Make the right multichoice
By Amanda Ross
Nutrition & Healing

A recent report claims that multivitamins don’t offer women any protection against cancer or heart disease. The report concludes that “multivitamin supplements [have] little or no influence on the risk of cardiovascular disease; and breast, colorectal, endometrial, kidney, bladder, stomach, ovary or lung cancers.” The report claims that women with an adequate diet have little to no reason to take a multi.

But before you toss them...

Let’s take a look at this report. The information was drawn from the Women’s Health Initiative Study where the records of 161,808 postmenopausal women were examined. 41.5% of these women reported taking multivitamins. The researchers also looked at 8 years of follow-up data and reached their conclusions. These reports at first make multivitamins seem slightly useless, if not a little bad.

Look at the facts

However, it’s impossible to have the sort of adequate diet that would eliminate the need for additional vitamin, mineral and other nutrient supplements.
Even if your diet is 100% organic (which is almost unheard of), the very soil in which your food is grown has been, in most cases, depleted of the nutrients essential to your well-being. The more “regular” foods you eat, the worse the situation is in terms of the nutrient-value you get from what you eat.

Dr Wright asserts the need to take a good quality, daily multivitamin-mineral supplement. It’s the most basic thing you can do to build a foundation of good health. Of course on its own it can’t be the answer to deadly threats like cancer and heart disease. But it bolsters your immune system and defences and multis add strength when combined with other, preferably natural, therapies.

It’s this which gives you a leg-up against just about ANY health threat that comes your way.

Before you give your baby soy, read this…

Q: My 10-month-old grandson was breast fed for seven months, but now is on soy formula and jarred baby food. But I've been reading about the dangers of people eating non-fermented soy products. How healthy is soy formula? What would you recommend as a good diet for a 10-month-old?

Dr Wright: The best possible nourishment for an infant and toddler is breast milk, and this is the best diet for him until the little one starts demanding to eat what everyone else is eating (as long as it's not junk food, of course!).

Breast milk is much higher in various fatty acids and phospholipids than any formula. These substances are critical to normal human brain growth and function.

So formula, whether it's made from cow milk, goat milk, soy, or anything else should only be used if the mother simply isn't able to nurse. If that is the case, look for brands of formula that contain the fatty acids arachidonic acid (AA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, not DHEA).

When the baby does start clamouring for "big people" food, use a blender, juicer, or food processor to grind all-natural, whole foods into a form he can swallow easily.

When it comes to a healthy diet, natural is always best, no matter how old you are.

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Source:
"Multivitamins fail to protect women from cancers and heart disease: Study," NutraIngredients.com (www.nutraingredients.com), 2/10/09