Mind & Body

David Barrie:

Whilst out with a doctor friend of mine, who was also keen on nutrition, we espied some poor soul who clearly suffered with osteoporosis. He remarked to me, “We live in one of the best fed nations on Earth, yet one of the least well nourished”.

Shops and supermarkets offer us a dazzling choice of foods, yet why do people continue to suffer from ailments and diseases that can often be traced back to nutritional deficiencies?

After all, the human body is designed to live to over 120 in good health, so why don’t we? The sad truth is that most of us simply aren’t getting all the nutrients from our food, as we should. In essence this is a combination of poor soil, for whilst we need some 40 minerals to function properly a mere three are replaced. In addition, intensive farming methods that utilise herbicides and pesticides, food processing, which further leeches nutrients, and an intake of junk and common convenience foods. All these factors ensure, no matter how well we think we eat, we have a nutritional shortfall.

Prince Charles said, “The soil’s health is our health. Yet we have eroded it and poisoned it, and failed to replace lost nutrients”. Linus Pauling, the only man to ever win two Nobel prizes was emphatic in his view, “You can trace every sickness, every disease, and every ailment to a nutritional deficiency”.

Hence nowadays we no longer die from the traditional causes of death, sickness or trauma, we become ill due to our ‘civilised’ lifestyle, poor food choices and sedentary lifestyle.

One of the most common and feared diseases is Osteoporosis, a decreased bone mass, with deterioration of the structure of the bone, resulting in increased fragility of bones and resultant fractures. To successfully treat or guard against osteoporosis the answer lies in supplementation.

To address this from a nutritional standpoint, the long recognised approach has been to take high potency Calcium. Generally this is in the form known as calcium carbonate, also known as chalk. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a recipe that says, ‘Add chalk’, and with good reason because we are not designed to eat it. Absorption is extremely poor.

We now know that the nutritional approach to treating osteoporosis is two-fold, firstly ingesting calcium in a form that the body understands, and secondly, also taking other helpful nutrients that escort and enable the calcium to be properly utilised.

Since the realisation that lost calcium should be replaced, nutritional researchers have progressively discovered ever more effective ways of making calcium available to the body. After carbonate came calcium chelate and citrate, now the finest form is called Food State. This is calcium in a food form which the body is able to recognise and utilise far more effectively because it follows the metabolic pathways of food.

Many nutritionists have also long recognised the importance of Vitamin D for the uptake of calcium. This nutrient has been in the news a great deal recently and its full potential in our metabolism is only just emerging.

The latest research states that in addition the following play an active role in calcium mobilisation. Vitamin C and folic acid work together to help maintain and replace collagen, the ‘sticky’ substance which binds cells together. Iodine stimulates the thyroid, which helps regulate bone density. Silicon is necessary for collagen formation in bone and connective tissue and vitamin B6 helps regulate oestrogen, which in turn is a factor for the uptake of calcitonin, which ‘locks’ in calcium. Magnesium forms a major structural part of the bone and also regulates the transport and metabolism of calcium. Boron and molybdenum are required by enzymes for bone growth and prevention of calcium loss. The Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids assist in maintaining bone whilst the minerals manganese, phosphorus, copper, potassium and zinc all have a role to play.

In essence a combination of a good bone multi nutrient formula, a diet rich in fresh foods containing a high proportion of fruit and vegetables, and good old fashioned exercise, (walking is probably best, and remember, every time you lay down the body loses calcium,) should stand you in good stead to combat this most distressing of diseases.

By David Barrie

CMB Plus

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