Resisting the urge to eat for two during pregnancy is vital to limit excess weight gain in both mothers and their babies say researchers from New Zealand. 

I always remember my mum saying that you never see animals that look like baby blimps when they’re pregnant. When you think about it, animals look remarkably “normal” during pregnancy. Interesting that this study follows hot on the heels of one I blogged about yesterday, showing that the women who were obese at conception or gained too much weight during pregnancy had very reduced gut bio-diversity and this effect, as well as their weight management issues, were passed to their offspring. 

Another good reason for achieving normal weight before you conceive. Achieving optimal gut health is a foundation measure in the preconception period too, supported by the right balance of protein, carbohydrate and fat from organically fed and raised produce, all backed up by ongoing detoxification and regular exercise. Final part of the equation is to keep stress levels at a minimum and remove anything that might be potentially toxic. 

Pretty simple really, but all of the foregoing could dramatically increase the percentage of women who gain only the necessary amount of weight during pregnancy (breasts, extra blood volume, baby and uterus). All-over-lard is over the top as far as weight gain is concerned. No need to define how much that weight gain should be, it will be different for every woman, but attend to all of the diet and lifestyle recommendations, back it up with core nutritional supplementation and you’ll gain what is exactly right for you and your baby. 

And while on the subject of supplementation, food requirements during pregnancy only increase by 25 percent while nutritional requirements may double!

Want weight reduction? Look to your gut health first!

Now Belgian researchers tell us that prebiotics can battle obesity by influencing genetic behaviour. And the studies just keep coming - get those good gut bacteria set up in the right proportion and they’ll improve your energy metabolism and help you maintain healthy weight. Here’s another study providing confirmation that the derangement of the gut microbiota or “gut dysbiosis” is an overriding characteristic of the obese. No doubt that poor diet is partly responsible for such dysbiosis, with refined, sugar-laden and processed products feeding the overgrowth of the unhealthy bacteria, but there are additional affects that are trans-generational and/or begin at birth - C-sections and formula feeding at the top of that list. 

Timely reminder to the plethora of fat-busting, meal-replacement, calorie-restricting, biggest-loser type programs who advocate “calories in = calories out” that there’s much more to it! Until optimal gut biodiversity is restored, all the gut-busting exercises and gut-wrenching food restrictions are potentially no more than band-aids! Prebiotics and probiotics are an essential foundation but also ongoing step to weight reduction that is not only achievable but which can be maintained.

Mercury - and hatters went mad in vain

At last, dental mercury is on the way out - globally and for good! Embraced by dentists for the positive attributes of stability and long-life, silver-coloured amalgam filled generations of cavities, but its use has continued well beyond it’s “use by date”. I know people (including myself) who have been on the campaign trail to implement mercury-free dentistry for more than 35 years - but we’ve known about mercury’s toxicity for a great deal longer. The term “mad as a hatter” has its origins in 18th and 19th century England when mercury was used in the making of felt. Milliners were fond of felt for hat-making, accumulating mercury in their tissues and suffering dementia as a result. 

Our ability to ignore the obvious is quite astounding! While amalgam was shoved into unsuspecting mouths, the waste product of the amalgam was categorised as”toxic waste” requiring safe disposal methods! Mercury’s toxicity to the unborn has also been known for a very long time, with initially, only a few enlightened health and regulatory authorities banning amalgam’s use during pregnancy. 

Now that movement is mainstream, but still we need more action as manufacturing processes, batteries, vaccination products and much more, leach mercury into the environment. Fish that are high in the food chain can be high in mercury. Until it’s gone from the environment completely, you need to supplement with all the trace elements (see earlier posts), which go some way to detoxifiying heavy metals which also include lead, aluminium and cadmium. As a matter of interest, selenium which is found in garlic and onions is specific for mercury detoxification.

My question is, decades on, will we be trying to close the door after the GM and vaccination horses have well and truly bolted and damaged untold and unborn generations? 

Ancient grains are good grains

Grains have become the new bad guys and gluten-free is the new must-have range of products for health and wellbeing. But have we got the whole story here? Could this perhaps be another gun going off half-cocked, just like the one that led to the plethora of fat-free, reduced-fat, low-fat products which had no effect whatever on the fat population?

