People are not very healthy living in the USA according to disease stats compared to many other Countries.
This is as simple as it gets:
- Culture in many if not most developed Countries is counter-productive to building health, especially in the United States.
- The American or modern diet in countless Scientific research shows it does not support health over the long term. (1 in 3 get cancer, 1 in 2 get heart disease)
- Your thoughts can manifest into body processes in both positive and negative directions.
- Supplements have to fit-in and support human physiology.***
First, the body is designed to move. Modern culture is designed to curtail movement. Labor saving devices: Automobiles, motorcycles, scooters, dish washers, car washes, Gardeners, Painters, etc. Watching sports dominates playing.
Second, food production methods have changed the nutrient content of food: Cattle eating grains in feed lots instead of pasture grass, caged animals fed artificial chemicals and antibiotics, fried foods in re-used oils, and residues from synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.
Third, fresh foods are giving way to cooked, frozen, and processed foods. Some use the terms live or dead foods. The enzymes in fresh foods are not given the significance they deserve for maintaining health.
***Now this is really at the heart of all vitamin issues. Supplemented nutrients have to complement body functions and processes rather than upset or interfere. Drugs are designed to mostly interfere. Disturbances can be in either over-stimulation or under-expression directions. Two of the largest mis-clues for physiological understanding are with the nature of the antioxidant/redox balance and also in the maintenance of blood calcium levels to protect bones.
Here are the most important factors to consider:
- For Health, the body needs to stay under a 5 to 1 intake ratio for Omega 6 to Omega 3 fats. Foods in the past simply more or less exhibited this ratio. But with the food production methods and choices today, this ratio has increased to 10-1 or greater, up to 20 to 1 in some diets. Since a higher ratio can increase chronic inflammation, many degenerative diseases are linked to this one fact. Fish contains omega 3 and so did beef from cattle when fed only on pasture grass. Cows in feedlots eating grains dramatically reduce their omega 3 meat fat content.
- Sugar is far too concentrated to be consumed in the quantities of today. Over 100 pounds a year. The body's complex glucose/insulin controls cannot handle this amount and may breakdown creating the metabolic syndrome factors and eventually diabetes. This complex system has triggers other than sugars as well.
- Farming methods are reducing nutrient content. Kansas wheat has lost 25% or more of its protein content. Minerals are both increased and reduced by modern farming methods plus refined out of many foods increasing deficiencies, especially for magnesium and potassium, while sodium is often in excess since salt is added to many prepared foods.
- Calcium is fortified in so many foods that it is now creating problems which scientists are failing to attach to it, or to its pathway influences directed by vitamin D levels.
Established medicine approaches disease by treating symptoms and seldom addresses or corrects causes. Imagine how quickly this would reverse if Doctors were paid a monthly fee only while you were HEALTHY and not if you became sick.
Plus, Modern nutrition is failing to adequately educate people as to the truths of disease causing factors and conditions, plus the pitfalls of culturally evolving dietary patterns. There is some lip service to a few of the associations, but many go unacknowledged. There are small segments in the health food and vitamin industry that attempt to bring some of these health concepts to light, but usually only the ones favorable to selling vitamins get widespread reporting.
This website attempts to simply explain these conditions by offering logical explanations and support so you can better understand nutrient roles. Sometimes these are positive but can also be negative so it is paramount that all sides are presented as truthfully as possible given the current scientific research. Unfortunately, not all aspects of nutrition have research answers. Here, a common sense interpretation of physiology and human anatomy with a best guess as to how nutrients might fit. Opinions! Science has many pertinent vitamin questions yet to research and answer.