Diet plays an important role in general health. A healthy diet can lower high blood pressure and have many positive effects on heart health. A particular diet may be chosen to seek weight gain, weight loss, sports training, cardio-vascular health, avoidance of cancers, food allergies and for other reasons. Some foods are specifically recommended, or even altered, for conformity to the requirements of a particular diet.

These diets are most often recommended in conjunction with exercise.

A healthy diet is one that is arrived at with the intent of improving or maintaining optimal health. Nutritionists generally recommend eating a wide variety of foods when dieting; however, some groups of people survive on a very limited diet, and maintain both their health and weight. The traditional Eskimo diet, for example, depended heavily on meat, but Eskimos ate nearly all of the animal; including internal organs - organ meats are rich in vitamins and minerals.

Vitamin supplements can be very beneficial for those who don’t eat the healthiest meals, and who are unable to consume certain foods needed to gain such vitamins. Vitamin supplementation can be very beneficial for those who don’t eat the healthiest meals and who are unable to consume certain products needed to gain such vitamins

Vitamins can also help replace nutrients that can be lost while dieting. They are an inexpensive way to boost your energy and help your body stay healthy. By themselves, they will help prevent a nutritional deficiency, and in persons on very low calorie diets (less than 1200 calories per day), vitamin supplements provide missing nutrients.

Vitamins and Minerals: These are used as enzymes, and other catalysts for chemical reactions in your body. Take Vitamin A. Every day Vitamin A is used to repair gradual degeneration of the light sensitive rods in your eyes. This is why Vitamin A is called the “eye vitamin.” A long-term deficiency of Vitamin A causes night blindness. Many vitamins and minerals actually do not handle exposure to heat very well which is why having raw food in our diet is important. To make up for the vitamin and mineral losses in our food, caused by processing and cooking, we should take a supplement.

Antioxidants: Some vitamins and minerals, and even glyconutrients, behave as antioxidants. These are the neutralizers of “free radicals” in the body. Free Radicals are kind of like rust on a car, or like a cinder that popped through the screen in the fireplace. Our own ability to burn calories produces naturally produces Free Radicals and then many toxins we encounter in our environment are also free radicals.

Plant Sterols: The body, no matter how old or young, is regulated by nearly 90 different hormones. Hormones are made in your body out of cholesterol, plant sterols and some other vitamins and minerals contribute to the production of hormones.

Glyconutrients: These are the newly discovered nutrients that are all the talk in the research world. Both Harpers and Lippincott’s Biochemistry texts. which are used to teach med students biochemistry. include chapters on glyconutrients and their role as a necessary nutrient in normal cellular function. Most doctors in practice today learned from these textbooks before these nutrients were discovered and added to these text books, but Continuing Medical Education (CME) is available for doctors to learn about glycobiology.

Glyconutrients, are sugars, but not like the refined sugars we get far too much of. In function, they are like letters of the alphabet for the cells.