News

Our monthly nutritional news letter with the latest research and thinking.

Can nutritional therapy help osteoporosis?

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Hello and welcome to the new format of nutritional news delivered straight to your inbox. Many thanks to David for all his efforts in making this possible. Please forward this to anyone you think may be interested and feel free to feed back any suggestions to me or requests for articles.

Unusually this month I’m going to start with a free event for you to attend. On Thursday the 9th July we are launching The Better health campaign at The Better Food Company in St Werberghs. It is a 3 month program to see people through summer and into winter in radiant health. There is nutritional advice, fitness tips, recipes and much more. We even have a holistic vet explaining the health benefits of keeping pets and how to look after them so they can look after us! All the information is freely available and each month we will provide more ideas for you. The launch party is on the 9th July from 6-8pm. We are lucky enough to have Alex Kirchin, the technical director of Viridian Nutrition talking alongside myself and George Cooper. There will be lovely drinks, bites and free take away info. Any of you who have enjoyed my talks before will get a great deal from this evening. I’d really like to pack out the Better Food Company so please please join us to celebrate the launch and help make this successful event.

Osteoporosis

This is such a huge topic to cover in a news letter but it is something which comes up time and again in my talks and in clinic. There are no outward symptoms of it, so unless you are tested then the first some people know about it, is all too late. Common risk factors are

What can you do about it?
Understanding a few facts about calcium metabolism might be a good start so here goes. We don’t make calcium in our bodies so we have to take it from our diet. Cows don’t make calcium either, so where do they get theirs from? The answer is from greens. Dark green leafy vegetables contain high levels of calcium and also the co factors for calcium metabolism such as magnesium, zinc, vitamin C and vitamin K. Dairy contains few if any of these important nutrients, without which we cannot utilise calcium properly, so get eating your greens folks. I’ve talked before about vitamin D and the importance of making sure you have sufficient/optimum levels for a number of reasons but particularly for bone health. Sensible sun exposure is in my opinion essential. Low oestrogen is also a risk factor for osteoporosis so load up on plant oestrogens or phyto-oestrogens found in abundance in linseeds and fermented soy products. Lastly, use it or loose it. The more we demand of our bones the more bone we produce. Weight baring exercise is known to increase bone density so get exercising for a minimum 20 minutes 3 times a week.
If you are concerned you may be at risk we can conduct bone turnover tests that can show if you are at risk of developing the disease later in life and your GP can conduct a bone density scan to detect current bone loss and bone status.

Lastly a word for the ever fantastic Bee

Bees may protect us from the heat

Recent research from Taiwan published in the Journal of Food Science has shown that certain ingredients in honey propolis may protect the blood cells of cyclists from heat stress. Although the study concentrated specifically on cyclists it could easily have been conducted on other performance athletes. The active ingredient in propolis, caffeic acid phenetheyl ester (CAPE), has long been used in alternative medicine for its antioxidant and antiviral action. Here it appears the antioxidant properties were effective against damaging free radicals produced by heat stress, particularly overheated muscles and increased core body temperature.

That’s it for the month but please do try to Join us next Thursday the 9th July at The Better Food Company for The Better Health launch

Happy and good eating to you all