Study: Low-carb diet best for weight, cholesterol (AP)

AP - The Atkins diet may have proved itself after all: A low-carb diet and a Mediterranean-style regimen helped people lose more weight than a traditional low-fat diet in one of the longest and largest studies to compare the dueling weight-loss techniques.

If quality and natural matters to you, then make sure the source of your vitamins is whole foods. Is your supplement a synthetic (made up in lab) vitamin? If it is a whole food vitamin then the company will usually be proud to advertise as such and list the source of the vitamin. Here are the critical points you should know about whole food vitamins.

Don't ever select a vitamin based solely on price point. There are significant reasons why one vitamin is cheaper than the other. When you decide on what is an acceptable quality, then comparison shop for that similar quality vitamin so you are comparing oranges with oranges and apples with apples. Watch out for companies with well recognized names who have purchasing power. Read the label even more.

Your body prefers to absorb vitamins and other buy bulk soy protein wholesale from natural or whole foods. In other words, these are foods in their natural, unprocessed or unpolished states. Therefore, most health and wellness experts agree that whole food sources of vitamins and minerals and other nutrients are superior. Synthetic may mimic but will not be superior as good as natural. Your body will absorb and utilize the whole food vitamins more than synthetic.

The fewer additives the better and the fewer opportunities there are for allergic reactions. Remember, avoid artificial flavoring and colors. The supplement market is very competitive; the better the quality the better and more prominent the labeling stating such. Vague labels with minimal information are strong indicators of lower quality.

Find out if your vitamin is made by a company with rigorous quality control standards that are validated by a third party certification provider such as the NSF or ISO. Your vitamin needs to be NSF or ISO certified. Why would you take any dietary or nutrition supplement made by a company without one of these certifications? NSF certification for example assures the consumer that the product has been tested and will continue to be tested through periodic audits. In other words, the certification of a product is continuous, not a one time process. The product should have the high quality ingredients and manufacturing process that a company claims.

Vitamins are supplements. Just as all dietary supplements, they are not cure alls for disease states. They supply what the body is missing to heal itself for perform natural physiologic functions. They are not medicines. However, if not used in an appropriate manner they can harm you. For example, if you are on a blood thinner such as coumadin for whatever reason, you would not want to take vitamin K supplementation. It will oppose the coumadin to try and thicken the blood.

The question is frequently asked, who should take vitamins? The answer is most people. Most do not get enough vitamins because of a deficiency of adequate fruits and vegetables and whole foods in the diet. Look at the plate of most people eating around you. Are those plates colorful with fruits and vegetables or are do they lack color because of all the starch and meat?

Use a vitamin that is from a whole food source and that is NSF or ISO certified. Choose a supplement based on quality not price.

Orville Campbell, MD is an internist and nephrologist. He is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine. His expertise include: health and wellness, hypertension, diabetes, vitamin D, and kidney diseases.

http://www.HealthandWellnessMarketing.com/2.html

Quality Vitamin B12: http://www.healthandwellnessmarketing.com/6.html

Regular exercise good for dementia patients: study (Reuters)

Reuters - Regular daily exercise benefits elderly women with dementia and these benefits appear to accrue over time, researchers from the Republic of Korea report.

About a year ago, I was approached by a "ruby executive" involved in a multi-level marketing scheme. I was asked to lunch by a lady-- we'll call her Sally-- who had attended several of my cooking classes with her husband. It was out of the ordinary, but welcome, so we exchanged numbers.

When I arrived at the Vietnamese Restaurant, slightly off the beaten path, I was introduced to an extra diner and her trusty sidekick, a jar of arginine-based supplement. The woman had wiry gray hair and an intense chronic stare; we'll call her Marge.

She started right in "I couldn't leave my couch for nine months-- doctors couldn't understand and told me I was faking; Arginine saved my life."

"Wow!" I marveled. "Could I look at that jar for a minute?"

"It's very popular in Japan." Marge pulled out a stack of CDs, brochures and home-made promotional materials as I inspected the label. The product was little more than an amino acid supplement.

There are certain rules, detailed below, that to some extent limit the marketing and claims a supplement bottle or associated literature can make, but the lady also created her own promotional materials, with the company logo, claiming the Arginine product was a cure-all for cancer, diabetes and lupus, among other things.

After I was shown an overly complicated promotion scheme and roped into an hour and a half conversation about "the product" and Marge's battle with toxic mold, I explained that I was too busy working on my degree to sell any time soon, but took all the promotional materials and immediately sent them to a consumer watchdog group. I never saw Sally again.

