in gram amounts: sodium (Na), potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), phosphorus (P), and chlorine (Cl). Daily requirements range from 0.3 to 2.0 grams per day. Nine trace minerals (microminerals) are required by people in minute amounts: chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), iodine (I), iron (Fe), fluorine (F), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo), selenium (Se), and zinc (Zn). There are additional requirements for cobalt (Co), but these are generally expressed in terms of the cobalt-containing vitamin B12. All trace minerals are toxic at high levels.

The term Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) is used to represent daily dietary reference values such as Adequate Intake (AI), Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL), Estimated Average Requirements (EAR), Nutrient Reference Value (NRV), and Recommended Dietary Allowance / Intake (RDA / RDI).

Calcium
Calcium (Ca) is the most abundant mineral in the human body. More than 99% of total body calcium is stored in the bones and teeth. Calcium is also found in body fluids where its function is to regulate contractions of blood vessels and muscles. The requirement for calcium is greatest from puberty to maturity, when the body grows very quickly. Milk and dairy products are good sources of calcium.

Age Calcium DRI (mg/day)
0-6 months 210
7-12 months 270
1-3 years 500
4-8 years 800
9-18 years 1300
19-50 years 1000
51+ years 1200

Fluorine
Most of the body’s fluorine (F) is contained in bones and teeth. The main source of fluoride is drinking water. Fluorine hardens tooth enamel and effectively prevents dental caries. Excessive fluorine in drinking water can accumulate in teeth and bones, causing fluorosis. Permanent teeth that develop during high fluorine intake have irregularly distributed chalky patches on the surface of the enamel which become stained yellow or brown, producing a characteristic mottled appearance.

Iodine
iodine (I) is primarily involved in the synthesis of two thyroid hormones, thyroxine and triiodothyronine. In adults, about 80% of the iodide absorbed is trapped by the thyroid gland.

Thyroxine
Most environmental iodine occurs in seawater. People living far from the sea are at particular risk of deficiency. Salt fortified with iodide (typically 70 μg/g) helps ensure adequate intake (100 μg/day). Deficiency is rare in areas where iodized salt is used but common worldwide. Iodine deficiency develops when iodide intake is less than 20 μg/day. In mild or moderate deficiency, the thyroid gland hypertrophies to concentrate iodide in itself, resulting in goiter which is an enlargement of the thyroid gland visible as a swelling of the front of the neck. Excessive iodine consumption can lead to thyrotoxicosis, a condition resulting from high concentrations of thyroid hormones in the body which can result from eating foods that have very high amounts of iodine, such as kombu-type kelp or seaweed.

Continue reading Chemical Structure of Vitamins and Minerals

Sugar is fat. This simple relationship is revealed in this 9 part video series. You absolutely MUST watch this whole series. When sucrose and fructose enter the body the end result through various biochemical reactions actually creates new fat in the body. Featuring Dr. Robert H. Lustig, M.D. of UCSF Division of Endocrinology and Professor of Pediatrics – this lecture is not the over-simplified story of “increased calories from carbohydryates (sugar) of course makes us fat” but the actual hard science that has decoded the fructose mystery. Fructose in nature is embedded with super high levels of fiber. The industrial food companies have spent countless hours of research figuring out how to strip natural foods of this embedded relationship of sugar to fiber. Think of the sweetest food… yup -sugar cane. This plant is basically as fibrous as a stick! And don’t count on the FDA to help here – they are not getting anywhere near this. It’s up to you to educate yourself.

Dr. Lustig draws his conclusions that sugary drinks are the cause of the epidemic obesity levels in children in the US. Watch and be blown away. Fast forward part 6 if you are scientifically challenged.

By Karden Rabin of the Center for Structural Wellness

Nearly everyone agrees that some manner of healthcare reform is necessary in this country. The prevailing healthcare system is expensive, inefficient, exploitive and seemingly designed to provide as little “care” as possible. Healthcare costs in this country accounted for 16.5% of GDP in 2007. That’s $2.26 trillion or $7,026 per American, a price tag that most Americans can ill afford, as reflected in the fact that, health related issues account for nearly half of personal bankruptcies in the United States. The bill[s] being reviewed by Congress are estimated to cost a staggering $856 billion, and the future costs of the system are estimated to reach 19.5% of GDP by 2017. The present and projected costs of healthcare in the United States, already beyond the quantitative sense of most Americans, arise within the disgraceful reality that 15% of Americans are completely uninsured and substantially more are underinsured.

Stepping back in an effort to comprehend the madness, one can only conclude that the healthcare system is completely out of control. When a national discussion becomes as complicated as our healthcare debate and the solutions are more expensive than the recently passed stimulus bill, it cries out for a different approach. From my standpoint as an alternative healthcare provider, that approach is concerned with a legitimate reform focused on keeping Americans healthy in the first place.

