Can vitamin D help combat infectious diseases like COVID-19?

Vitamin K and heart health

Experts are recommending that people do what they can to boost their immune systems to work on their immunity and strengthen their defense mechanisms to better combat infection and spread of this virus.
 
According to a recent study conducted in partnership with the Cardiovascular Research Institute Maastricht, foods rich in vitamin K have been helpful in the battle, and a deficiency may worsen the symptoms of COVID-19. 
 
This virus is known to cause degradation of elastic fibers in the lungs as well as blood clots, vitamin K has been shown to be helpful in the production of proteins that regulate clotting. As such experts have linked the consumption of foods that are rich in vitamin K to blood vessels, bones, and the lungs.

Why are multivitamins important for your health?

Sometimes, when your only source of news is from mainstream media, it seems as if taking nutritional supplements is worse than taking medicines. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Especially multivitamins and fish oil can be your cheapest way to top health in addition to a healthy diet. People following healthy diets, are as rare as diamonds and it most certainly doesn't mean following the latest fad diet where you must buy expensive exotic ingredients to be doing it right.

Sadly this is possible when the general public is not being educated properly. Even our national nutritional council (Voedingscentrum) still keeps spouting how you should be consuming artificial margarine instead of real butter as it 'contains extra vitamin D' while butter from grass-fed cows will contain this naturally.

However, there is one truth that is universally embraced by almost everyone: in order to become healthier one has to consumer larger amounts of vegetables and fruits and less heavily processed foods. The sad truth is how most Dutch citizens don't even ingest 200 grams of vegetables and fruit on a given day, a far cry from the recommended 500 grams never mind the optimal 750 grams that is considered to be ideal when you're striving from longevity.

Reducing salt intake, should you care?

In our last blog article I discussed the dangers of dehydration during a heat wave. It was also remarked how our bodies don't just lose fluid, but also lose salts. As if it isn't clear yet, you will not just need to drink more water during a heat wave, but also need to consume more salts.

Because we are are bombarded with well-intended advice to limit salt intake because the average person consumes too much salt by eating too much junkfood, you would almost forget how essential minerals are and more specifically, sodium is for our health.

Why we aren't supposed to eat so much sodium
When there’s extra sodium in your bloodstream, sodium pulls water into your blood vessels, increasing the total amount of blood inside your blood vessels. With more blood flowing through your blood vessels, blood pressure may increase too much.
Even if you don’t have high blood pressure, it is postulated that eating less sodium can help blunt the rise in blood pressure that occurs with age, and reduce your risk of heart attack, heart failure, stroke, kidney disease, osteoporosis, stomach cancer and even headaches.
The extra water in your body (from temporary high salt intake) can also lead to bloating which can feel very uncomfortable.

Can zinc deficiency cause depression?

The health benefits of zinc include a proper functioning of the immune and digestive systems, controlled diabetes, reduction in stress levels, improved metabolism, and an increased rate of healing for acne and wounds. Also, it is helpful in terms of pregnancy, hair care, eczema, weight loss, night blindness, cold, eye care, appetite loss, and many other conditions.

What is the importance of zinc?
Zinc plays a vital role in protein synthesis and helps regulate the cell production in the immune system of the human body. It is mostly found in the strongest muscles of the body and is found in especially high concentrations in the white and red blood cells, retina, skin, liver, kidneys, bones, and pancreas. The semen and the prostate gland in men also contain significant amounts of zinc.

In the human body, there are more than 300 different enzymes that require zinc to function normally. Researchers believe that 3,000 proteins (out of approximately 100,000) have this vital mineral.

A normal person has two to three grams of zinc at any given time. There are organs in the human body which secrete it, such as the salivary gland, the prostate gland, and the pancreas. Even cells involved in the activity of the immune system secrete zinc. It is used up in various metabolic processes and eliminated through normal excretory and urinary channels, so it needs to be replenished often. If it isn’t, you will begin to suffer from deficiency symptoms.

A multivitamin a day keeps the doctor away 

With so many supplements available, and a lot of supplement advertisements in sports magazines targeted at athletes, one is rarely seen: ads for a multivitamin and mineral. 

When you think about supplements, what are the first thoughts that go through your mind? Whey protein, nitric oxide, creatine, fat burners, or maybe something else? These are the ones that consume the ads.

What if I told you though that the most important supplement that you must have in your arsenal is not on this list? That is your basic multivitamin. From the chewable ones you took as a kid to the ones you have now. Oh, you don't take them? If not, you better change that immediately if you want to meet your fitness goals.

For the human body to complete all the tasks it has in a normal day, it must be given a wide and complex variety of vital nutrients. Becoming deficient in any one of these essential vitamins or minerals causes breakdown of the metabolic pathway that produces optimum efficiency and performance goes down quick. Obviously, this is NOT what you want!

Timing of supplements

We frequently receive the question whether it really matters when to use a particular supplement.
Most supplements come with instructions to ingest them with a meal. This is in the assumption that meal contain fat, as fat will aid with absorption through the gut wall. Whether or not this can be your first meal of the day, depends on how much fat it contains. Especially fat-soluble vitamins, such as A,D, E and K need fat for proper absorption.
A work-around is to ingest them together with a larger amount of fish or krill oil softgels if your first meal doesn't contain enough fat.
Another reason take supplements with a meal, is that taking it by itself, can cause nausea or discomfort.

Vitamin K or the forgotten vitamin

Vitamin K is often called "the forgotten vitamin" as most will know the function from other vitamins and don't know too much on what role vitamin K plays for our health and as consequence forget to supplement with it.

Training in the heat

After a warm spring and a seemingly endless monsoon in June, the hottest days of summer are lying ahead. For those of us, that want to train in the heat, a few tips for hot weather training.

Listen to signals from your body: don't hesitate to stop exercising when you feel lightheaded, disoriented or nauseous.
Don't start on a new and challenging training program in the heat: you should be fit already, so the body only needs to adapt to the heat instead of both the heat and a higher training performance.