Earl Mindell's New Vitamin Bible
25th Anniversary Edition
Updated Information on Nutraceuticals, Herbs, Alternative Therapies, Antiaging Supplements, and more!
By Earl Mindell, R.Ph., Ph.D. with Hester Mundis
Earl Mindell's New Vitamin Bible is completely revised and expanded! It is a comprehensive and up-to-date guide to everything you have ever wanted to know about vitamins, health aides, therapies, and supplements. It contains information you need to live healthier, better, and longer. You will learn how to maximize the effectiveness of vitamins and supplements, the art of personalizing your dietary regimen, and so much more! Plus, this revised and expanded edition includes new and more information on nutraceuticals, herbs, alternative therapies, anti-aging supplements, beauty aides, diets, food and anti-depressant interactions, salt and sugar intake. It also includes new ways to boost your energy level, fertility and sex life, and healing regimens for heart patients, stroke victims, and arthritis sufferers. This book is your definitive guide to good health!
Excerpts from Book
Getting into Vitamins
Why I did
My professional education was strictly establishment when it came to vitamins. My courses in pharmacology, biochemistry, organic and inorganic chemistry, and public health hardly dealt with vitamins at all - except in relation to deficiency diseases. Lack of vitamin C? Scurvy. Out of B1? Beriberi. Not enough vitamin D? Rickets. My courses were the standard fare, with the usual references to a balanced diet and eating the "right foods" all unappetizingly illustrated on semiglosssy charts).
There were no references to vitamins' being used for sidease prevention or as ways to optimum health.
In 1965 I opened my 1st pharmacy. Until then I never realized just how many drugs people were taking, not for illness but simply to get through the day. (I had 1 regular patron who had prescriptions for pills to supplant virtually all his bodily functions - and he wasn't even sick!)
My partner at the timed was very vitamin-oriented. Both of us were working 15 hours a day, but only I looked and felt it. When I asked him what his secret was, he said it was not secret at all. It was vitamins. I realized what he was talking about had very little to do with scurvy and beriberi and a lot to do with me. I instantly became an eager pupil, and have never since regretted it. He taught me the benefits that could be reaped from nature's own foods in the form of vitamins, how B complex and C could alleviate stress, how Vitamin E would increase my endurance and stamina, and how B12 could eliminate fatigue. After embarking on the most elementary vitamin regimens I was not only convinced, I was converted.
Suddenly nutrition became the most important thing in my life. I read every book I could find on the subject, clipped articles and tracked down their sources, dug out my pharmacy school texts and discovered the amazingly close relationship that did indeed exist between biochemistry and nutrition. I attended any health lecture I could. In fact, it was at one such lecture that I learned of the RNA-DNA nucleic complex and its age-reversing properties. (I have been taking RNA-DNA supplements since then, as well as SOD - superoxide dismutase. Today, because of these, most people guess me to be 5-10 years younger than I am.) I was excited about each new discovery in the field, and it showed.
A whole new world had opened up for me and I wanted others to share it. My partner understood completely. We began giving out samples of B complex and B12 tablets to patrons, suggesting they try decreasing their dependency on tranquilizers, pep pills, and sedatives with the vitamins and vitamin-rich foods.
The results were remarkable! People kept coming back to tell us how much better and more energetic they felt. Instead of the negativity and resignation that often accompanies drug therapies, we received overwhelming positiveness. I saw a woman who had spent nearly all her young adult life on Librium, running from doctor to therapist and back again, become a healthy, happy, drug-free human being; a 60 yr old architect, on the brink of retirement because of ill health, regain his well-being and accept a commission for what is now one of the foremost office buildings in Los Angeles; a middle aged pill-dependent actor kick his habit and land a sought after supporting role in a TV series that still nets him handsome residuals.
By 1970 I was totally committed to nutrition and preventative medicine. Seeing the paucity of knowledge in the area, I went into partnership with another pharmacist for the prime purpose of making natural vitamins and accurate nutrition information available to the public.
Today, as a nutritionist, lecturer, and author, I'm still excited about that world that opened up to me over 30 years ago - a world that continues to grow with new discoveries daily - and I'm eager to share it.
What Vitamins Are
When I mention the word vitamin, most people think pill. Thinking pill brings to mind confusing images of medicine and drugs. Tough vitamins can do and certainly often do do the work of both medicine and drugs, they are neither.
Quite simply, vitamins are organic substances necessary for life. Vitamins are essential to the normal functioning of our bodies and, save for a few exceptions, cannot be manufactured or synthesized internally. Necessary for our growth, vitality, and general well-being, they are found in minute quantities in all natural foods. We must obtain vitamins from these foods or from dietary supplements.