The heart of the matter is that 133 million Americans (45%) have at least one preventable chronic disease. Chronic disease is responsible for: 7 out 10 deaths; 81% of hospital admissions; 91% of all prescriptions filled; and, 76% of all physician visits. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that eliminating poor diet, inactivity and smoking would prevent 80% of heart disease, 80% of type II diabetes and 40% of cancer cases in the United States.
The awful fact is that we’re eating and lounging ourselves to financial ruin and death. Instead of taking on the underlying challenge of making Americans healthy, healthcare reform proposes to spend another trillion dollars on revamping a broken system. That strategy compares to repaving the surface of a decaying bridge and claiming that it can support 18-wheelers. Sooner or later, that bridge and every vehicle on it is going to come crashing down. Like the bridge, the healthcare problem is structural, but the proffered repairs are merely cosmetic.

Rather than throwing another trillion dollars on a facelift for a disintegrating system, we should try to reduce the burden under which the system is expected to function. We’ve known how to do it for decades; the formula is simple: eat well, exercise and don’t smoke tobacco. In a triumph that altered the cultural habit of more than a century, we’ took on the tobacco industry. We raised and expanded our awareness of the risks of tobacco use; we made cigarettes expensive; and we use the taxes levied on cigarettes to help pay for the medical care of the people cigarettes have sickened.

But, on the other factors, healthy eating and exercise, we’ve failed miserably. As for eating well, few people do. It can’t be done in a country that awards subsidies and concessions to a food industry that makes bad food cheap and healthy food expensive. For some, it’s a matter of ignorance and for others it’s a matter of apathy. For yet others, the choice to eat poorly is an expression of their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But for most, it’s simply a matter of cost. Healthy food is expensive and can take time to prepare. How can brown rice, a chicken breast and broccoli which costs as much as $10 bucks compete with French fries, a hamburger and soda for $4 bucks? Healthcare reform must hold the food industry to account for the damage it is doing to American health in exactly the same way that anti-smoking legislation addressed the tobacco industry, Otherwise, no system of healthcare will be able to care for a population where two-thirds of the population is overweight.

Exercise and fitness are extremely popular and present in the media, but hype is far from implementation. Our public school system makes a mockery of physical education and our business culture sees no profit in it. Exercise needs to be made an important and rigorous aspect of education. Perhaps then, our children won’t suffer from type-II diabetes at alarmingly young ages. As for business, if fitness were made a standard feature of the American workday, then we’d have a far healthier and more productive citizenry.

For Healthcare reform to be effective, it must not only reform the system of providing care, but guarantee access to a healthy lifestyle for all Americans. To do that, we need to enact laws that regulate and tax the food industry in order to create a new American diet based on health and not profit. We have standards for quality and sanitation across the industry, now its time to add an additional layer of health standards. This shouldn’t mean the elimination of indulgence foods, but requiring warning labels for unhealthy foods would guide consumers to better choices. Mandating better physical fitness and education standards in public schools would shape a more vital and conscious citizenry. Encouraging small business and corporations with tax credits and lowered insurance premiums for making fitness available to their employees would go a long way towards empowering working Americans.

The reality is that we cannot debate these issues any longer. It’s a critical matter of national interest to preserve both the financial and physical health of our citizens. By legislating on the side of keeping people healthy, rather than saving them when they are chronically ill, we would not only save this country from a financial disaster, but improve the quality of life for all Americans. That’s what real health-care does.

This could be a lifesaving natural treatment from Andreas Moritz at the Ener-Chi Wellness Center in South Carolina:

Although sugar intake strongly stimulates cancer cell growth, the combination of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and maple syrup has the exact opposite effect; it makes it actually very difficult for cancer cells to function and survive.

Cancer cells can only operate in an acidic and oxygen-deprived environment. Since they are anaerobic by nature, they cannot use oxygen to metabolize glucose (sugar) and produce energy, but, instead, they have to ferment it. Compared with aerobic cells, which use oxygen and glucose to produce energy, cancer cells require about 15 times the amount of glucose as healthy cells to generate the same amount of metabolic energy. The cancer cells’ excessive hunger for glucose robs other healthy cells of this vital nutrient, thereby causing them to become weak, die, or also mutate into cancer cells. The starvation or weakening of healthy cells caused by the cancer cells’ incessant draining of nutrients from the tissue fluids, greatly diminishes the affected organ’s glucose and energy reserves. This is the main reason behind the failure of organs associated with cancer.

To prepare this simple, inexpensive but powerful remedy, combine pure 5 parts of 100% maple syrup (ideally B-grade), with 1 part of pure baking soda (with no added aluminum!). Place the mixture in a sauce pan and heat it on a medium flame for five minutes. Stir briskly. The mixture will greatly spread out and become foamy. Store in a cool place and take one teaspoon twice daily. For very serious conditions, take one teaspoon three times a day. Take uninterruptedly for at least 7-8 days, which is often sufficient to collapse tumors of the size one to two inches. You may experience a strong die-off, consisting of dead cancer cells, bacteria and toxins, usually expelled via the intestinal tract. Don’t be concerned if diarrhea occurs. This is the body’s way of relieving itself of the acid burden that’s behind the cancer. Other, seemingly unrelated health conditions may improve, too.

The maple syrup is capable of transporting bicarbonate into all parts of body, including the brain and nervous system, bones, teeth, joints, eyes and solid tumors. It may also help with other conditions of acidosis. Sodium bicarbonate therapy is harmless and so quick-acting because it is extremely diffusible.