Vitamins

Eye Vitamins 2 [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged alcohol / anemia / antioxidants / episode / eyes / fatty acids / folic acid / Thiamine / Vitamins by

Remember: if a vitamin is good for one place in your body, it’s probably good for a lot of places in your body.  It’s a marketing ploy to call them eye vitamins.

Eye Vitamins

  1. Thiamine (B-1): thiamine is used heavily in your liver, to help metabolize alcohol.  Most well-known deficiency in alcoholics.  Thiamine also helps nerves produce several neurotransmitters, as well as protects your nerves from inflammatory chemicals (the chemicals in your body that trigger swelling and pain).  You don’t want inflammation in your optical nerves.  You also don’t want the signals from your eyes to your brain and back to be slow.
  2. Folic acid:  important for pregnancy women and fetal development, deficiency can cause a type of anemia.  It’s main job is to help make accurate copies of the DNA and RNA when cells are dividing and multiplying.  You don’t want typos in your DNA!  This is important for your eyes because the cells of your eyes is because they are some of the fastest reproducing and dividing cells in your body.
  3. Omega-3 Fatty acids:  Beneficial for heart health, found in oils.  Oils in your body are lubricating.  Omega-3 fatty acids are building blocks for the cholesterol that is build into cell membranes that keep the fluid and slippery. The body also uses O3FA to produce the natural lubrication in your eye.
  4. N-Acetylcystine (NAC): an amino acid (building block of protein).  Glutathione – your body’s naturally produced antioxidant.  NAC is used when the cells build and store glutathione.  Glutathione focuses mainly on oxygen-based free radicals.
  5. Alpha Lipoid Acid (ALA): another antioxidant.  Found in sources of natural oils – seeds and nuts.
  6. Lutein and Zeaxanthin: 2 nutrients that are found in red, orange, and yellow fruits and vegetables (and that actually cause them to be those colors in the first place).  Their main goal in your eyes are to prevent blue light damage.  Blue light is a short wavelength with a higher speed and energy than the lower colors of light.  This energetic light can damage cells in your eyes, so the orange nutrients blocks this energetic waves so you can still see the blue colors, but it’s more chill and doesn’t cause damage to the retina.  These nutrients concentrate in the macula.

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Music Credits:  “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Eye Vitamins 1 [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged episode / eyes / Iron / minerals / Vitamin A / Vitamin C / Vitamine / Vitamins / zinc by

*Disclaimer: most vitamins and minerals are good for ALL of your body.

Eye Vitamins

  1. Vitamin C: helps make collagen, allows iron to be absorbed, and acts as a neurotransmitter co-factor (helps in the process of creating and sending messages).
  2. Vitamin E: antioxidant, it traps up free radicals so they don’t damage cells in important organs.
  3. Beta-Carotene: a pre-cursor to Vitamin A (this happens in your liver). Vitamin A works with proteins in your eyes to create light-sensitive molecules to aid in color vision and seeing in dim light.
  4. Zinc: helps Vitamin A know where it’s needed in the body and helps it get there.
  5. Selenium: helps the body absorb Vitamin E.
  6. Calcium: vital for muscle and nerve conduction (think electricity).
No lone rangers here!
Many foods are fortified in modern countries and have vitamins added to them that may not be naturally occurring in the raw ingredients.  If you’re eating a well balanced diet and still deficient in something, take a supplement of the thing you’re deficient in, not a whole multi-vitamin.  If you’re getting regular check-ups with your doctor, they should be testing for many things, including many vitamin levels, to check for deficiencies.
Being “tired” isn’t always fixed by taking vitamins.

Bonus

Depending on what nutrient is missing to cause anemia, the red blood cells will have a certain appearance.

Some vitamins are fat soluble. They hang out in your adipose tissue, and can cause problems if you get them in too large amounts.

