MCVitamins News

Your Nutritional Education Site

1. Is Gluten the Cause of your Neuropathy?
2. Additional Vitamins and Minerals for Your Nerves
3. What are nutritional deficiencies and what do they do to your health?      
4. Help Defend Your Brain from Anxiety with This Popular Food

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Is Gluten the Cause of your Neuropathy?

Approximately 10 percent of people with Celiac disease* develop neurologic* symptoms, according to the Center for Peripheral Neuropathy.

In people with a gluten sensitivity, eating foods with gluten protein triggers an autoimmune reaction. The body attacks the gluten with antibodies in the same way that antibodies attack viruses.

This damages the intestines. Intestinal damage inhibits absorption of nutrients, often leading to nutrient deficiencies. Vitamin deficiencies could be to blame for gluten intolerance.

Neuropathy, or peripheral neuropathy, describes a range of disorders characterized by nerve damage to one or more nerves outside of the brain and spinal cord.

Often the cause of the neuropathy is unknown, though autoimmune diseases and vitamin deficiencies are some of the potential causes, according to the Mayo Clinic. Gluten neuropathy is when the autoimmune response is the root cause of the nerve damage.

A study published in Muscle & Nerve journal in December 2006 found that participants with neuropathy who followed a no-gluten diet showed significant improvement in symptoms after one year. The control group reported worsening of symptoms.

People who have a gluten intolerance do not respond to simple allergy tests like someone with a milk or nut allergy might. The gentlest way to figure out if someone is sensitive to gluten is dietary therapy. Avoid gluten for several weeks, then reintroduce it and observe any reactions.

Once it is known that a person has a problem with gluten there is only one form of treatment: abstinence. People with any degree of gluten sensitivity or intolerance must completely give it up. This means not only avoiding obvious foods like bread and pasta, but also foods like soy sauce and licorice that contain small amounts of wheat.

Fortunately, there are many alternatives. Pastas made with rice flour or quinoa* don't have gluten in them. Rice bread can replace bread made from grains containing gluten. Buckwheat flour contains no gluten and works well for pancakes. Some companies even make soy sauce that doesn't use wheat in the ingredients. It is simply a matter of reading labels and shopping around.

* celiac disease: a digestive disease that damages the small intestine and interferes with absorption of nutrients from food.

* neurologic: of or having to do with neurology. Neurology is a branch of medicine concerned especially with the structure, functions, and diseases of the nervous system.  

* quinoa: a grain-like plant

Additional Vitamins and Minerals for Your Nerves

The daily intake of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients affects the ability of the nervous system to perform its many necessary functions. There are several vitamins and minerals that directly influence nervous system functioning and health, and it is important to see to it that these are taken at adequate levels.

Unfortunately, most of the vitamin and mineral supplements one finds in drug stores and health food shops are just isolated man-made chemicals, and they are not even close to the real vitamins and minerals found in fresh fruits and vegetables.

Because of the fact that commercial farmland today is extremely depleted of minerals, eating fresh fruits and vegetables nowadays no longer ensures that you will receive the vitamins and minerals that your body needs to maintain health and vigor. As a result of this, most people supplement with vitamins and minerals.

To be effectively absorbed and utilized by the body, vitamins and minerals must be the way they are in food.

For more about Whole Food Supplements

What are nutritional deficiencies and what do they do to your health?    

A deficiency is basically a nutrient that your body does not have enough of to function properly.  

What if you forgot to put enough oil in you car?   Despite the fact that it was getting the air, gas, functioning spark plugs and good combustion, the car wouldn’t work properly.  Sure the piston would go up and down and the car would move forward – just like normal.  But soon the engine might run a little hot.  Down in the engine different things might start happening.  The rings around the piston that stopped oil from getting up into the combustion area might be giving way.  The normal straight camshaft might start to bend a little.   The engine just won’t work right. Perhaps the car will need a small repair, or maybe a major overhaul – or ignored the engine will just seize up and “die”. 

It’s the same with your body – except that you can’t just buy another engine and repairs made to a damaged body might not put things back together again.

Let’s look at some of the many varied things that can happen when you don’t put the needed nutrients into the body, and wind up with a deficiency.

Gingivitis is created when plague (sticky deposits of bacteria, mucus and food particles) adheres to the teeth, hardens and irritates the gum. The accumulation causes the gums to become infected and swollen. As the gums swell, pockets form between the gums and the teeth and act as a trap for more plague.  Irritated gums bleed and eventually start to recede.

This irritation can be fought by introducing Vitamin C, which fights the formation of plaque.  Now gingivitis, untreated, can progress to periodontal disease, which means loose teeth and false teeth.   Seems like it would be easier just to get enough C.   C would have fought the formation of plaque to begin with.

Does that sound too easy?  Remember in the fast food lifestyle that we live in, we need a Vitamin C to fight the many problems in that lifestyle – processed foods, polluted air, etc.  You need enough so that your gums get enough.  

Vitamin B12 comes from meat, eggs, fish and milk, but not everyone eats these and they do not eat enough to fight the depletion that happens from day to day living.   Alcohol, coffee, tobacco to name a few can also deplete the body of vitamin B12.

What happens when you have a deficiency of Vitamin B12?  It can bring about nerve degeneration.  Vitamin B12 supports the sheathing that protects nerve cells. Damage to the nerve sheathing can produce numbness, tingling and the pain. It’s called neuropathy.  Neuropathy can be a side effect of cancer treatments, certain medications, toxins, diabetes, and many other things.    And the funny part about it is that all reasons one can get neuropathy could have been prevented in the first place with the proper nutrients.   

We have all heard the problems from someone smoking, but even if you smoke, you can still take vitamins to compensate for the depletion of vitamins that it causes. 

There are a lot of problems that deficiency causes.  One of the reasons for the website is to help you understand those deficiencies and allow you to fix nutritional deficiencies and build good health. 

Remember when you build good health, disease tends to fade away.

Help Defend Your Brain from Anxiety with This Popular Food

A recent proof-of-concept study found that women who regularly ate yogurt containing beneficial bacteria had improved brain function compared to those who did not consume probiotics

Research has also shown that certain probiotics can help alleviate anxiety by modulating the vagal pathways within the gut-brain; affecting GABA levels; and lowering the stress-induced hormone corticosterone

What you eat can alter the composition of your gut flora. Specifically, eating a high-vegetable, fiber-based diet produces a more beneficial composition of microbiota than a more typical Western diet high in carbs and processed fats

Limiting sugar, eating traditionally fermented foods, and taking a probiotic supplement are among the best ways to optimize your gut flora and subsequently support your brain health and normalize your mood

The New Prozac:  Probiotics

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