But a new study that reports the potential antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activity of Khorasan wheat, an ancient grain, has been hailed as ‘making great strides in documenting the significant health benefits of ancient wheat’.

Yep, that ancient stuff that was around before farmers started breeding for specific characteristics and long before mad scientists got involved in genetic manipulation is really good stuff. But how to get back to widespread consumption of the produce as nature intended? Seems to me that every time we’re reminded of the life-affirming qualities of natural, uncontaminated, unrefined produce, there are equal moves to keep chemical-laden, refined, adulterated and nutrient-poor produce top of consumers’ shopping lists. 

What would it take to keep sustainable agriculture and the slow food movement top of mind for shoppers and hailed as “absolutely must-support initiatives” by government? Well we can start by voting with our shopping dollar - start at the local organic farmers' markets or fill up your trolley at the whole food grocer or organic section of your supermarket. 

Calorie counting? Then get the sums right ...

More news on the “when is a calorie not a calorie” story. After 100 years, the nutritionists, dieticians, weight loss consultants and food regulators are now told by evolutionary biologist Richard Wrangham of Harvard University that ''our current system for assessing calories is surely wrong.''

I’ve been saying for a long time that calorie counting is for dummies and that the “energy in = energy out” equation is simplistic in the extreme and as far as weight management is concerned, not really helpful. 

Now the researchers can give us some of the other factors that make isocaloric foods not “iso” at all. Start for example with the energy required to digest raw food, add the bite that the oral and gut bacteria take out of some foods, and the properties of the foods themselves which speed up or slow down their journey through the gut. Issues here include the indigestibility of some food components and whether the food has been cooked or is eaten raw. Cooked or raw in turn impacts the type of gut bacteria that thrive and the energetics of digestion ... and so the cycle goes round.

In addition, and this is where the particular research team at Harvard don’t appear to venture, there's the different metabolic effect of foods which for all intents and purposes are equal in calories. Case in point, sucrose and high fructose corn syrup, both officially sugars, “isocaloric” in our original understanding of the word, but responsible for entirely different metabolic responses.

What does all this mean in practice? Healthy food, grown on healthy soil, as much as possible unprocessed, unrefined and eaten raw where possible, will promote beneficial gut bacteria and stimulate healthy metabolic pathways! Avoid any products that contain HFCS - soft drinks are particular offenders. And can the calorie counter!

Superfood for babies? It's mother's milk!

Committed formula feeders are free to blog, tweet, post and establish online communities and the manufacturers of artificial formula can blatantly infringe the WHO marketing code. Hardly surprising that breastfeeding and mother’s milk as I wrote in Healthy Parents, Healthy Toddler is a “dream product in decline” There’s a great deal more in the same vein in the most recent report from Save the Children: Superfood for Babies - how overcoming barriers to breastfeeding will save children’s lives.

My last blog talked about having better educated, more empathic experts involved at the coal-face where breastfeeding can be easily and well-established to ensure that women enjoy the experience and their babies thrive. The new mothers must also be free to make their own decision to breastfeed, not an easy task in countries where husbands or mothers-in-law are frequently the decision-makers. More enlightened maternity leave practices enshrined in legislation and work places with creches are required too ...

But the formula manufacturers are another story - commercial interests know only one outcome - a healthy bottom line. So they simply ignore the international code of marketing of breast milk substitutes, which was adopted by the World Health Assembly in 1981. Gifts and incentives to health workers to promote formula and advertising that targets pregnant women both breach the code, but when the pot of gold is so large (worth $25 billion annually) then it's anything goes. 

With exponential growth of the BMS (breast milk substitute) market in the developing world likely to deliver record profits and investor returns, what can stop the juggernaut which has resulted in breastfeeding rates decline from 45 percent in 2006 to 29 percent in 2009? Two-thirds of the 92 million children who are not exclusively breastfed in the first six months live in just 10 countries – India, China, Nigeria, Indonesia, Philippines, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Democratic Republic of the Congo – seven of which have some of the highest child mortality rates in the world. 

What is required to reverse the trend when Save the Children estimates that 800,000 deaths could be prevented annually if breastmilk was given in the first hour of life? Making the now-voluntary code legally enforceable would be a good place to start. Give the enforcers real teeth and make the fines for breaching the code capable of seriously damaging a company’s balance sheet. If the market is worth billions, then a fine has to be of the same order. 