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Music Credits:  “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Hair Vitamins [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged antioxidant / Biotin / free radicals / hair / Iron / oil / omega-3-fatty acid / Vitamin B-7 / Vitamin C / vitamin E / Vitamins by

Disclaimer

If you live in a modernized country, the food that you eat will give you more than enough of the vitamins you need, because you have access to a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, plus tons of food products are fortified with vitamins.  So rarely is someone deficient in a whole bunch of vitamins all at once.

Hand-drawn and colored sketch of the layer of skin where hair grows from, with labeled parts. Hair vitamins will reach your hair through the blood vessels depicted in this image.

Vitamins

  1. Biotin (Vitamin H – antiquated; Vitamin B-7) – a cofactor that works with your enzymes to help transport carbon dioxide – which is a waste product in your body.  Carbon dioxide is created in fatty acid production, amino acid metabolism, and gluconeogenesis (making glucose out of things that aren’t glucose).  Peanuts is a huge source of biotin.  Your natural gut flora make biotin for you!!  So apparently good for your whole body, not just your hair.
  2. Vitamin C – responsible for helping collagen production.  Most directly related to hair, skin, and nails.  Collagen allows cells to be stretchy and elastic and more flexible against abuse.  It also helps your digestive tract absorb iron (callback!).
  3. Vitamin E – is an oil-based vitamin and an antioxidant.  Lots of health fads scream at you about free radicals.  Free radicals are molecules that are waste products from different processes that end up with a non-neutral charge (so either positive charge or negative charge).  So if you remember chemistry, they prefer to be neutral, so free radicals want to steal charges to neutralize, and can sometimes steal it from your DNA and lead to major cell damage.  An antioxidant is a molecule that finds an oxidized free radical and donates a charge so that it’s neutral again (and the antioxidant is able to cope better with losing an electron or two without becoming radical itself).  Vitamin E focuses on the free radicals from fatty acid processes.  Again, good for your whole body, not just your hair.

Supplements

  1. Omega-3-Fatty acid – an oil, a fatty acid chain that goes into the production of your skin’s natural moisture.  Your skin needs its natural oil to trap up dirt and bacteria, as well as keeping the moisture from deeper inside your body from evaporating out.  So each hair follicle has an oil gland with it to keep the hair moisturized.  The new information about the importance of your hair’s natural oil has encouraged the “no ‘poo” movement.  This is more directly related to your hair, but a lot of other places in your body benefit from O3FA’s.
  2. Iron – responsible for helping your red blood cells to carry around oxygen.  This is most likely the only nutrient in this list that someone would need to truly supplement, mainly because iron deficiency can be caused by several things, some of which are genetic.  People with prolonged anemia have dull hair, skin, and nails.  Again, good for your whole body.

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Liver Lesson #3: Storage [Show Notes]

 in Podcasts  tagged eating / glucose / intestines / Liver / sleeping / storage / Vitamins by

Recap

Digestion – bile breaks down fat to be absorbed by intestines

Metabolism – breaking down food into useful pieces

Your liver helps you store those energy sources until you need them – like times when you’re not eating.

Your body does lots of processes for you while you’re sleeping.

Storage

Glucose is a main source of energy for your body.

Insulin tells your cells to let glucose in the door so it can be used immediately.  It also tells the liver to put extra glucose in long chains called Glycogen to store for future use.

Another energy source is fat or fatty acids.  When the liver doesn’t have enough space for fat, it sends it to other areas of the body.

Certain vitamins (A, D, E, K) like to hang out in fat more than water, so it goes with the fat wherever it goes.

The liver stores Vitamin B12.  B12 is usually promoted for energy boosting.  A vitamin B12 deficiency can lead to a certain type of anemia (pernicious anemia). This means not enough red blood cells are being made, thus not enough oxygen is being delivered to all the parts of your body.  Therefore your body doesn’t have the resources to utilize and create energy.  End result: you feel tired.

Iron and copper are also stored by your liver until you need them.  Low iron is another culprit of anemia.

Interesting fact:  This is why liver tastes more metallic than other red meats.

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