| If you eat a healthy diet, do
you need to be concerned about vitamins? Not long ago,
the answer from most experts would have been a
resounding "no". Today, though, there's good evidence
that ensuring proper vitamin intake makes sense for most
children and adults.
What's changed? Not only have scientists determined why
we need pyridoxine (vitamin B6), but they are also
accumulating evidence that this vitamin and others do
much more than ward off the so-called diseases of
deficiency, things like scurvy and rickets. Intake of
several vitamins above the minimum daily requirement may
prevent heart disease,
cancer, osteoporosis, and other
chromic diseases.
MegaOmega™ Organic Sprouted Flax Products
are good sources of vitamins including C, B1, B2, B3,
B5, B6, B12, Biotin, E, Folic Acid, and Beta Carotene.
Including MegaOmega™ Organic Sprouted Flax Products in
your daily diet as part of a healthy lifestyle will help
you increase your levels of these vital nutrients.
Vitamin A:
Vitamin A does much more than help you see in the dark.
It stimulates the production and activity of white blood
cells, takes part in remodeling bone, helps maintain the
health of endothelial cells (those lining the body's
interior surfaces), and regulates cell growth and
division.
Although it's relatively easy to get too little
vitamin A, it's also easy to get too much. Intake of up
to 10,000 IU, twice the current recommended daily level,
is thought to be safe.
The 3 Bs: Vitamin B6, Vitamin B12, and Folic Acid
One of the advances that changed the way we look at
vitamins is the discovery that too little folic acid,
one of the eight B vitamins, is linked to birth defects
such as spina bifida and anencephaly. Fifty years ago,
no one knew what caused these birth defects, which occur
when the early development of tissues that eventually
become the spinal cord, the tissues that surround it, or
the brain goes awry. Twenty five years ago, British
researchers found that mothers of children with spina
bifida had low vitamin levels. Eventually, two large
trials in which women were randomly assigned to take
folic acid or a placebo showed that getting too little
folic acid increased a woman's chances of having a baby
with spina bifida or anencephaly and that getting enough
folic acid could prevent these birth defects.
Enough folic acid, at least 400 micrograms a day, isn't
always easy to get from food. The other exciting
discovery about folic acid and two other B vitamins is
that they may help fight heart
disease and some types of
cancer. It's too early to tell if there's merely an
association between increased intake of folic acid and
other B vitamins and heart disease or cancer, or if high
intakes prevent these chronic diseases.
Vitamin C:
Even before its discovery in 1932, nutrition experts
recognized that something in citrus fruits could prevent
scurvy, a disease that killed as many as 2 million
sailors between 1500 and 1800.(15) More recently, Nobel
laureate Linus Pauling promoted daily megadoses of
vitamin C (the amount in 12 to 24 oranges) as a way to
prevent colds and protect the body from other chronic
diseases.
There's no question that vitamin C plays a role in
controlling infections. It's also a powerful
antioxidant that can
neutralize harmful free radicals, and it helps make
collagen, a tissue needed for healthy bones, teeth,
gums, and blood vessels.
Vitamin E:
Vitamin E is an antioxidant that protects cell
membranes and other fat-soluble parts of the body, such
as low-density lipoprotein (LDL; “bad” cholesterol)
cholesterol, from damage.
Only when LDL is damaged does cholesterol appear to
lead to heart disease, and
vitamin E is an important antioxidant protector of LDL.
Several studies, including two double-blind
trials, have reported that natural vitamin E daily
reduces the risk of heart attacks.
Other recent double-blind trials have found either
limited benefit or no benefit at all from
supplementation with synthetic vitamin E. In attempting
to make sense of these findings, the following is clear:
low doses of synthetic vitamin E, even when taken for
years, does not protect against heart disease.
Vitamin E also plays an important role in the body’s
ability to process glucose. Clinical trials suggest that
vitamin E supplementation may eventually prove to be
helpful in the prevention and treatment of
diabetes.
In the last ten years, the functions of vitamin E in
the cell have been further clarified. In addition to its
antioxidant functions,
vitamin E is now known to act through other mechanisms,
including direct effects on inflammation, blood cell
regulation, connective tissue growth, and genetic
control of cell division.
The Bottom Line
A multivitamin supplement doesn't come close to making
up for an unhealthy diet. It provides a dozen or so of
the vitamins known to maintain health, a mere shadow of
what's available from eating plenty of fruits,
vegetables, and whole grains. MegaOmega™ Organic Sprouted Flax Products
are the healthy way to top up your vitamin intake and
make up for the "unhealthy" parts of your diet.
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