轉載自Human Nutrition 友站連結 health and free
Cell
nutrition
Do you graze? 你吃草嗎?
Research shows that
people who eat little and often ( 少量多餐) are healthier than
those who just eat 1 or 2 big meals a day.
Eating small &
frequent meals has also been shown to positively speed up the metabolism which
can result in body-fat loss! (少量多餐促進新陳代謝)
Vitamins and other
essential nutrients are needed for thousands of biochemical reactions in each
cell.
Chronic deficiency of
these vitamins (長期缺乏維他命造成器官損傷) and other essential nutrients is the most
frequent cause of malfunction of millions of body cells and the primary cause
of cardiovascular disease and other diseases.
Cardiovascular diseases (心血管疾病是最常見的疾病,因為需要消耗大量維他命) are the
most frequent diseases because cardiovascular cells consume vitamins and other
essential nutrients at a high rate due to the mechanical stress on the heart
and the blood vessel wall from the heartbeat and the pulse wave.
Optimum dietary
supplementation of vitamins and other essential nutrients is the key to
prevention and effective treatment of cardiovascular disease, as well as other
chronic health conditions.
The primary, and by
far the most frequent, cause of malfunctioning of cells is a chronic
deficiency of essential nutrients, in particular of vitamins, amino acids,
minerals, and trace elements.
These essential
nutrients are needed for a multitude of biochemical reactions and other
cellular functions in every single cell of our body. Chronic deficiencies of
one or more of these essential nutrients, therefore, must lead to cellular
malfunctioning and to disease."
I therefore feel that
the argument for taking nutritional supplements far outweighs the argument
against taking them. I know that this is a contraversial
topic(是否需要補充維他命是有爭議的話題).
The main argument
against supplements is that we can obtain all the essential nutrients from a “balanced'
diet”(營養均衡).
This is now regarded as
the 'old view' (營養均衡已是過時的觀念)and the value of
nutritional supplementation is now recognised by the
'up-to-date' scientific and medical community.
This can be no better
illustrated by the recent 'Policy-Reversal' of the American Medical Asspociation - who now consider supplements to be a very
important aspect in preventing disease (營養補充可以預防疾病)
JAMA Recommends Taking Supplements!
Click Here
for More Information
Take multivitamins, AMA urges in policy reversal
Reversing a
long-standing anti-vitamin policy,
The Journal of the American Medical
Association today is advising all adults to take at least one multivitamin pill
each day.(AMA建議每天應吃一粒維他命)
Scientists'
understanding of the benefits of vitamins has rapidly advanced, and it now
appears that people who get enough vitamins may be able to prevent such common
chronic illnesses as cancer, heart disease and osteoporosis, according to Drs.
Robert Fletcher and Kathleen Fairfield of
The
last time JAMA made a comprehensive review of vitamins, about 20 years ago,
it concluded people of normal health shouldn't take multivitamins because they
were a waste of time and money.(20年前JAMA 認為健康的人不必吃綜合維他)
People can get all the nutrients they need from their diet, JAMA advised,
adding that only pregnant women and chronically sick people may need certain
vitamins.
That
was at a time when knowledge about vitamins was just beginning to expand. The
role that low levels of folate, or folic
acid, play in neural tube defects(葉酸可以幫助神經管缺陷),
for instance, was not known; nor was its role as a major risk factor for heart
disease.
Researchers
hope JAMA's endorsement will encourage more people to
reap health benefits of a daily multivitamin.
Health
experts are increasingly worried that most American adults do not consume
healthy amounts of vitamins in their diet, although they may be getting enough
to ward off such vitamin-deficiency disorders as scurvy, beriberi and pellagra.
Almost
80 percent of Americans do not eat at least five helpings of fruits and
vegetables a day, the recommended minimum amount believed to provide sufficient
essential nutrients. Humans do not make their own vitamins, except for some
vitamin D, and they must get them from an outside source to prevent metabolic
disorders.
"It's
nice to see this change in philosophy that's saying we can make public-health
recommendations based on this really compelling set of data," said Dr. Jeffrey
Blumberg, chief of antioxidant research at Tufts University's Jean Mayer USDA
Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging.
Blumberg
said the JAMA recommendations underscore a growing concern among nutrition
experts that the recommended daily allowances, or RDAs, for many vitamins are
set too low.
RDAs
essentially were established to prevent symptoms of vitamin-deficiency
disorders, he said. But evidence is growing that higher levels of many vitamins
are necessary to achieve optimum health, he said. The National Academy of
Sciences, which sets RDAs, is revising its recommendations based on the new
evidence.
Even people who eat five daily
servings of fruits and vegetables may not get enough of certain vitamins for
optimum health, Fletcher said. Most people, for instance, cannot get the
healthiest levels of folate and vitamins D and E from
recommended diets, he said.
"All
of us grew up believing that if we ate a reasonable diet,
that would take care of our vitamin needs," Fletcher said.
"But the new evidence, much of it in the last couple of years, is that
vitamins also prevent the usual diseases we deal with every day — heart
disease, cancer, osteoporosis and birth defects."
Because
foods contain thousands of vitamin-like compounds — many not yet identified —
that may be important for good health, vitamin supplements should not be a
substitute for a wholesome diet, Blumberg said.
In
another matter, the AMA yesterday urged researchers to study whether financial
payments would ease the nation's critical shortage of transplant organs. Its
policymaking House of Delegates voted at its annual meeting to adopt the
measure against the recommendation of a committee, which heard from doctors
Sunday who called such payments unethical and said that even studying them
would cheapen the value of organ donation.
The
measure involves organs from cadavers, not living donors, and supports research
into payments such as reimbursement for funeral expenses.
Vitamin
deficiency syndromes such as scurvy and beriberi are uncommon in
Western societies.
However,
suboptimal intake of some vitamins, above levels causing classic vitamin
deficiency, is a risk factor for chronic diseases and common in the general
population, especially the elderly.
Suboptimal
folic acid levels, along with suboptimal levels of vitamins B6 and B12,
are a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, neural tube defects, and colon
and breast cancer; low levels of vitamin D contribute to osteopenia
and fractures; and low levels of the antioxidant vitamins (vitamins A, E, and
C) may increase risk for several chronic diseases.
Most people do not consume an optimal
amount of all vitamins by diet alone. Pending strong evidence
of effectiveness from randomized trials, it appears prudent for all adults to take vitamin supplements.
The evidence
base for tailoring the contents of multivitamins to specific characteristics of
patients such as age, sex, and physical activity and for testing vitamin levels
to guide specific supplementation practices is limited. Physicians should make
specific efforts to learn about their patients' use of vitamins to ensure that
they are taking vitamins they should, such as folate
supplementation for women in the childbearing years, and avoiding dangerous
practices such as high doses of vitamin A during pregnancy or massive doses of
fat-soluble vitamins at any age.
JAMA. 2002;287:3127-3129 [http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v287n23/abs/jsr20001.html]