Category: Nutrition

Vitamin D is vital for regulating the levels of phosphate and calcium in the body.

It is easy to miss the signs of a vitamin D deficiency as it tends not to cause any serious illness.

However, there are certain subtle signs that can indicate a deficiency in what is known as the ‘sunshine vitamin’.

A vitamin D deficiency can cause weight gain and weak muscles.

It has also been linked to developing bone pain or feeling generally fatigued.

Some people experience mood changes or persistent cramps.

Problems with the teeth may be linked to a vitamin D deficiency as well, since vitamin D is important for dental health.

However, all of these symptoms are general and could be related to other conditions.

That is why, if you are worried, it is important to get checked out by a healthcare provider.

Vitamin D is vital for regulating the levels of phosphate and calcium in the body.

These are essential to the bones, teeth and muscles.

Since vitamin D is naturally produced by the action of the sun on the skin, it is vital that people get enough vitamin D in the winter months.

During the darker months, taking 10 mcg of a vitamin D supplement is often recommended.

Another option is to ensure that your diet has enough vitamin D in it.

Foods that contain relatively high amounts of vitamin D include sardines, salmon, mackerel and herring.

Other foods high in vitamin D include egg yolks, liver, mushrooms and red meat.

Cereals and spreads are also typically fortified with vitamin D.

Vitamin D and immunity

Many studies have linked to vitamin D levels to immune function.

Some have suggested that having enough vitamin D can help to boost immunity against upper respiratory tract infections, of which COVID is one.

People with a vitamin D deficiency are also thought to be more susceptible to other everyday viruses, like common colds.

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As many as one-in-eight people could be low in vitamin B12.

Facial twitches and pain in the face can both be signs of vitamin B12 deficiency, studies suggests.

The reason is that the body uses vitamin B12 to make red blood cells and to keep the nervous system healthy.

B12 plays an important role in producing myelin, the protective sheath around nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.

Facial pain can be felt under an eye or in the cheekbone area.

Sometimes it is felt across the forehead and approaching the nose.

Another sign of vitamin B12 deficiency can be cold sores.

Other, more common signs of vitamin B12 deficiency include feeling tired, experiencing muscle weakness and being constipated.

The study included 17 people with facial neuralgia who were given vitamin B12 injections for four weeks.

Dr Jitendra K. Baruah, the study’s first author, said:

“It was somewhat unexpected that vitamin B12 deficiency can cause isolated facial neuralgia.

Treatment for facial neuralgia is sometimes very difficult, and patients may often go into multimodalities treatment without much success.

Knowing that this condition is remediable with vitamin B12 therapy, it is important to identify these patients and treat them accordingly.”

Giving vitamin B12 supplements was also effective in alleviating cold sores, the researchers found.

Dr Baruah:

“It may be possible that having cold sores means there is an active herpes simplex virus located in the gasserian ganglion, indicating that there may be some compromise of that particular side and these trigeminal nerves are found to be more susceptible to deficiencies to vitamins, such as B12.”

Good sources of vitamin B12 include fish, poultry, eggs and low-fat milk.

Fortified breakfast cereals also contain vitamin B12.

People who may have difficulty getting enough vitamin B12 include vegetarians, older people and those with some digestive disorders, such as Crohn’s disease.

The study was published in the journal Pain (Koopman et al., 2009).

Vitamin B12 levels can be boosted by eating foods such as dairy, liver, salmon and eggs.

Ulcers around the mouth can be a sign of vitamin B12 deficiency, research suggests.

The small lesions around the mouth are sometimes known as canker sores.

They can also occur inside the mouth and may make eating painful.

Other, more common signs of vitamin B12 deficiency include feeling tired, experiencing muscle weakness and being constipated.

The conclusions about mouth ulcers come from a study including 58 people who had recurrent mouth ulcers.

Around half of the participants were given B12 supplementation and they were compared to a control group.

The results showed that three-quarters of people were free of ulcers after taking B12 and most saw a reduction in pain.

The authors explain the results:

“The average outbreak duration and the average number of ulcers per month decreased in both groups during the first four months of the trial.

However, the duration of outbreaks, the number of ulcers, and the level of pain were reduced significantly at five and six months of treatment with vitamin B12, regardless of initial vitamin B12 levels in the blood.

