Vital Vitamins and Minerals

If you do not eat wholefoods regularly you definitely need to supplement

I wanted to give you some information about vitamins and minerals that you may need to consider suppplementing in your (and your family’s) diet.

I have (for years, it feels) been telling everyone that they need to supplement with vitamin D if in the northern hemisphere as even in Summer we do not get enough full spectrum light to keep enough in our stores.

Vitamin D has been found to have a protective factor of reducing deaths and preventing care in ICU for those with respiratory conditions (Argano, C., Mallaci Bocchio, R., Natoli, G., Scibetta, S., Lo Monaco, M., & Corrao, S. (2023). Protective Effect of Vitamin D Supplementation on COVID-19-Related Intensive Care Hospitalization and Mortality: Definitive Evidence from Meta-Analysis and Trial Sequential Analysis. Pharmaceuticals, 16(1), 130.). It has been found to improve syptoms and outcomes for those with diagnosed depression (Argano, C., Mallaci Bocchio, R., Natoli, G., Scibetta, S., Lo Monaco, M., & Corrao, S. (2023). Protective Effect of Vitamin D Supplementation on COVID-19-Related Intensive Care Hospitalization and Mortality: Definitive Evidence from Meta-Analysis and Trial Sequential Analysis. Pharmaceuticals, 16(1), 130.) It has also been found to be extremely useful in treating patients with type two diabetes in controlling glycaemic homeostasis (Farahmand, M. A., Daneshzad, E., Fung, T. T., Zahidi, F., Muhammadi, M., Bellissimo, N., & Azadbakht, L. (2023). What is the impact of vitamin D supplementation on glycemic control in people with type-2 diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trails. BMC Endocrine Disorders, 23(1), 15.).

All these findings are in conflict with what was within mainstream media during the pandemic that quoted doctors as saying that vitamin D should not be presecribed as it did not have any effect.

Vitamin D deficiency causes many issues within people such as brain fog, memory loss, deformities in bones, hair loss, depression, fatigue, cognitive dysfunction. It is a vitamin that we really do need to take, especially if we do not have access to lots of sunshine.

Other vitamins that we need to ensure we have (and can be contained within a good, whole food diet) are -

Vitmain B3 - contained in animal proteins

Vitamin B6 - contained in poultry, offal, potatoes, peppers, bananas, prunes and sunflower seeds

Vitamin B9 - contained in leafy greeens

Vitamin B12 - contained in fish, meat, poultry, eggs, milk, and milk products.

Choline - contained in eggs, fish, offal, quinoa and almonds.

Iron - contained in liver, meat, beans, nuts, dried fruit – such as dried apricots, wholegrains – such as brown rice.

Zinc - contained in meat, shellfish and seeds.

Magnesium - contained in foods that are high in fibre, good sources of the mineral include leafy green vegetables , legumes, nuts, seeds and whole grains. Tap, mineral, and bottled waters can also be sources of magnesium.

Selenium - contained in brazil nuts, seafoods, and organ meats.

You also need to consider how many antioxidants you have in your daily diet. These are foods rich in Vitamin C, E and beta-carotenes. Consider adding the following to your meals and snacks - blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, dark chocolate, atrichokes, pecans, red cabbage, beans, beetroot, spinach, kale, herbs and spices.

The western diet, especially vegan processed food, is so unhealthy. If you need to eat processed eat no more than 5 ingredient foods, always look at the labels and if in doubt of your nutritional intake please supplement.

Your brain and your body will thank you.

Also a word to the wise, if you are listening to or reading any advice given by anyone check out their credentials. Who is paying them? Who are they aligned to? Why are they doing what they are doing? What is their integrity like? What are their values? What are their principles? And so importantly, what is their price?

Start to become more discerning about where you are getting information from and start to listen to your body more.

“Nutrition matters for everybody, but you can’t major in it at Harvard. Most top scientists go into other fields. Most of the big studies were done 30 or 40 years ago, and most are seriously flawed. The food pyramid that told us to eat low fat and enormous amounts of grains was probably more a product of lobbying by Big Food than real science; its chief impact has been to aggravate our obesity epidemic. There’s plenty more to learn: we know more about the physics of faraway stars than we know about human nutrition. It won’t be easy, but it’s not obviously impossible: exactly the kind of field that could yield secrets.”