And make sure that educators and health workers have a voice! Levy a tax on the infant formula manufacturers, one equivalent to their marketing dollars and promotional budget, and use it to promote the normality of breastfeeding. Then tell women that formula or breast need not be an either/or choice. If the reality of going back to work means introduction of substitute feeds, breastfeeding must still be seen as the normal thing to do in the hours when the mother is reunited with her baby or toddler! 

Breast is normal (and of course it's best)!

I’ve always rather liked the way that “breast” rhymes with “best” but it seems that the mantra has got the formula feeders in a dither. They claim that for some mothers and their babies, breast isn’t best at all. I wonder if they would be as vehement or as vocal if they had to state that artificial feeding is abnormal? Anyway, the mum who blogs as “Fearless Formula Feeder” seems to have triggered an explosion of dedicated bottle feeders standing up against what they call “lactivism”. It’s rather sad that those campaigning for a mother’s right to feed as she pleases, fail to acknowledge the baby’s birthright.

So what goes wrong when a mother claims that she “hates breastfeeding”? How can we ensure that babies get only their mother’s milk and everybody is happy with the experience? US paediatricican Dr. Christina Smillie, says that a great many problems and failures begin with the so-called experts. Smillie has the only clinic in the US dedicated solely to breastfeeding mothers and babies and is passionate about re-educating the experts in how they work with the highly-emotional, intuitive, right-brain-dominant, post-natal mum. She suggests that re-education must begin by reducing the use of left-brain focused “advice” and emotive language such as “latch”, “attach”, “breast-refusal”, “poor-supply” and other words with potentially negative connotations. In those early days after the birth, when the new mum is so exquisitely attuned, “baby-led” breastfeeding is vital and when that’s encouraged it’s all instinctive for both mum and baby. The only babies who cannot do this successfully are neurologically damaged. 

Smillie also says there are no issues about breastfeeding in the historical literature, only reference to “baby taking the breast” and “mother giving the breast”. Babies are hard-wired to breastfeed, their ability is innate - it’s the experts who muck it up for women and then women perpetuate the experts’ poor performance, and frustrated and disappointed, suggest that bottle is okay for everybody and proceed to tell the world about it! 

More on the normality and ease of breastfeeding and Smillie’s wisdom in Healthy Parents, Healthy Toddler - Your Guide to Birth, Breastfeeding and the Toddler Years. 

Just when you think it's safe ...

Just when you think that sanity might prevail in the health and wellbeing arena, your hopes are dashed. 

ANH-I Chief, Robert Verkerk PhD

The Alliance for Natural Health - International (ANH-I), an influential pressure group, has submitted comments to the UK Department of Health saying that the EU Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (NHCR) has “lost the plot.” Under attack is the NHCR’s new regulations banning terms like “probiotics” and antioxidants”. In other words, if a company uses a term that is considered, in the eyes of the majority of consumers, to constitute a health claim, that actual term is considered a claim in itself. So unless they have indeed previously secured claims for such products, companies cannot use those terms. Next it’s likely that terms such as “digestif”, “digestive biscuits”, “tonic water” and “cough drops” will have to go. 

Lost the plot?  Couldn’t agree more - a case of regulatory authority gone barking mad!

GM produce ... is the tide turning in the right direction?

BASF, the world’s leading chemical company, has said it will stop seeking approval of its genetically modified (GM) potato varieties in the European Union. Could this be the first chink in the GM armour? Here’s a massive corporation, no longer prepared, even after 10 years of research, to run the gamut of getting its three new species of GM-potatoes approved in the EU. At the moment, the EU has pretty much put a moratorium on approvals of any new GM-crops.

Wise move indeed, as the European Food Safety Authority has discovered a hidden viral gene in 54 of 84 commercially approved genetically engineered crops—a finding that highlights deep flaws in the regulatory process back in the US. Plant pathologists say there is “significant potential for harm”, with the gene expression abnormalities resulting in a protein that functions as a toxin! Since the known targets of its activity are also found in human cells, this plant toxin could also have toxic effects in humans.