During the last month of treatment a significant number of participants in the intervention group reached ‘no aphthous ulcers status’”

Good dietary sources of vitamin B12 include fish, poultry, eggs and low-fat milk.

Fortified breakfast cereals also contain vitamin B12.

People who may have difficulty getting enough vitamin B12 include vegetarians, older people and those with some digestive disorders, such as Crohn’s disease.

Dr Ilia Volkov, the study’s first author, said:

“…the frequency of RAS [Recurrent Aphthous Stomatitis, or mouth ulcers] is as much as 25 percent in the general population, however, until now, there has been no optimal therapeutic approach.”

The study was published in The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (Volkov et al., 2009).

Levels are typically lower in the body through the winter months in northern latitudes.

Depression symptoms like energy loss, concentration problems and lack of pleasure can be signs of vitamin D deficiency, research finds.

Around half of the world’s population is deficient in vitamin D.

Most people get their vitamin D from the action of sunlight on the skin.

That is why levels are typically lower in the body through the winter months in northern latitudes.

The study included 1,282 older people, some of whom were depressed.

The results showed that blood vitamin D levels were 14 percent lower in those with both minor and major depression.

The study’s authors write:

“Underlying causes of vitamin D deficiency such as less sun exposure as a result of decreased outdoor activity, different housing or clothing habits and decreased vitamin intake may be secondary to depression, but depression may also be the consequence of poor vitamin D status.

Moreover, poor vitamin D status causes an increase in serum parathyroid hormone levels.”

The scientists found that almost half the people in the study were deficient in vitamin D.

The authors write:

“…38.8 percent of men and 56.9 percent of women in our community-based cohort had an insufficient vitamin D status.”

Vitamin D is found in oily fish, egg yolks, fortified cereals and some margarine spreads.

Most people need around 10 micrograms per day, which can also be obtained from supplements.

The study was published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry (Hoogendijk et al., 2008).

The study challenges the assumption that ultra-processed foods are ‘hyperpalatable’ — they are not.

Surprisingly, ultra-processed foods taste no better than unprocessed or minimally processed foods.

Instead, it is the ratio of carbohydrate-to-fat that is the key determinate of how pleasant a food tastes, a study suggests.

The researchers wanted to know if level of processing, carbohydrate-to-fat ratio, and higher energy density (calories) have any influence on the desirability and liking of a food.

Taste perceptions

The team compared the taste perception of highly processed foods with less processed foods among 224 women and men.

Images of 32 familiar foods were shown to participants and they were asked to rate the foods for sweetness, flavour intensity, saltiness, desire to eat, and pleasantness.

They found that neither level of processing nor high calorie foods scored higher on desire to eat (food reward) and liking (pleasantness).

However, foods that combined more equal amounts (in calories) of carbohydrate and fat, and foods tasting more intense were rated higher on both liking and desire to eat.

These findings back up the theory that humans are naturally designed to like foods with more equal amounts of fat and carbohydrate since fat is the highest source of energy and carbohydrate is the largest portion of our diets.

The results also show that less desirable foods were high in fibre, but foods with more intense taste — mainly due to their sweetness, saltiness, or savouriness (umami) — were rated high for pleasantness and desire to eat.

Professor Peter Rogers, the study’s first author, said:

“Our results challenge the assumption that ultra-processed foods are ‘hyperpalatable,’ and it seems odd that this has not been directly tested before.

However, while ultra-processing didn’t reliably predict liking (palatability) in our study, food carbohydrate-to-fat ratio, food fiber content, and taste intensity did—actually, together, these three characteristics accounted for more than half of the variability in liking across the foods we tested.

The results for sweetness and saltiness, are consistent with our innate liking for sweetness and saltiness.

And the results for carbohydrate-to-fat ratio and fiber might be related to another important characteristic that determines food liking.

Our suggestion is that humans are programmed to learn to like foods with more equal amounts of carbohydrate and fat, and lower amounts of fiber, because those foods are less filling per calorie.

In other words, we value calories over fullness.

In turn, this trait helps us to maximize calorie intake and build up fat reserves when food is abundant—which is adaptive in circumstances when food supplies are uncertain or fluctuate seasonally, but not when food is continuously available in excess of our immediate needs.”

