All posts in Nutrition

Every day science discovers another compound in a different plant that benefits the human body-lutein, isoflavones, resveratrol, oligomeric proanthocyanidins (OPC), to name just a few. It’s getting rather hard for the usual consumer to keep up with all of them! Luckily, nature provides all the plant combinations we need to be well, and E. Excel Nutritional Immunology strives to make it simple to receive the wide variety of nutrients naturally found in whole plant foods. Nonetheless, all of this new and exhilarating scientific research takes significant time to duplicate, provide absolute proof, and become received nutritional doctrine-and ultimately reach the labels on food and supplement products.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada, have strict regulations regarding nutritional product labeling. They have established specific daily values on the commonly received essential vitamins and minerals. This RDI 1(Recommended Daily Intake) has only been established for 25 substances, and only the top 4 (Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Calcium and Iron) are required to appear on nutrition labels. The FDA has established exact specific regulations about what can and cannot appear on a nutrition label on a packaged food or dietary supplement. Health Canada has similar regulations.

The US FDA regulations can be found in Title 21- Food and Drugs. Section 101.9, paragraph (c)(8)(B)(iii), specifies rounding actions that have to be used when placing percentages of RDIs on nutrition labels: -The percentages for vitamins and minerals shall be expressed to the nearest 2-percent increment up to and including the 10-percent level, the nearest 5-percent increment above 10 percent and up to and including the 50-percent level, and the nearest 10-percent increment above the 50-percent level. Amounts of vitamins and minerals present at less than 2 percent of the RDI are not required to be declared in nutrition labeling but may be declared by a zero-.-2 Therefore, based on these strict regulations, by law E. Excel cannot indicate levels that are less than 2 percent of the recommended daily intake of the 25 recognized nutrients- even though they are present in the product. But whole plant foods contain more than just 25 essential vitamins and minerals. The principles of Nutritional Immunology emphasize the benefits of whole plant foods because of the many valuable polysaccharides, antioxidants and phytochemicals found in them. In fact, each individual plant food may contain hundreds of different compounds, and science is just beginning to realize the synergistic effects of these compounds.

Dr. Michael S. Donaldson in Nutrition Journal stated, -There are many substances that are protective in fruits and vegetables, so that the entire effect is not very likely to be due to any single nutrient or phytochemical.-3 Researching and formulating its products specifically from a whole foods approach, E. Excel creates balanced daily nutrition in forms that make it easily accessible for today’s busy, on-the-go lifestyle. This balanced, whole foods approach means you may see a smaller percentage of the RDI of a particular nutrient on a nutrition label, but that nutrient is considerably more bio-available-meaning your body is more likely to use all of what it gets to better advantage. It also means your chances of hypervitaminosis or adverse effects from chemically-extracted or laboratorymanufactured compounds are nil because we don’t add extra vitamins and minerals to our products.

They continue as nutritionally complete as nature made them. The FDA and Health Canada label requirements are designed to protect consumers and make sure that they have the necessary information to make good decisions about their food and supplement choices. Then again well intentioned, though, labels do not tell the whole nutritional story of a product, especially a whole foods product. They are only allowed to tell a exact limited and severely restricted part of that story-the part that has already gone through decades of extensive study. Who knows? Fifty years from now lutein, isoflavones, resveratrol, oligomeric
proanthocyanidins (OPC) and others may make their way to the FDA’s RDI list.

Sports supplements were originally designed for professional sportsmen and athletes. These were ergogenic supplements meant to enhance athletic performance, increase muscle mass, and provide spurts of energy when needed. However, the real force driving the industry today is adolescents and baby boomers! Enthused by a desire to live long and healthy, these baby boomers have sent the sports supplement market soaring for more than a decade. Adolescents, or the younger generation, want to build muscle, enhance their sports performance, or use sports supplements as part of their diet regimen.

This popularity is marked by a fast rise in sales every year. According to research conducted by the Nutrition Business Journal, the fastest growth in the nutritional supplement market is in specialty supplements and in the sports nutrition sector, which has a growth expectancy of 6 percent right through 2010.

Sports Nutrition Products ‘ Rising Popularity

Baby Boomers
Baby boomers were the first generation to include fitness in their daily program even beyond middle age. These people are educated, have the spending power, are aware of their nutritional needs and desire to adopt proactive measures to maintain good health. According to Forbes, the number of health clubs has tripled since 1990. This is directly related to the number of men and women, over the age of 55, joining health clubs. In 2003, 6.3 million health club members were over 55 working out what they believe is a prescription for maintaining an active lifestyle. The intensity of growth is further substantiated when you think of the fact that there is a baby boomer turning 55 every 7 seconds!