The report damns the US approval process, bluntly stating “Even now that EFSA’s own researchers have belatedly considered the risk issues, no one can say whether the public has been harmed, though harm appears a clear scientific possibility. Considered from the perspective of professional and scientific risk assessment, this situation represents a complete and catastrophic system failure.”

Now Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Company from Vermont have made a commitment to go completely GM-free - they say that after reviewing the research they believe it’s in the interest of consumers (and the profitability of their company) to stay away from these dubious products. 

Consumers need to take a stand! We must have mandatory labeling of GM-containing products, and those in authority must do a serious rethink about tinkering at this most fundamental level with the stuff of life that sustains us all. Clearly some responsible, far-sighted companies are already heading in the right direction. We need more of them!

Restoring gut health works for the malnourished too

Interesting study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) shows that in the severely malnourished, it’s a deranged gut population that leads to kwashiorkor. Kwashiorkor is the most debilitating form of malnutrition that manifests as severely distended bellies, spindly arms and legs, organ malfunction and for those who survive, reduced IQ and lifelong impairment. 

It’s always been a bit of a mystery why kwashiorkor affected some but not all malnourished children, now it appears that it’s due to their gut microbiota. The less diverse the population of gut microbes, the greater the likelihood of kwashiorkor. The bacterial mix in the victims’ guts becomes healthier when they are fed “therapeutic food” made from peanut butter fortified with milk powder, oil, sugar and micronutrients, but reverts when the supplement is stopped and the children go back to their usual starchy diets. What is even more interesting is the first part of the study, which shows massively improved survival rates in those children receiving a week’s worth of an antibiotic (amoxicillin or cefdinir) along with their enriched peanut butter supplement. 

Curious juxtaposition of effects here - more diverse gut microbiota seems to be key to surviving malnutrition, while antibiotics, likely to have a deleterious effect on those gut bacteria, improve survival rates. I bet the researchers are scratching their heads too, however the NY Times readers have plenty to offer. But only one or two of the very vocal suggest putting a probiotic into the mix? Meanwhile WHO is likely to issue a standard recommendation of antibiotics for the starving and hang the likelihood of yet more drug-resistant bacterial strains raising their ugly heads. 

Kwashiorkor isn’t a concern in the west, but restoring optimal gut health is! Get your gut microbiota into good shape with the best product for the job.

Compulsory vaccination? Please - not in this democracy!

Today I got wind of a bill that has the potential for vaccination in Australia to be made compulsory.

Now I am a firm believer that there are infinitely more powerful and less toxic ways to ensure optimal immune competence in our children, but leave that aside. As a concerned mother and health professional, trained in both orthodox and nutritional medicine, I’ve contacted the various senators and human rights activists to convey in the strongest possible terms that Australians must retain their democratic right to choose the health promotion measures that they adopt for themselves and their families! Therefore the Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill that is before the Senate Inquiry must include the following: 'An intervention in the health field may only be carried out after the person concerned has given free and informed consent to it'. You can make your voice heard too - overseas petitioners welcome to have their say as well!

Get rid of cling wrap ... glass is good!

Another study that should steer you away from plastic water bottles and PVC cling wrap and send you off to the kitchen store for glass storage containers. Maybe you've already got a kitchen cupboard full of hoarded glass jars - well use them! 

First it was phthalates, then Bisphenol A (BPA), now it’s something called tributyltin (TBT), which is non-intentionally added substance (NIAS) found in PVC plastics. Researchers have found that exposure during pregnancy will cause obesity in three subsequent generations of mice. It seems that TBT exposure modulates critical steps in fat-building and that prenatal TBT exposure predisposes certain mouse stem cells to become fat cells. As if that’s not enough, the effects are still seen three generations along. 

Just another reason for reducing plastic exposure before conception and during pregnancy. Remember this mnemonic to help you through the plastic minefield.

4 5 1 and 2 - all the rest are bad 4U (Annie Murphy Paul - ‘Origins’)

More on plastics in both my books. Click on the images to read sample chapters.

Addiction, mental health issues ... prevention's easier than cure

Just launched in Sydney is a new program to identify future alcoholics and drug addicts. The program will run under the auspices of the Centre for Research Excellence in Mental Health and Substance Use and will be the biggest in the world for research into the combined topics. The Centre will work with The Black Dog Institute and Royal Prince Alfred and Royal North Shore Hospitals in Sydney to ensure research findings are quickly translated into practice. More than 3000 NSW high school students are currently being studied to identify whether personality traits predispose them to drug and alcohol problems, and if early intervention can prevent them. 

