Category: energy supplements

Nutritional Supplements: Hoax or Health?

Can best health supplements ever make you healthier? The grocery store shelves are overwhelmed with an array of best nutritional supplements claiming to provide all essential nutrients required by your body. Although, the leverage to choose from so many options seems great, but it also gives rise to a number of questions – which one will work best for me? How do these work exactly? Are these worth the money?

These are good questions for anybody who wishes to lead a healthier and disease free life. But, it is important to note that before you start taking best health supplements, there is one sure shot way to give your body the much needed nutrients – eat healthy!

Yes, it’s true that supplements sure can be beneficial for your health, but the key to making the most of all essential vitamins and minerals is to eat a healthy and well-balanced diet that is rich in nutrients. So, before you plan to take the best nutritional supplements, make sure to consult your health care provider to learn what is best for you.

Make Good Food Your Priority

Majority of nutritionists all over the globe recommend making food as your first priority. This is mainly because foods are a rich source of variety of vitamins and minerals as well as other dietary factors that cannot be delivered by even the best health supplements.

For instance, foods can provide dietary fibers and many bioactive compounds, which are not typically found in nutritional supplements.

Also, the best of health supplements if taken empty stomach, then again, the fat soluble vitamins will not be absorbed to the extent as they could be, had the nutritional supplements were taken with food sources that provide fat.

Best Nutritional Supplements May Help

While following a healthy diet is certainly the key to gain the optimal benefits of vitamins and minerals, best health supplements can sure help. This is especially true, if you’re following the best of diet with all the healthy foods, such as fruits and vegetables, but are still falling deficient in certain areas – best health supplements can help.

The right way to ensure you get what your body needs is to make sure you add supplements in addition to healthy and well-balanced diet choices. Remember, dietary supplements can never replace the health benefits offered by the food sources. Only use nutritional supplements if asked by your health care provider to do so.

Best Health Supplements – Do What’s Right for You

As stated earlier, you should take nutritional supplements if advised by your health care provider to do so. Additionally, consider the following “do’s and don’ts” with best health supplements –

What to Do With Nutritional Supplements

  • A Healthy Diet Is A Must: It should be noted that there is no substitute for a healthy and nutrient rich diet that helps limit saturated fats, calories, dietary cholesterol and sodium. Taking a well-balanced diet along with best health supplements helps reducing the risk of coronary heart diseases in healthy people and people already suffering from various heart diseases.
  • Having Elevated Triglyceride Levels: Get at least 2-4 gms of EPA and DHA every day.
  • Having Heart Diseases: Try taking at least 1gm of omega-3 fatty acids, enriched with EPA and DHA. Fish would constitute the ideal source of omega 3, however, omega 3 nutritional supplements can be considered as an alternative source to gain EPA and DHA. But make sure you talk to your doctor first before starting supplementation.

What Not to Do With Nutritional Supplements

  • Do Not Solely Rely On Best Health Supplements: There is lack of sufficient data that healthy individuals benefit by taking nutritional supplements in excess of the recommended daily allowance. Some evidences do point out that taking best nutritional supplements do reduce or lower the risk of coronary heart diseases. However, it is still unclear that it was the supplements that caused such improvements in all these studies.

Does Your Body Desire For A Vitamin Supplement?

Let Us Find Out What Essential Role Does Vitamins Play In Life

With all the goods in life, comes the bad and thus, the same applies to the body health, which comes with the goodness of nutrition and health-boosting way of living and the same leaves with the growing age or any malnutrition. Yes! With the nutrition leaving your body, in the process where you skip healthy food for junks, the body loses its health gradually and become weak and highly prone to diseases. Vitamins are such nutrients that can make us or brake us, in the matter of fact that each vitamin when taken in proper measures, help in maintaining a healthy body and support numerous biological processes. A minute deficiency of the same may lead to health hazards, for example, skin ageing, weak teeth, coronary heart disorders, diabetes, arthritis, etc.

Hence, to prevent the body from all these, vitamin and supplements for health play a great role, which makes it clear why people depend upon multivitamins in later stages.

Why does the body require vitamin supplement?

• Helps fighting from illness and infections

• Improves bone health

• Prevents from cognitive diseases

• Enhances body immunity and metabolism

• Protects from cardiovascular diseases

• Prevents from diabetes and age related macular degeneration

 

Vitamins And Supplements

 

Let us know what is the vitamin supplement that your body desire

Vitamin-A

Vitamin-A is a fat-soluble nutrient, which helps in the formation and maintenance of healthy bones, teeth, skin and soft tissues. Some other benefits include:

• Curing the viral and bacterial infections

• Prevents night blindness

• Keeps hair and nails healthy

• Promotes healthy eye-sight

Vitamin-B

There are eight B vitamins, with each having benefits of their own.

1. B1 (thiamine)

This helps in converting the glucose into energy and promotes a better nervous system development.

2. B2 (riboflavin)

This vitamin helps promote healthy skin and better eyesight. It is also responsible for producing energy.

3. B3 (niacin)

This converts the fats and carbohydrates into energy. This helps keep the nervous and digestive system healthy. B3 is also essential to provide some benefits to the skin.

4. B5 (Pantothenic acid)

B5 helps in the production of steroid hormones and red blood cells. This helps in metabolizing the fats, carbohydrates and proteins in a better way.

5. B6 (pyridoxine)

This helps in the production of RBC and brain chemicals that enhances the brain function and development. It also promotes a better immune system.