Related

• Ultra-processed foods are linked to both depression and anxiety.
• The most addictive foods are highly processed.
• Eating fast foods and processed foods linked to heart disease.
• Eating junk food aggravates inflammatory bowel disease.

The study was published in the journal Appetite (Rogers et al., 2023).

Cognitive performance is improved by taking these antioxidant vitamins regularly over the years.

Antioxidants vitamin C and E may help to protect against some forms of dementia and improve cognitive performance over the lifespan, a study finds.

The research on over 3,000 Japanese-American men found that those taking vitamin C and E supplements regularly — at least once per week — were 88 percent less likely to have vascular dementia four years later.

Vascular dementia is the second most common from of dementia in the US, after Alzheimer’s disease.

The study also found that the men were 69 percent less likely to have other forms of dementia, apart from Alzheimer’s.

Dr Kamal Masaki, the study’s first author, said:

“We believe antioxidants like vitamin E and C may protect against vascular dementia by limiting the amount of brain damage that persists after a stroke.

The supplements may also play a role in providing protection against brain cell and membrane injury involved in many aging-related diseases, thus resulting in significantly higher scores on mental performance tests in later life.”

The Honolulu-based study also found that men taking the supplements had a 75 percent better chance of improved cognitive performance in later life.

However, the beneficial effect was not through the reduction in risk of stroke, Dr Masaki explained:

“We originally thought that the beneficial impact antioxidant vitamin supplements had against vascular dementia was the prevention of stroke.

However, to our surprise we found there was not a significant association between vitamin supplement use and clinically recognized stroke.”

Researchers did not find a protective effect of vitamin C and E supplementation on Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr Masaki said:

“It is critically important for patients to practice preventive efforts shown to lower stroke risk and to have broad ranging beneficial effects.

More effective strategies for prevention also must be found.

Therefore, a prevention trial of both vitamin E and C to further examine the potential protective effects on both vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease is needed.”

The study was published in the journal Neurology (Masaki et al., 2000).

The foods that help you live longer and protect you from cancer and heart disease.

Drinking tea and eating apples, or any flavonoid-rich foods, can shield people from cancer and heart disease, research finds.

People who have a daily consumption of 500 mg of flavonoids are more likely to live longer and more healthily.

If you eat one orange, one apple, 100 g of broccoli and 100 g of blueberries and have a cup of tea per day, you are guaranteed to obtain 500 mg of flavonoids.

Flavonoids are antioxidants and part of the polyphenol class found in plants and known to have several health benefits and help prevent various diseases.

Apples, cherries, dark chocolate, pears, tea, red wine (due to grapes), cabbage, and berries, including blueberries and strawberries, are good sources of flavonoids.

The discovery of flavonoids’ protective effect on lowering risk of some diseases comes from a new study that looked into the diets of 53,048 Danes over 23 years.

Dr Nicola Bondonno, the study’s lead author, said:

“It’s important to consume a variety of different flavonoid compounds found in different plant based food and drink.

This is easily achievable through the diet: one cup of tea, one apple, one orange, 100g of blueberries, and 100g of broccoli would provide a wide range of flavonoid compounds and over 500mg of total flavonoids”.

They found that those who ate flavonoid-rich foods were protected against cardiovascular and cancer-related diseases.

They also found that daily intake of flavonoid-rich foods had the most protective effect for heavy drinkers and smokers.

These smokers or those who had two standard alcoholic drinks per day were at higher risk of chronic diseases.

The reason is that smoking and alcohol intake can harm blood vessels and cause inflammation to the cells, leading to greater risk of serious diseases.

The potential health benefits of flavonoids are related to their antioxidants having anti-inflammatory effects and their ability to improve blood vessel function.

This may explain why the smokers and drinkers benefited strongly from foods rich in flavonoids.

Dr Bondonno said:

“It’s also important to note that flavonoid consumption does not counteract all of the increased risk of death caused by smoking and high alcohol consumption.

By far the best thing to do for your health is to quit smoking and cut down on alcohol.

We know these kind of lifestyle changes can be very challenging, so encouraging flavonoid consumption might be a novel way to alleviate the increased risk, while also encouraging people to quit smoking and reduce their alcohol intake.”

The study was published in Nature Communications (Bondonnoet al., 2019).