I’d like to put forward a suggestion here. We need to look right back to the beginning of the life cycle for viable, long-term and effective ways to counter the drug and alcohol epidemic and the epidemic of mental health issues. We need two optimally healthy parents conceiving optimally healthy babies, normal unmedicated births, breastfeeding with infant led-weaning and full-time parenting in the early years, then a lifetime of healthy eating habits (e.g. those who eat more fruit and vegies are less likely to be depressed). 

I’ve contacted Professor Maree Teesson who is the head of the team at the new Centre - suggesting they might like to be involved in the roll-out of foundation, health-promotion, preventive education through community pharmacy. I await her response. 

When is a calorie not a calorie?

High time the likes of Coca-Cola and yes, all the weight management gurus promoting the very simplistic "energy in = energy out" message got with current scientific understanding of what makes us fat. The bottom line is: all calories are not created equal and Coca-Cola’s latest attempt to distance themselves from the significant part that soft drinks play in the obesity epidemic is unforgivable. Their statement - "All calories count. No matter where they come from including Coca-Cola and everything else with calories." - flies in the face of the most recent research.

Dr. Robert Lustig, an expert on the metabolic fate of sugar, explains that “fructose is isocaloric but not isometabolic. This means you can have the same amount of calories from fructose or glucose, fructose and protein, or fructose and fat, but the metabolic effect will be entirely different despite the identical calorie count.” This is a crucial point that must be understood and a crucial point that Coca-Cola sees fit to ignore. 

My recent blogs have highlighted the efforts of NY Mayor Bloomberg, who wants to cut the volume of soft drinks sold through common retail outlets, now joined by opinion leaders in the UK wanting a higher tax on these products. Sadly both are fighting rearguard actions against the massively powerful manufacturers whose pockets are also incredibly deep. The likes of Coca-Cola, with an unlimited supply of funds and blatantly dishonest approach to the soft-drink part of the fat equation makes it vital that your children never get hooked on these drinks. Give them water ... only after they’re done breastfeeding of course.

Fruit and vegies will keep you smiling

Eggs, now fruit and vegetables ... and they just keep on coming. Here’s another study proving what should be entirely self-evident ... a high intake of fruit and vegetables can keep depression at bay. Seems to me that as long as somebody can dream up a research protocol to prove that what nature provided for us in the eat and drink department is far superior to the man-made versions, there’ll be more time and money wasted. 

The great pity of course is that research was never conducted along these lines before the food and beverage manufacturers became all-powerful and consumers so ill-equipped and disinclined to make the smart food and drink choices. Now it’s like Pandora trying to put the Spites back in the box! 

Case in point is the news that Mayor Bloomberg’s moves to restrict soda sales in delis, cinemas, sport stadiums and restaurants to 16 oz (480 ml) is stalled in a legal minefield with opponents saying the proposals are “stripping New Yorkers of their democratic rights.” Who needs more than 480 ml of sugar-containing, carbonated drink at a sitting anyway, or for that matter, any amount at any time? Meanwhile, the opponents to Bloomberg’s move include the NAACP, America's oldest and most august civil rights organisation who appears to receive funding from the likes of Coca-Cola. 

And across the Atlantic in the UK, proposals to tax soft drinks more heavily brings an equally outraged response from FDF (Food and Drink Federation) saying that any additional tax will hit the poorest families hardest when they can least afford it. Does it ever occur to these people that water as a drink can’t be beaten for thirst quenching ability and best of all, it’s absolutely free!

Pandora really doesn’t stand a chance!

Now the good word on ... eggs!

