When I learned I was going to be having knee replacement surgery I started taking a more intense interest in my current health and what I could do to assist my own recovery from surgery. In the following article, I report on some of what I found.
Most people in North America are living in a state of chronic nutritional depletion. That is, we are receiving less than optimum amounts of at least some nutrients, many of which are necessary for healing. Dr. Emanuel Cheraskin, who has studied optimum levels of nutrients in healthy people for the last twenty years, estimates that only about 5% of adults in the United States could be rated "very healthy." This is based on his study of the dietary and supplementation intake of a group of 1405 dentists and their spouses.
By questioning this group on what they ate and what supplements they took, as well as what state of health they were in, Dr. Cheraskin was able to gather material for further research. He carried out hundreds of double blind studies over the next twenty years and by determining the different results achieved by individuals taking various vitamin supplements as compared to those receiving placebos he tried to establish the ideal amount of each nutrient for optimal health.
In a report he wrote for the International Academy of Science in 2005, entitled "Diet and Supplementation, Keys to Optimal Health", Dr. Cheraskin identifies two key areas to look at to achieve high levels of health. One is vitamin and mineral supplementation, and the other is daily dietary choices. In this article I want to focus on vitamin and mineral supplementation.
As he observes in his report, nutritional value is lost every step of the way in getting food from "garden-to-gullet." The processing involved, storage, transportation, canning, freezing, cooking...all take their toll what was once fresh food and contribute to the deterioration of the foods nutritional value.
At the same time as we are getting diminished food values, our daily lives are robbing our body's stores of the various vitamins and nutrients. Stress, physical activity, surgery, illness, environmental pollution, aging, prescribed medicines, and many other factors deplete the body of vitamins and minerals.
Trace minerals are an often little considered factor in our health. There is a demonstrateable relationship between how soft a municipalities water supply is and cardiovascular death rates. Doctor Henry A. Schroeder, from the Dartmouth Medical School Hanover, New Hampshire originally noted the correlation in statistics kept from 1945 1951. His findings were confirmed in the statistics for 1960 as well. Support for these findings may be found in a comparison of the concentration of trace minerals in injured heart tissue as compared with normal tissue. Injured tissue showed a decrease in cobalt, cesium, zinc, cesium, molybdenum, potassium, phosphorous and rubidium. At the same time, modern farming practices are reducing the quantity of trace minerals from our food, as the minerals are leached out with irrigation, and the soil stripped of it's nutrients.
Studies of the diet of our ancestors that roamed the earth in Paleolithic times estimate that their average daily intake of vegetative sources of food would have provided them with approximately 390 mg of Vitamin C a day. Contrast this with the FDA's recommended intake level of 60 mg. Dr. Cheraskin's twenty year long research into optimum nutrient levels would confirm similar discrepancies in the daily intake for virtually every one of the identified essential nutrients currently listed by the FDA.
Based on his studies of healthy people, Dr. Cheraskin has released the following list of daily dosages for 30 essential nutrients.
Vitamin A 12,500 to 25,000 IU
Vitamin D 500 to 1,000 IU
Vitamin E (d alpha tocopherol) 300 to 600 IU
Vitamin C 750 to 1,500 mg
Bioflavonoid complex 400 to 800 mg
Rutin 50 to 100 mg
Hesperidin complex 50 to 100 mg
Folic acid 0.4 to 0.8 mg
Vitamin B1 (thiamine) 12.5 to 25 mg
Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) 12.5 to 25 mg
Niacin 50 to 100 mg
Vitamin B6 12.5 to 25 mg
Vitamin B12 125 to 250 mcg
Biotin 75 to 150 mcg
Choline 100 to 200 mg
Inositol 100 to 200 mg
Pantothenic acid 100 to 200 mg
PABA 50 to 100 mg
Calcium 350 to 700 mg
Phosphorus 100 to 200 mg
Magnesium 175 to 350 mg
Zinc 25 to 50 mg
Potassium 90 to 180 mg
Iodine 125 to 250 mcg
Iron 15 to 30 mg
Copper 0.1 to 0.2 mg
Manganese 5 to 10 mg
Selenium 50 to 100 mcg
Chromium 50 to 100 mcg
Molybdenum 50 to 100 mcg
These are the ranges of daily intake of this group of thirty nutrients that Dr. Cheraskin found in the healthiest fraction of the group of dentists and spouse he studied. Since his original work, numerous new studies have provided supporting evidence.
A study of identical twins, carried out by Dr. Judy Z. Miller found that by providing supplemental Vitamin C, at five times the RDA level, for five months to one of the twins, those receiving the extra C grew anywhere from ¼" to 1" taller than their siblings that weren't supplemented.
A survey done by Dr. J. Matsovinovic turned up evidence of clinical hyperthyroidism in 3% of American males and 11% of American females because of a lack of iodine.
It has been estimated that less than 20% of Americans actually achieve the RDA for Vitamin A. Dr. Cheraskin's work indicates that optimum levels of this vitamin may be actually 5 - 7 times higher than the 5000 mg the FDA says you need.
I encourage you to do additional research on Dr. Cheraskin and his work. Look for his books in the library and search the internet. And in the meantime, if you are preparing to enter the hospital for surgery, start taking a multi-vitamin every morning, and another at night. Use the list above, and the label of your favorite multi, to determine your own optimum level of supplementation for optimum health. And don't forget to look for Part 3 of this article.
No comments:
Post a Comment