Antioxidants aid arterial health

Who needs Liptor when antioxidant vitamins and minerals, good nutrition, and other health promoting activities like exercise keep your innards healthy while improving cardiovascular health -- better blood sugar and better cholesterol profiles.?

HOLON, Israel, July 7 (UPI) -- Vitamin C, vitamin E, co-enzyme Q10 and selenium supplement had beneficial effects for those with cardiovascular risk factors, researchers in Israel said.
Reuven Zimlichman and colleagues at the Wolfson Medical Center in Israel said the study involved 70 patients from the center's hypertension clinic.
"Antioxidant supplementation significantly increased large and small artery elasticity in patients with multiple cardiovascular risk factors," Zimlichman said in a statement. "This beneficial vascular effect was associated with an improvement in glucose and lipid metabolism as well as significant decrease in blood pressure."
The research team randomized the 70 patients to receive either antioxidants or placebo capsules for six months.
The study, published in the journal Nutrition  Metabolism, found that at the three-month and six-month mark, patients in the antioxidant group had more elastic arteries -- a measure of cardiovascular health -- better blood sugar and better cholesterol profiles.

Is a Vitamin Supplement Necessary For your Kids?

When it comes to your kids and vitamin supplements, you should know that most children do not need extra or supplemental vitamins or minerals. If you base your children’s diet on the food guide pyramid, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, you shouldn’t need to give your child vitamin supplements. However, it is important to know that of all the age groups, children can be the one that is the hardest to control when it comes to diet. Children don’t understand what it means when something is essential for their bodies, and they are much more prone to being picky eaters or having poor diets. If you child is eating a special diet, they might need more vitamins or minerals. These can include vegetarians, children with allergies, or children that have religions which state certain foods shouldn’t be eaten.

The most important thing for you to keep in mind when it comes to making sure that your child has a healthy diet is to ensure that they are getting the proper amounts of the right kinds of vitamins and minerals. If this isn’t happening because of what they are eating, you either need to change what they are eating, or make sure that they are getting the vitamins in another way. Vitamin supplements can be purchased in kid-friendly shapes and flavors, so it shouldn’t be a problem to have your child take them.

There are several vitamins and minerals that are going to be important for your child to have enough of. These include, especially, iron, which is needed in children to prevent anemia. This usually happens if children aren’t given enough extra iron after they are six months old, which happens often if a baby drinks cow or goat milk instead of formula. Young and adolescent girls are also at a risk of having an iron deficiency.

Another important thing that children need is calcium. This is something that is completely necessary for healthy bones and teeth. If children are drinking milk and eating dairy products, they are probably getting enough calcium, but if they aren’t, you might need to supplement this in their diets.

It is also important that children are getting fluoride. This helps to build healthy teeth. However, it is important that they only get enough fluoride, and not too much, so don’t add to their intake unless your dentist or doctor thinks that you should.

If you don’t think that your child is getting enough vitamins or minerals, you should consult with your doctor to make sure that you can find a good balance and a good children’s multivitamin for them to be taking. However, it is crucial that you realize that a vitamin is not a replacement for food and is not a substitute for a varied diet.

Does Anybody Need A Multi Vitamin?

Some people don't eat as well as they should because they
are pressed for time and it's faster to get restaurant food
when they're out running around. Some people don't eat as
well as they should because they don't really know how to
eat in a more healthy way. Regardless of the reasons that
people don't eat a balanced diet each day the end result
is that people need to take vitamins and minerals in daily
supplements to help balance out their poor diets.

In order to stay healthy and to get the vitamins and
minerals that are missing from your daily diet, multi
vitamins are the ideal choice, but doctors and medical
experts are muted on their opinions.

One of the biggest reasons that some doctors feel that
taking multi vitamins is a waste of time is that most of the
thousand of multi vitamins that are on the market today are
made up of synthetic vitamins and minerals that were created
in a lab specifically for use in a multi vitamin tablet.

These doctors argue that using synthetic vitamins and
minerals doesn't help the body as much as the natural
vitamins and minerals found in food would.

There is some evidence that shows that synthetic multi
vitamins can provide some of the nutrients your body
requires to remain healthy.

Although these multi vitamins might be somewhat effective at
providing some nutrients, a synthetically produced multi
vitamin can't replace the need for food, a scientist at
Northwestern University says.

The truth is that your body interacts with food and it's much
better and more effective to get vitamins and minerals from
food than through a multi vitamin.

Multi vitamins are a good back up source of vitamins and
minerals for people that don't always eat a balanced diet or
don't always get the kind of nutrition that they should
through food. Most doctors would agree with that, but multi
vitamins aren't going to completely replace the need for
food. Remember, it's a meal supplement not replacement.

The debate doesn't stop here, proponents of multi vitamin
pills argue that the food people eat today isn't all that
healthy because of the soil depletion, pollution, and the
use of pesticides and chemicals which kills most of the
vitamins and minerals. Regarding the synthetic nature of the pills,
there's a good choice of 100% natural and organic vitamins
available today.

It is a basic understanding of whether or not multi vitamins
are as effective as eating food to get vitamins and minerals.
Since it's just not possible to eat a balanced diet all
the time, knowing which vitamins and supplements you can
take to help make up for the times when you can't eat a
balanced meal will help you give your body all the tools
that it needs to stay healthy.