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Thursday, July 03, 2008

Vitality from Vitamins

During the past several years vitamins, especially vitamins C and E, have taken a heavy handed attack by the FDA and pharmaceutical industry.

Currently vitamins are under attack in Canada through a proposed new law, C51. The effects of C51 can indeed limit vitamin access in the US.

Of course we've heard all the reports about how dangerous vitamins are for you, even though the studies have been faulty.

It is always heartening to hear of a study that shows just how beneficial vitamins can be for your health.

Surely by now you know that Big Pharma is more interested in the bottom line, and blocking access to vitamins while encouraging drug use.

Not so fast for me, and hopefully not you either.

Antioxidant vitamins can act to prevent inflammation, and this is just one good example of the proof they work.
Vitamins block post-meal grogginess in diabetics
By Anne Harding, Thu Jul 3, 2008

Fatty meals may cloud the brains of people with type 2 diabetes, but antioxidant vitamins can help clear the fog, Canadian researchers demonstrated in a study they conducted.

The findings suggest, the researchers say, that memory impairment after heavy meals in type 2 diabetics is related to oxidative damage.

The findings shouldn't be interpreted to mean that people can avoid the harmful consequences of fatty foods and "bad carbs" by popping vitamin pills, Dr. Carol Greenwood of the University of Toronto, who was involved in the study, told Reuters Health.

In the study, Greenwood and colleague Michael Herman Chui had 16 men and women with type 2 diabetes who were 50 and older eat three different meals at three separate weekly sessions: a Danish, cheddar cheese and yogurt with whipped cream; water only; or the same meal plus 1000 milligrams of vitamin C and 800 international units of vitamin E.

They found that people performed worse on tests of verbal recall and working memory 105 minutes after eating the high fat meal. But when they took vitamins with the meal, they did just as well on the tests as they did after drinking water.

The cognitive effects observed in the study were subtle, but large enough to impair performance, Greenwood said in an interview. "It kind of makes the 50-year-old brain more like the 75-year-old brain," she explained. And these effects could accumulate to cause lasting damage, according to the researcher.

Greenwood said studies are planned using brain imaging to look at what exactly happens in the brain of diabetes patients after a heavy meal.

SOURCE: Nutrition Research, July 2008.

Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

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