Consumption of eggs is not associated with an increased risk of heart disease or stroke! Recent analysis by the prestigious BMJ (British Medical Journal) of eight studies and more than half a million participants, might hopefully remove the stigma from the much-maligned egg. What led us to swear off eggs was set in motion when a long-ago researcher fed cholesterol-containing eggs to rabbits (obligatory herbivores). Now almost 100 years since the original research, it’s interesting to reflect that Anitschkov never concluded from his experiments that cholesterol in the diet caused atherosclerosis in humans. But somehow his simplified work entered the pop science mainstream, setting a whole cholesterol-reduction industry in motion and spawned several generations of consumers studiously avoiding a God-given, nutrient-laden, healthy food choice! Well, let’s be more specific here ... the God-given eggs laid by wide-roaming, omnivorous hens, free to eat snails, bugs, grain and greens are what I’m referring to. The alternative eggs, yolks potentially coloured by additives in the feed, from battery hens, forced into laying non-stop, don’t cut the mustard. 

If you’re in any doubt about the need to buy organically raised and fed produce, check out the movie Samsara and while you’re out looking for good eggs from chooks that are free to roam, consider eating the shells too. Latest calcium and other mineral-enriched additive from the food industry is ... guess what? You got it, straight from organic egg shells. Chuck em into the blender with your fruit and yoghurt smoothie.

EU not so sure about GM-produce

So the EU seems to be taking a cautious approach to GM - whether it’s too late to stop the spread of this insidious, untested bio-technology remains to be seen.

Eight EU member countries have already banned cultivation of GM crops on the basis of scientific studies, yet in the US farmers are unwitting and unwilling scapegoats for a GM industry gone mad, led by Monsanto, in 2011 voted by Natural News readers, “most evil conglomerate on the planet.” If you think that’s an extreme position for some members of the public to take, look no further than “David and Monsanto” a one-hour documentary that made me in turns, angry and depressed but then cautiously optimistic. The story of Percy Schmeiser of Saskatchewan, a lone farmer who refused to lie down and let Monsanto walk all over him, is one of those tales that makes you feel warm and fuzzy about determination and belief in a cause. You even start to think that maybe the good guys might prevail. 

Whether the EU move against GM crops is too little too late is the real burning question, but denying approval for any further GM species could be a step in the right direction. Whether the US has the resolve or the ability, given the financial and political clout of the vested interests, to act in the same way, is extremely doubtful. We just have to make sure that Australia doesn’t go down the same path as the US. Once the GM crops are in the environment, there is no way they can be contained. What is even more concerning is the likelihood of new, transgenic species that have never been seen and would never have arisen naturally. Great time to review the long-term benefits of organic produce and get out there and buy it!

More on minerals ...

So now we have the word that magnesium is the flavour of the moment in the mineral category. This report says that between 70-80 percent of Americans are not meeting their daily magnesium requirements. I’d suggest that’s close to the numbers in the Western world generally - non-sustainable farming, refining of grains, the usual old culprits...

Overall, magnesium is an essential mineral for health and function of nerves and muscles, maintenance of blood pressure and heart rhythm, it’s involved in immune function and tooth and bone-formation. Magnesium can also improve energy levels and is vital for optimal reproductive health - before conception, magnesium can promote hormone balance, minimise period pain and reduce chocolate cravings, it can promote the formation of fertile mucus at ovulation. During pregnancy magnesium can prevent cramps and promote sounder sleep. During labour, think optimal magnesium status for strong uterine contractions and while breastfeeding, magnesium levels must be maintained so you baby gets all of the benefits. Look for the supplement containing magnesium amino acid chelate and one that is specific for reproduction... 

Zinc ... most important trace element if you're planning pregnancy

Love it -  here’s a story reinforcing my post of yesterday. Often neglected and ignored in favour of the better known and more widely prescribed (at least by those not trained in nutritional medicine) - iron and calcium - the trace element zinc could now be set to take centre stage. 

If you want reassurance about zinc’s importance take a look at the EU’s view of it. Under it’s super strict (some say unfairly so) NHCR (Nutrition & Health Claims Regulation) that has approved about 250 claims and rejected 1500, zinc won 18 claims ranging from immunity through skin health to maintenance of healthy vision. Compare calcium and magnesium - 10 claims apiece, iron 12 and selenium 6.

Yes, a zinc rethink is under way by the medical profession, finally coming to grips with what others have been bleating about for years. But I wonder if they’ll ever admit that one of the greatest threats to adequate zinc status in the most at-risk population is ... the oral contraceptive pill?

