tinyurl.com/yyww2s -> www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=410788&in_page_id=1774&ito=1490
Join the debate Jane Clarke is Britains leading nutritionist. Her books are read by millions and she acted as adviser to Jamie Oliver on his ground-breaking School Dinners programme. As well as being an advocate of healthy eating, she passionately believes that many of our illnesses can be treated through our diet. Every Tuesday in Good Health, she will be answering your questions. Could you recommend a good all-round mineral and vitamin supplement? Im 48, of slim build and have no major illnesses, but I want to try to stay healthy. Frankly, I would save your money whatever the pill manufacturers say, few of us actually need supplements. People are often seduced into buying pills because theyre worried that food has fewer nutrients than it used to. The best source of vitamins and minerals is freshly-picked produce. In an ideal world wed all grow our own fruit and veg and use them straight from the garden. Instead we have to rely on supermarket produce thats been kept in cold storage, sometimes for months on end, and transported great distances. But while this does reduce the levels of some vitamins, the difference isnt significant enough to worry about. Provided you eat a varied diet, including five portions of fruit or vegetables a day, your body doesnt need extra help from a supplement (and remember, achieving your five-a-day can be as easy as having a fruit juice and some frozen vegetables thrown into a soup). But what if you dont get the five-a-day is a supplement a good back-up? The fact is you glean far more vitamins and minerals from food than from a pill, because the body absorbs food better. Nature makes its task easier for instance, milk contains calcium, as well as lactose which help us to absorb that calcium. So really, its better to eat a balanced diet than to rely on a pill. And as long as you are having at least one portion of oily fish a week, you dont need a fish oil supplement either. Thats not to say theres anything wrong with taking a supplement. But what does worry me is that its so easy to exceed the recommended daily allowance (RDA). When you read the labels, some products contain three or four times the recommended amounts. For some vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin C, this isnt a problem because the body can easily get rid of the excess. However, it can be harmful to take too much of those the body stores, such as vitamin A or iron so unless youre prescribed a specific dose by a doctor, or a dietician or registered nutritionist, you shouldnt regularly exceed the RDA. There are some people, however, for whom supplements are recommended. For example, women who have heavy periods can benefit from iron supplements. Women who are pregnant, or planning to become pregnant, are advised to take 400mcg of folic acid a day, as well as eating foods that are rich in folate such as breads and breakfast cereals, with added vitamins, dark green leafy vegetables, oranges and yeast extract. Folic acid has been shown to reduce the risk of neural tube defects, such as spina bifida, in unborn babies. Pregnant women are also advised to avoid supplements containing vitamin A, including fish liver oil supplements, because too much of the vitamin could harm their unborn baby. Anyone over the age of 65 and breastfeeding mothers should take 10mcg of vitamin D each day. The vitamin is essential for maintaining healthy bones and while we obtain some from our diet, the main source is sunlight the body synthesises this to produce vitamin D Our skins ability to do this is reduced with age, which is why older people can benefit from a vitamin D supplement. So, too, would anyone who rarely gets outdoors or who covers up in the sun. Smokers could also consider having 2,000mg of vitamin C a day perhaps divided into two 1,000mg doses as 2,000mg is quite a hefty amount and could upset some stomachs. While giving up cigarettes would be better, this mega dose of vitamin C can help to counteract some of the damage. But you dont seem to fit any of these special criteria, so Id just concentrate on ensuring that your diet is well balanced. My mother, who is in her 80s, has recently developed bad breath. The dentist should always be the first port of call for halitosis so often it can be the result of a gum infection that needs prompt action. But once a dental problem has been eliminated, the next step is to focus on the gut; it might surprise you to learn that constipation, for instance, can cause bad breath. Get the gut moving and the situation can be greatly improved. Your mother should drink plenty of water 25 litres a day. This does sound an awful lot, and it isnt always possible, especially for older people with continence problems. But it should be easier if she staggers her intake throughout the day. She should also gradually boost the amount of fibre in her diet: this means fresh and dried fruits (especially figs and prunes). Vegetables are also good even tinned and frozen ones can be useful and practical, and in the case of frozen frequently have more vitamins and minerals in them than fresh ones. Pulses (such as beans and lentils) and wholegrains (porridge, wholemeal bread etc) are helpful for getting the gut moving. She could also try drinking green tea, or chewing herbs such as mint and parsley, and fennel seeds. Breathing through the mouth dries it out and so it produces less saliva one of salivas main constituents, oxygen, helps keep the breath fresh. So perhaps your mother could try some drops of Olbas Oil on her pillow at night or on her handkerchief during the day, to keep her nasal passages open. Some people believe that cutting down on dairy foods such as cheese and milk helps reduce catarrh and therefore improve breath but there is no evidence whatsoever for this and elderly people shouldnt cut out such a valuable source of the mineral calcium. Then there is the possibility of a food intolerance causing your mothers bad breath. many doctors and scientists dismiss it as a nonsense while their patients insist that certain foods really do make them feel ill. While I do believe there is something in it, many people self-diagnose food intolerances. And if theyre not careful they can end up eating a very unbalanced diet, which of course causes other problems such as fatigue and feeling depressed. Sometimes medication, and vitamin and mineral supplements, can affect breath; if your mother is taking these, discuss this with her doctor. Finally, some people just have more of the bad-breath-causing bacteria. But avoid using mouthwashes as in the long run they can make the mouth drier and therefore more malodorous. Again, the solution is to drink plenty of water to flush the mouth out, and to chew parsley and mint. Sometimes there just isnt the time to cook a meal from scratch, and ready-meals are the obvious solution. Each week I will explain the simple changes that will make your ready-meal as healthy and guilt-free as possible. Fish pie is a great way to boost your fish intake but be warned, many ready-made pies including this one dont actually contain much fish (the fish content here is just 21 per cent). This means youre not getting enough protein and will end up consuming far more fat and calories than you think. The salt and fat is usually found in the sauce, so remove some of the excess if you can although difficult with this particular pie. Then make this meal more nutritionally balanced by cooking some frozen peas (for Vitamin C) and hard boiling an egg (for protein). Crumble the egg, then stir it with the cooked peas into the pie before eating. Serve with broccoli or spinach both are easy and quick to cook from frozen for some added fibre and Vitamin C The spinach will also give you iron. Jane will answer a selection of readers questions in Good Health every Tuesday.
view all to read all comments that readers have sent in. I was horrified by the article by Jane Clarke regarding the seeming lack of technical knowledge of 'Britains Leading Nutritionalist'. As a nutritional Therapist myself I found it inconcievable that Jane seems to be unaware of the lack of nutritional quality of produce available in shops nowadays. There have b...
|
http://csua.com/feed/