It's not that the supplement was worthless- maybe it could have been useful for some purposes. The point is that arginine will not cure cancer or diabetes and there is no way for me to know if it actually contains arginine or inert filler contaminated with mercury and lead.

Much of the information to follow is provided by the FDA (governmental organization):

http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/dietsupp.html

The law regulating dietary supplement is the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), which was signed in 1994 by President Clinton.

A supplement can be defined as follows (from FDA site):

- a product (other than tobacco) that is intended to supplement the diet that bears or contains one or more of the following dietary ingredients: a vitamin, a mineral, an herb or other botanical, an amino acid, a dietary substance for use by man to supplement the diet by increasing the total daily intake, or a concentrate, metabolite, constituent, extract, or combinations of these ingredients.

- taken as a pill, capsule, tablet, or liquid form.

- not promoted as a typical food or the only item to be eaten in a meal or diet.

- labeled as a "dietary supplement."

- includes new drugs, antibiotics, or licensed biologic previously marketed as a dietary supplement or food before approval, certification, or license as a drug

Because of DSHEA, the FDA takes a hands-off approach until someone dies, become seriously hurt, or an important lobby works against it. The FDA does not have the responsibility, time or resources to test, approve, check, validate, ensure the safety of a supplement, or otherwise protect you in any way from those who are trying to make a buck in the $8.5 billion/year supplement industry.

The FDA has approved very few compounds and foods for "health claims" that link consuming a particular ingredient with a reduction in disease risk. Sometimes even the approved claims have somewhat limited supporting research. Supplements, on the other hand, often include "function/structure claims" which do not link the food to a particular condition, but sound remarkably like health claims to a consumer. Examples include "increases stamina" and "supports immune system." Supplement companies have to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to put claims like this on a bottle and sell it to you for $19.95.

Additionally, the FDA is not required by law to investigate or record any reports they receive of injuries or illnesses that occur as a result of taking a particular supplement.

The following link is a great consumer resource that details supplements that 1) Have a much higher dose than expected 2) have not a trace of the active components listed 3) are contaminated/adulterated 4) other nonsense; and 5)actually not bad afterall:

http://www.consumerlab.com/news/index.asp

Does this mean all supplements and supplement companies are evil? Of course not! All supplement companies was you to buy their products but that's just business. In some sense, US residents are at an advantage because we can choose to take supplements if we think they would be helpful in achieving our goals. If each supplement had to be tested for safety and effectiveness before going to market, much less would be available.

So what's the best approach to buying supplements? Do your homework- there are experts out there who dedicate their careers to figuring which supplements are safe and useful.

Listen to people who have an educated clue and block the meathead and toxic mold lady-- your body will thank you.

Also, buy supplement from companies that have something to loose-- consumer advocacy groups test the products of large supplement companies. If their products were found to be contaminated or lacking active ingredients, the companies' reputations would be ruined. Avoid fly by night companies that you've never heard of selling products you've never heard of. Additionally, beware of the following:

- Cures: if a company markets this way, the company will not exist for long, since it is illegal to market in this way. Your long-term interests and long-term business are not the priority for these companies. Marge's claims concerning cancer, diabetes, and lupus were a clear red flags.

- Words like "scientific breakthrough," "miraculous cure," "exclusive product," "secret ingredient" or "ancient remedy." If it's ancient and useful, you can purchase pure noni powder it somewhere else-- move on. Also, some companies will sell an herb from the same genus (scientific classification) but not the same species as tje active product, so the product bottled and sold does not have the active ingredients. For example active Hoodia and yohimbe are hard to find in this country. Siberian ginseng is not the same as Korean ginseng.

- Overly-scientific language in a non-scientific magazine or brochure-- the marketing is designed to impress you without saying much of anything.

- Personal testimonials: remember, NO ONE is checking that story.

- Pressurized sales: large supplement companies don't need to sell you their product right this second because they are going to be selling it for a while. Look for companies and products that are trying to make you a repeat costumer.

- Promises of no-risk "money-back guarantees." The company won't exist in 30 days- try taking that to small claims court!

If you spend time researching dietary supplements and supplement companies, you may be able to find useful products; however, there is no magic bullet! A diet high in fruits and vegetables and a plan that includes exercise are requirements for healthy living!

Jean Jitomir is a Cornell graduate, registered dietitian, Exercise Nutrition PhD student at Baylor University and a nationally competitive natural bodybuilder. Her lab at Baylor specializes in the testing of dietary supplements and ergogenic aids.