Image via Wikipedia According to Harvard's advice papers on nutrition, people who are not getting enough vitamins and minerals would do better to adjust their diet to include more nutrient-rich foods rather than take supplements.This is especially important to menopausal women since they are often cutting back due to menopausal weight gain.
In its Healthy Eating: A Guide to the New Nutrition, Harvard Medical School (HMS) urges consumers not to rely on supplements which do not contain all the other healthy food components. “There are likely many more beneficial components of healthy foods than the ones scientists have identified so far, as well as synergistic effects among them,” it says.
Antioxidants from food - not pills
“Vegetables and fruits are chock-full of the phytochemicals,” the authors say. “Eating enough vegetables and fruits not only helps prevent vitamin and mineral deficiencies, but can actually stave off a variety of other health conditions as well.”
“It appears unlikely that taking antioxidents in supplement form will help protect against heart disease or cancer,” it says. “It could be that it’s the orchestration of antioxidants naturally present in foods, rather than one or two vitamins in high doses, that can lower your risk of serious illnesses."
“So it’s worthwhile to include antioxidants in your diet, but get them from foods – such as oranges, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, broccoli, whole grains, and nuts – and not from pills.”
Harvard Medical Publications said the guidelines, published last year, reflected its general opinion on nutrition...read more
1 comment:
Unfortunately the majority of the medical profession is still oblivious to the benefits of optimum nutrition. In the modern world where much of our food is grown in mineral-deficient soil, has been picked days or even weeks before we eat it, has been refrigerated and 'treated', there is very little in the way of vitamins or minerals left. Add to that the fact that the RDA (recommended daily allowance) is a figure plucked out of the air as a level high enough to prevent deficiency - but not to promote health - and it becomes clear that we all need to take vitamin and mineral supplements in adequate doses.
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