Adolescents
Adolescents are another group of people who increasingly enjoys sports nutrition supplements for various reasons.

The problem of being overweight has tripled since the early 1970s and today about 15% of our children between the ages of 16-19 are overweight. Statistics keep rising, with an expected 25% of overweight children by 2010. Many of these adolescents use weight loss supplements.

Thirty to forty million children participate in organized athletic activities. About sixty percent of our children participate in school sports. There is pressure to perform and many of these children use supplements to enhance muscle mass and improve their sports performance. Nutritional sports supplements offer a better alternative to steroids which are considered unsafe and carry harmful side effects.

Bars, beverages and meal replacements are the most popular sports supplements in this category. Energy drinks sensationalized by celebrities or sports stars have become lucrative prospects.

Sports Nutrition Products ‘ Rising Prospects

The nutritional sports supplement manufacturing industry maybe a small segment of the entire nutritional supplement industry, but it consists of consumers who are dedicated. Those who invest in sports nutrition supplements are making an investment towards a determined goal. It could be to enhance sports performance, or to maintain good health and an active lifestyle.

Sports nutrition products, including weight loss products, are not only sold by retailers, but many health spas, gyms, health clubs carry sports supplements. This accounts for about 42 million people. Retail stores, chain stores and departments are other additional outlets.

Sports nutrition and weight loss is therefore a big business and still booming. In spite of the economic climate this industry is showing a respectable growth. With the new GMPs in place by June 2009 for medium sized manufacturers, the supplement industry will receive an added impetus. The newly enforced quality regulations will help to build more consumer trust in nutritional supplements.

Urine testing has been used since ancient times for the detection of abnormalities. Early medical practitioners would pour urine on the ground and observe it to determine whether or not it would attract insects. If insects were attracted
to the urine, it indicated it was sweet, which we know in modern times to be a symptom of diabetes. In the sixteen and seventeen hundreds, it was common practice for physicians to actually taste their patient’s urine.

Fortunately, today’s clinicians no longer have to become quite so intimate with their patients body fluids and can rely on sophisticated analytical
techniques to uncover the wealth of information found in a simple urine sample.

Each of us has a unique physiological makeup. That is why it is very important to use vitamin supplements based on your body’s needs and biochemistry. The strategy of those low-cost one-size-fits-all vitamin supplements provide either too little of what you do need or too much of what you don’t.

Urine testing allows you to know which vitamin supplements to target specific areas of deficiency to help your body achieve an ideal nutritional and chemical balance.

For instance, urine sampling is an excellent method of evaluating:
– Hydration status
– Acid/Base balance
– Blood sugar regulation
– Existence of certain cancers
– Existence of pregnancy and complications of pregnancy
– Liver diseases
– Infections
– Functional nutritional status

While science limits us from testing for every conceivable illness, we can determine if certain nutritional deficiencies exist through urine testing. Urine testing really tells you what’s going on in your body, and what you need to know if these nutrients are getting into your cells and how your cells are using them. One of the best ways to do that is to look at the end products of your metabolism in your urine. These individual tests called ” Priva Test ” utilize a urine sample which you provide through an in-home test kit

Two main purposes exist for urinalysis:

1. The first is to diagnosis actual damage or disease to the physical kidney itself. In this instance, substances normally found in urine will be increased or decreased. This reflects alterations in the filtration system of the kidney due to disease. This
is the basis for the standard urinalysis screen.

2. The second is to detect disturbances such as endocrine or metabolic abnormalities. In this instance, the kidneys function normally but excrete abnormal amounts of metabolic end products, indicating alterations in metabolic pathways. This second function is the application that is used in the PrivaTest.

The three areas evaluated in the Priva Test are major areas of concern for any person living in our industrialized society. The three compounds measured in your urine at the laboratory give you vital information about:

– Your body’s ability to detoxify toxic substances.
– Your body’s ability to balance the production of an important regulatory compound influencing immune, nervous, and vascular system function.
– Your body’s ability to handle challenges to its antioxidant systems.

Each one of these areas can be manipulated favorably by personalized nutritional supplementation.