Health Conditions and Vitamins

What health conditions have a dietary component?

Research has conducted many studies to search for answers. This section is simply a record of their progress and findings to date. Do not use this information without the guidance of a medical professional if you have a life threatening disease. There are no guarantees in living healthy.

CANCER  Most Researchers hold that 35% of cancers have a dietary factor, but could be higher. Up to 80% of cancers may have factors that are controlled by lifestyle and dietary influences. ref (<type in "cancer and vitamins") ref  ref  ref 

Here is the American Cancer Society's view; reference  Very conservative approach, and missing some vital connections. They can't ignore vitamin D anymore. And they are missing some recent updates that they surely are cautiously watching, such as for using the whole family of vitamin E and not just isolated alpha tocopherol, or that synthetic beta carotene is only one of three forms found in vegetables and there are many other carotenoid family members also found in foods, or that there are benefits versus risks to consider with synthetic folic acid and beta carotene. The vitamin criteria link addresses many of these new findings and connects the dots for logical explanations.

Of interest for B Vitamins and Cancer

Cancer cells have large appetites and quickly use up available B vitamins creating a shortage for normal body functions. One of these functions is to aid digestion and assimilation of nutrients such as B vitamins from foods. Thus, with cancer, absorbing food nutrients is compromised. A certain amount of Synthetic B vitamins can be useful here. But, correct dosages are still necessary as evidenced by excess B1 article and the synthetic form of folate, folic acid article, on promoting or feeding tumor growth rates. 

There are many other articles on this website that mention a vitamin or nutrient connection with a disease, such as CoQ10 on Parkinson's and breast cancer, or NADH on Parkinson's,  or SGS on cancer, or B6 on nerves, or Probiotics on digestion and diarrhea, or Mastic Gum on ulcers, or Vitamin K2 on vascular calcification, Vitamin D and Cholesterol on fighting off infections, or Omega 3 and 6 balance on controlling inflammation, plus CoQ10, Omega 3 fish oils, and Acetyl L-Carnitine on early Macular Degeneration, etc.

There are almost to many to mention them all. Some connections are weak and some stronger. Mainstream science has trouble connecting the dots here since the Pharmaceutical Industry has such a strong presence in directing the FDA investigative machinery. Rather than having mainstream medicine and alternative medicine at complete odds with each other, they should be combined to max Public health.

Update on Friday, April 9, 2010 at 9:43AM by Team RightWay

Basics of Vitamins on Health

The premise or definition of health often gets muddied. Simply, it is a state when a living organism achieves optimal positive activities from all the elements it needs to satisfy life requirements in an efficient manner.  It is of course possible to survive often quite long periods with less than optimal nutrient amounts due to compensatory body actions. Indeed that is the design and function of the body. But, these compensatory processes eventually get the better of the organism and disease develops.

The cell is the basic unit of life. Everything happens at this level. Breaking apart the needs of the cell begins to show how nutrients and processes coordinate for health. 

• Cell membranes contain and protect the inner cell functions. These membranes are made up of fats with cholesterol.
• Fish oils EPA and DHA and nut and seed oils provide the fats the body uses to build phospholipids that along with cholesterol make up healthy cell membranes
• Trans fats can occupy the cell membrane but the resulting effects are damaging to the cell.
• Trans fats hinder proper entry and exit through the cell membrane of needed nutrients and waste products by the influence of their structural shape.
• Rather than the normal curved shape, they are straight like straws and get packed together so close, normal cell membrane transport malfunctions.
• Greater amounts of trans fats measured in the body are now associated with increased breast cancer rates.

Energy production paramount to body vitality

• Scientists are now of the opinion that many degenerative diseases have as one of their primary causes, mitochondrial disfunction.
• Mitrochondria are the power plants of the cell. They produce all the energy the body needs to function correctly.
• Here calories are converted to energy by the action of certain nutrients in a process called the Krebs cycle making energy as ATP.
• CoQ10 is involved to ferry in electons and L-carnitine brings fats into the mitrochondia to be used for energy production. Sugar as glucose is also burned, especially in the ribose form.
• Many special diets and supplement formulas are designed to increase the amount of fat that is burned compared to sugar so body fat weight is reduced. A special article will deal this this issue later.

How is energy used by cells

• Over half of energy produced in the cell is used by cell membranes
• Nutrient pumps on the membrane use energy to move mostly minerals into or out of the cell. This creates an energy potential (like a battery) to allow muscles to work and nerves to send messages.
• For muscles, calcium needs to be pumped into cells in large amounts before muscles can fire. Then the calcium will freely rush out of the cell after the muscle contracts in order for the muscle to relax. Magnesium is moved in the opposite direction by these pumps.
• You can see that this pocess has to happen very fast, since you can open and close your hand quite rapidly. But you will eventually get to a point of exhaustion of available fuel to make the needed energy or run low on minerals and have to rest and recover by restoring energy and mineral reserves. (Ribose)

The Problem

• As bodies age, both the number of mitochondia and their energy producing efficiency decreases.
• This reduced energy production hinders the ability of the body to function at a healthy level if demands are not reduced or efficiency increased.
• Efforts to support mitochondrial numbers and energy output levels have proved somewhat successful is slowing down mitochondrial disfunction and resulting degenerative diseases.

Feeding Mitochondria

• Exercise increases mitochondria numbers and output. 
• Food supplies calories that can go into the blood stream for immediate energy production, or be stored in muscles for later that day or the next, and finally when these storage areas are filled, as fat for future use. 
• This is why you must use muscles to earn space for meal calories to fill up rather then just go into more fat storage.   
• Ribose, one of the primary forms of glucose that is involved in ATP energy production is helping athletes and seniors rapidly recover form previous exerecise induced muscle fuel debt.
• Glucose is slowly converted to ribose, and this appears to be a rate limiting factor in the ability to sustain muscle action, and the reason for recovery peiods.
• Luckily, the heart muscle has special processes to protect its fuel sources for a very long time.