Ironing out iron deficiency ... and more

Iron deficiency is a global problem, no doubt about it. The fall-out from gross iron deficiency (anaemia) and more subtle “insufficiencies” affects all strata of society, impacts economies and most significantly, crosses generations. Apart from the statistics revealing the extent of nutrient malnutrition (which includes iron deficiency and is estimated to affect at least one third of the world’s population) a recent report also refers to the influential Cochrane review. Recommending against ‘established knowledge’ which has led to routine supplementation with iron during pregnancy, Cochrane suggests supplementing with iron on 3 days per week might be sufficient. 

With due respects to Cochrane, I’d go a step further and suggest that establishing iron status prior to conception is the only safe way to go. Optimal serum ferritin levels in the preconception period will ensure iron status is maintained during pregnancy and will also ensure that those daily, inorganic iron supplements, so beloved of the medical profession do not interfere with all important zinc status. 

Which brings me to the fact that zinc insufficiency is also a global problem affecting billions. It also has massive and far-reaching consequences given that zinc is widely considered the most important trace element for the woman about to become pregnant, but is destroyed or depleted by everything from non-sustainable farming and refining of grains, to alcohol, stress and growth. There’s an easy way to check your zinc status and set it right - click here.

Depressed? Panic attacks? Try some time in the sun...

Low levels of vitamin D may be associated with an increased risk of depression in mid-life, says a new study from University College London in the UK.

A bit like probiotics, vitamin D is another foundation, health-promoting factor previously ignored or misunderstood and involved in much more than just building bone. The very fact that we call it a vitamin when it is really a hormone is just the beginning...

Now of course, when vitamin D, or rather the widespread deficiency thereof, is better understood we are looking to the best form of supplements and the appropriate dose to counter the deficiencies. These are a legacy of skin-cancer scare campaigns and a society that spends way too much time indoors. Why doesn’t someone simply suggest that the remedy is sun exposure at a time when it will actually promote the production of this vitamin? I’ll admit that’s a challenging recommendation for dark-skinned individuals in higher latitudes but in my part of the world, it’s easily do-able it’s free, guaranteed to work (well if you get the exposure right) and it feels great. I’ve never been a fan of total cover-up from the sun and while I definitely don’t advocate the endless hours on Sydney beaches that marked my early years, I suggest we would all, our kids in particular, benefit from more time in the great outdoors. 

Sarah Berry writing in Sydney Morning Herald April 2012 quotes biochemist and author Lyle MacWilliam who says ‘The current vitamin D recommendations in Australia are seriously out of date.’ So avoid sunburn, limit exposure to the strong midday sun, but ensure some regular, unprotected exposure when the sun is more than 50 degrees above the horizon (it’s at 90 degrees when it’s directly overhead). Vitamin D is manufactured when the skin takes on a very slight pink tinge. There’s debate about how quickly vitamin D, which is oil-soluble, is absorbed from the skin with some experts advocating washing with water only, so use soap on the smelly bits only after your time in the sun. 

Supplements - are they style or substance?

Harvard Women’s Health Watch has warned readers that supplements are all style and no substance. In their January edition the authors downplay the purported effects of supplements because they say “most of this information has come from observational studies.” 

What was I saying about ridiculous research? 

Here’s another example, at great cost no doubt, but keeping a bunch of scientists in the business of ongoing research. Who among the hundreds of millions of individuals who make up the supplement-taking community worldwide will seriously change their habits thanks to this Harvard study? 

Barely anyone I would suggest, not least because many intelligent and well-informed consumers understand the difference between the trials that drug companies run and the “trials” that are able to demonstrate the benefits of natural medicine, also the vast difference between “wellness care” which is what a large proportion of the supplement-takers practice, and acute or crisis care which is the focus of orthodox medicine and the pharmaceutical industry. Add to that their healthy dose of cynicism that Big Pharma has a vested interest in down-playing the benefits of the nutritional approach to health and wellbeing. So I don’t see too many people changing their supplement-taking habits. What did I say about a waste of time and money? And while we’re on the subject of time and money - you’ll get the best value from your own particular supplementation regimen with a high potency probiotic (Progurt) in the mix. Back that up with adaptogenic products for hormone balance (Femmenessence for women at different life stages and Revolution for him) and a greens product (Quintessence) for detox and you'll "observe" the "substance" of supplementation pretty quickly!