6. B7 (biotin)

Also called vitamin-H, biotin helps in energy metabolism is promoted with this vitamin. Higher intake of biotin may lead to raising cholesterol levels.

7. B9 (folic acid/folate)

This helps in enhancing the production of RBCs, which promotes better nervous system, synthesis of DNA and growth of cells. This is important for the women in their pregnancy.

8. B12 (cyanocobalamin)

B12 enhances the mental ability and RBC formation. This also helps the body to produce enough energy to stay fit and active.

Vitamin-C

This is known as ascorbic acid that helps in protecting the cell health due to its anti-oxidant properties. Other properties include:

• Healthy teeth and gums

• Improves absorption of iron

• Resists infections

• Heals the wounds quickly

Vitamin-D

This is a sun vitamin, which is important for bone health. It is important for the following advantages on health:

• Prevention from osteoporosis

• Healthy and strong bones

• Improved immune system

• Helps the calcium absorption in bones

Vitamin-E:

Vitamin-E is next among the antioxidant vitamins, which help in:

• Encouraging cell growth

• Protecting them from the damage by free radicals

• Slows the premature ageing of skin

Vitamin-K:

With its property to control the traffic of calcium in body, vitamin-K is one of the most essential vitamins that keep a healthy heart and promotes skin health.

However, the other essential benefits include:

• Promoting bone strength

• Prevents from blood clots

• Taken with vitamin-E, it helps in repairing the damaged muscle cells

However, there is no doubt that all vitamins and supplements are beneficial, one must also take care of their purity and originality along with the benefits they provide.

Dispel your Fatigue with Energy Boosting Supplements

Your physically demanding work may leave you sans energy at the end of the day. Thus you may be deprived of spending quality time with your family and friends. This may compel you to indulge into energy supplements. However the question is that do they really work? Well, it all depends on your expectation levels. If you perceive energy vitamins as fuel tankers to give you the instant ‘get-up-and-go boost’ you might be discouraged with the results. But these can certainly make you feel active and healthy by supplying essential vitamins and minerals.

Types of Supplements for energy:

Supplements with calories:

If on one hand extra calories can spoil your weight loss or body building regime, on the other hand, these can even help to push up your energy levels! High calories energy supplements can provide you with a spurt of energy almost instantly. These generally include energy bars, shakes and power drinks. They are enriched with sugar, minerals and vitamins for satiating your energy needs. Due to their high glycemic index these supplements provide instant energy as soon as they enter your blood stream. Such supplements are suitable for athletes or people involved in strenuous physical activity who cannot always rely on food for energy intake.

Stimulants:

  • Caffeine
  • Green tea
  • Capsaicin in peppers
  • Bitter Orange containing synephrine.

All the above supplements stimulate processes which rev up your metabolism and can temporarily increase your alertness levels too. You have been banking upon coffee for late night projects but now green tea is steadily grabbing all the popularity. It is rich in caffeine and a storehouse of antioxidants that can keep your energy levels elevated. Capsaicin is also used in some supplements but its real effects on energy levels are still under investigation. Synephrine, found in bitter orange is a natural energy booster and an alternative to health-threatening ephedrine that was long used as energy booster until its harmful effects were revealed.

Supplements that regulate Energy Metabolism:

  • Coenzyme Q10
  • Creatine, carnitine, and amino acids like taurine, tyrosine and phenylalanine.
  • Vitamin B complex.

Creatine and carnitine work to replenish the energy fuel of the cell-ATP. This pumps up your energy levels my many folds. Coenzyme Q10 is naturally found in every cell to provide energy. This may be found in large quantities in organs requiring more ATP. If you have sufficient amount of these molecules in your body, taking more will not make you spin like a top but will be useless. However, for people who are running low in carntine, creatine or CoQ10, these energy supplements may be helpful.

You can add lots of vitamin rich foods to your meals to escape from having vitamin supplements. But if your diet fails to meet your demands, you may have to go to your doctors for some energy pills.

Alter your lifestyle and be energized

Come on, your great grandparents were more active than without energy pills. So why not try some conventional methods to perk up your life:

Energize with exercise:

If you think over exertion is unhealthy for you, sedentary lifestyle is equally bad! So, don’t sit back and work out. Indulge in any form of exercise you like as this will play a major role to lift up your energy threshold. Want proof? Consider sport persons who are always high in energy because of their capacity to work out heavily. You may need to push yourself to exercise at first but you will certainly start enjoying it as you progress. So, shun excuses and have fun with exercises.

Nibble up some nuts:

Nuts are loaded with proteins, sugars and other nutrients that can raise your energy supply at the time of need. The trick is to keep your pockets stuffed with nuts like almonds, raisins or walnuts to help you gain instant energy when you are drop dead tired!

Sleep like a baby!

This may be easy to say, but some people have major issues with sleeping. They just can’t get enough sleep. This is a common reason for drooping energy levels. So if you feel more fatigued these days, you may be compromising with your sleep. Your body needs to take enough rest and lack of sleep is detrimental for physical as well as mental health. A good hot bath and hot glass of milk at bed time can act as excellent sleep inducers.

Eat Right:

A healthy diet is a natural energy booster. If you are particular about what you eat, you are most unlikely to face any energy crunch. Your diet must include generous amount of whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts, dairy and poultry products. Along with this you also need adequate amount of essential fats through fish and vegetable oils. So eat well as good food is all you need to produce ample of energy.

If you still want to consider taking energy supplements, go ahead and try out a range of energy boosters available but don’t forget to consult your doctor first.