Common deficiency associated with serious disease.

Recent published research including 41, 504 patient records, revealed a prevalence of 63.6% deficiency of vitamin D with only minor differences by gender and age (Anderson JL, et al. 2010).

The researchers found that the vitamin D deficiency was associated with highly significant increases in the prevalence of diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure) and hyperlipidemia (high cholesterol and triglycerides).

The vitamin D levels of the study patients were also highly associated with coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction, heart failure and stroke.
Vitamin D deficiencies are very common even in sunny climates because the common use of sunscreen.

To spend some time in the sun without sunscreen is healthy as long as you don't overdo it, that is one way to increase vitamin D levels. To get sunburned it not healthy however.


If you want to be sure that you get enough vitamin D, you can also take 1000 IU to 2000 IU of vitamin D3.

You can read more about the many benefits of vitamin D by clicking here.

To read the original abstract, click on the reference below.


Reference:

Anderson JL, May HT, Horne BD, Bair TL, Hall NL, Carlquist JF, Lappé DL, Muhlestein JB; Intermountain Heart Collaborative (IHC) Study Group. Relation of vitamin D deficiency to cardiovascular risk factors, disease status, and incident events in a general healthcare population. Am J Cardiol. 2010 Oct 1;106(7):963-8. Epub 2010 Aug 11.

Easy way to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The study reviewed included 31,671 women from Sweden with no history of cardiovascular disease and also 2,262 women with a history of cardiovascular disease (Rautiainen S, et al. 2010).

The age of these women were from 49 to 83 years.

The researchers investigated the use of multivitamins and the risk of myocardial infarction. The multivitamins were estimated to contain close to the recommended daily allowances of vitamin A, C, D, E and the B vitamins.


The results documented that the use of multivitamins were inversely associated with myocardial infarction, especially with long-term use among the women with no cardiovascular disease.

Just a simple thing as taking good quality multivitamins can make a significant difference for your health.

To read the original abstract, click on the reference below.


Reference:

Rautiainen S, Akesson A, Levitan EB, Morgenstern R, Mittleman MA, Wolk A. Multivitamin use and the risk of myocardial infarction: a population-based cohort of Swedish women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 Sep 22.

A simple thing you can do to help prevent brain atrophy.

Cognitive impairment and dementia are getting more common as we age and it makes sense to do whatever we can to help prevent it.

An increase rate of brain atrophy is often observed in older people who suffer from cognitive decline. Homocysteine, an amino acid, is a risk factor for brain atrophy and have been found to increase with low intake of B vitamin like B6, B12 and folic acid.

A recent study investigated the effect of 800 mcg of folic acid, 500 mcg of B12 and 20 mg of B6 daily comparing it with placebo over 24 months (Smith AD, et al. 2010).

The rate of atrophy was assessed with MRI and the results documented that the average rate of brain atrophy per year was 0.76% in the treatment group and 1.08% for the placebo group.


The rate of brain atrophy in participants with homocysteine levels of more than 13 µmol/L was 53% lower in the group taking the B vitamins.

You easily get the levels of vitamin B used in this study by taking 1 tablet of the formula "Vitamin B Complex." You can also read more about the benefits of B vitamins by clicking here.

To read the original abstract, click on the reference below.


Reference:

Smith AD, Smith SM, de Jager CA, Whitbread P, Johnston C, Agacinski G, Bradley KM, Jacoby R, Refsum H. Homocysteine-lowering by B vitamins slows the rate of accelerated brain atrophy in mild cognitive impairment: a randomized controlled trial. PLoS One. 2010 Sep 8;5(9):e12244.

Reduce your risk of death from inflammatory diseases.

The study reviewed here investigated the connection between different foods and the risk of death from diseases in which inflammation or oxidative stress was a predominant contributor (Buyken AE, et al. 2010).

The participants both men and women were followed for 13 years. The results showed that women who ate foods in the highest glycemic index tertile had a 2.9 fold increased risk of inflammatory death compared with women in the lowest glycemic index tertile.

The glycemic index is a way of measuring how high a food is elevating the blood sugar after it has been ingested. In the case of this study, foods that elevated the blood sugar high had a detrimental effect.

To learn more about this and all the benefits of eating a high nutrient low glycemic index way, read the book “The Food Connection.”

The book also has a lot of easy to make recipes.

To read the original abstract, click on the reference below.


Reference:

Buyken AE, Flood V, Empson M, Rochtchina E, Barclay AW, Brand-Miller J, Mitchell P. Carbohydrate nutrition and inflammatory disease mortality in older adults. Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 Sep;92(3):634-43. Epub 2010 Jun 23.