Are you taking multivitamins like more than 100 million Americans?
Published last Wednesday, a new study from the National Institute of Health (NIH) found that multivitamins of any kind “won’t help extend your life.” The claim of improved longevity among those taking multivitamins daily is “not medically supported.”
The clinical research posted on JAMA Network Open, involved “400,000 adults over 20 years, participants with a median age of 61.5 years old, were generally healthy, with no history of chronic diseases.”
The study “found no evidence that daily multivitamin consumption reduced the risk of death from conditions such as heart disease or cancer.”
“Rather than living longer, otherwise healthy people who took daily multivitamins were slightly more likely (4%) than non-users to die in the study period,” according to researchers, who also reported “nearly 165,000 deaths occurring during the follow-up period of the study, out of the initial group of 390,000 participants.”
Those with vitamin deficiency obviously need and will benefit from taking multivitamins, or vitamins they are deficient in. Those not eating properly or are on a diet would also benefit from multivitamins.
Vitamin D3, up to 5000 IU, is a strongly recommended supplement for daily intake. Always consult with your physicians about your medications.
Plant-based diet
Studies in the United States and abroad show that the best diet is plant-based. The Mediterranean diet, minus the lectin-containing items in them, is the best diet overall. Beans, legumes, whole grains, contain lectin, like the Nightshade vegetables: Eggplant, potato, tomato, pepper, paprika. Lectins are inflammatory food items that disrupt our microbiome balance in the gut, which causes various ailments. Nightshade veggies aggravate arthritis pain. Peeling tomato and removing the seeds reduces its lectin content. Cooking also lessens the level of lectin.
Red meat consumption is linked to increased cardiovascular illnesses, Alzheimer’s, and even cancer. Limiting red meat to, perhaps, twice a week, is the current medical recommendation. Burnt barbeque meats and veggies, with “charcoal” edges, have been linked to pancreatic and other cancers. The high heat, with oil dripping from the meat hitting the charcoal emits carcinogenic fumes that flow upwards and absorbed by the meat.
Mental Exercise
Daily physical exercise reduces the risk for cancer, besides promoting cardiovascular and metabolic health. It also lowers the risk for anxiety and depression. Exercise produces healthy hormones that leads a healthier body and well-being. Akin to exercising our muscles, exercising the brain daily, with challenges for mental acuity and retentive memory and cognition, results in a “younger, healthier” brain. It also reduces the risk for dementia, like Alzheimer’s.
Alcohol unsafe
There was a time when alcohol, especially wine, was considered healthy, like wine with lunch and dinner. Even pregnant women indulged. Then the medical recommendation was reduced to two drinks a day for men and one for women, abstinence for pregnant mothers. A decade or so later, in the 1990s, it was reduced to just one a day, preferably with dinner. Zero for those pregnant. Today, studies showed that there is no safe level for alcohol consumption. Even one drink is considered unhealthy for the liver, brain, and kidneys. And beer is deemed even worse. Self-imposed prohibition, among a minority with a strong willpower, appears to be popular today.
Latest Warnings
Here are some of the latest health alerts:
Identity Theft
A plague in our generation today is identity theft, which will adversely affect mental and emotional health of the victims. The common venues of this popular fraudulent scheme are the social media, internet, email, phone, and mail. It could come as an email “from an old friend, asking for money transfer,” a letter saying you won in a lottery, a call that invites you to invest with a guaranteed income of 20% or higher, a letter informing you that you have been named in a Will as beneficiary, even a scheme that alleges your son or daughter is being held hostage, asking for a ransom, etc. All these modus operandi just to get your personal information (I.D., social security, Medicare, bank account data). The movie “The Beekeeper” vividly shows scammers in actual onsite operation.
Victims of identity theft or any scam could report the crime to the FTC (Oig@ftc.gov), to IdentityTheft.gov, and to the three major credit reporting agencies: TransUnion, Experian, Equifax, and to your banks. The FTC adds your report to the FTC Consumer Sentinel database. This is a secure online database that is used by civil and criminal law enforcement authorities worldwide. The FTC also uses this information to track patterns and trends.
A healthy degree of paranoia is very effective in avoiding identity theft. This preventive mindset and a disciplined consciousness will ensure personal, financial, and emotional well-being and security.
Philip S. Chua, MD, FACS, FPCS, a Cardiac Surgeon Emeritus based in Northwest Indiana and Las Vegas, Nevada, is an international medical lecturer/author, Health Advocate, newspaper columnist, and Chairman of the Filipino United Network-USA, a 501(c)3 humanitarian foundation in the United States. He was a decorated recipient of the Indiana Sagamore of the Wabash Award in 1995, presented by then Indiana Governor, US senator, and later a presidential candidate, Evan Bayh. Other Sagamore past awardees include President Harry Truman, President George HW Bush, Muhammad Ali, Astronaut Gus Grissom, educators, and leaders (Wikipedia). Websites: FUN8888.com, Today.SPSAtoday.com, and philipSchua.com Email: scalpelpen@gmail.com