What you have to keep in mind is that supplements, which are available in tablet, capsule, liquid, powder, spray, patch, and injection forms, are still just food substances, and unless synthetic, are also derived from living plants and animals.
It is impossible to sustain life without all the essential vitamins.
What Vitamins Are Not
A lot of people think vitamins can replace food. They cannot. In fact, vitamins cannot be assimilated without ingesting food. There are a lot of erroneous beliefs about vitamins, and I hope this book can clear up most of them.
Vitamins are not pep pills and have no calroic or energy value of their own.
Vitamins are not substitutes for protein or for any other nutrients, such as minerals, fats, carbohydrates, water - or even for each other!
Vitamins themselves are not the components of our body structures.
You cannot take vitamins, stop eating, and expect to be healthy
One cup of Haagen-Dazs coffee ice cream has more caffeine than a can of Coke.
People who live in smoggy cities are not getting the vitamin D that their country cousins get, because the smog absorbs the sun's unltraviolet rays!
Most elderly people are not getting enough vitamin D in their diets or just aren't making enough by not being in the sunlight.
Daily "happy hours" of more than one copcktail can cause a depletion of vitamins B1, B6, and folic acid!
Women who have even 1 drink a day increase their risk of colon and breast cancer because alcohol limits the absorption of folic acid.
80% of American women are deficient in calcium!
10 million American women take oral contraceptives, and most of them are unaware that the pills can interfere with the availability of vitamins B6, B12, folic acid, and C!
American men rank 13th in the world health, American women 6th.
Children need 1 1/2 - 2 x's more proetin per pound of body weight than adults - and babies need 3 x's more!
Cancer researchers haev found that vitamins C and E and certain chemicals called indoles, found in cabbage, Brussels Sprouts, and related vegetables in the crucifer family, are potent and safe inhibitors of certain carcinogens!
Vitamin B1 can help fight air and seasickness.
If you're on a high protein diet your need for B6 increases
Onions, garlic, radishes, and leeks all contain a natural antibiotic called allicin, which can destroy disease germs without sweeping away the friendly bacteria in the process!
Aspirin can triple the rate of excretion of your vitamin C!
18 pecan halves can furnish an entire day's supply of vitamin F
Frequent consumption of foods containing artificial flavors, colors, MSG, and other additives can diminish the effectiveness of the immune system.
Raw peanuts contain enzyme inhibitors that make it difficult for your body to digest protein.
Bran is not a balanced food.
Pasta packed in clear cellophane, or with large cellophane windows, is subject to nutrient loss.
Water softeners can unhealthily increase your daily salt intake.
A main ingredient of margarine - hydrogenated vegetable oil/trans-fatty acids - is even worse for your health than the saturated fat in butter.
Blueberries, blackberries, and red cabbage are actually better for you if cooked!
Yellow and red onions, red grapes, and broccoli are rich in quercetin, an anticancer agent that University of California lab studies have shown can suppress malignant cells before they form tumors.
Olive oil and canola oil, rich in monounsaturates, are the best heart disease-fighting natural foods available.
The easiest way to rid your body of excess sodium is to flush it our by drinking 6-8 glasses of salt-free water daily.
There may be a connection between toothpaste (with its crystalline abrasives, foaming agents, and other additivers) and bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and ittirable bowel syndrome. It's advisable to always rinse your mouth well after brushing and to try to avoid swallowing any toothpaste.
There is more to smoking than the average 7 tear drop in life expectancy reported by the American Cancer Society. 11 years more! New studies show that the life expectancy of smokers and non-smokers differs by 18 years!
The mineral boron (found in apples, grapes, grape juice, and raisins) may retard bone loss in women after menopause. Also, boron helps women on ERT (extrogen replacment therapy) keep the estrogen in their blood longer.
Avoiding black coffee may help you avoid cancer of the esophagus. Tannin, found in coffee and tea, is a suspected carcinogen. The protein in milk, though, neutralizes tannin, rendering it nonabsorbable by the body.
Bugs Bunny was right! Carrots can help keep plaque from forming on artery walls and help prevent hart attacks in people with atherosclerosis. Eating 1 large carrot daily will give you approximately 11,000 IU of vitamin A from beta-carotene!
People who drink diet sodas and at foods with sugar substitutes have been found to make up for the loss of sugar calories by eating an average of 11% more fat!
Brushing your teeth within an hour of drinking regular or diet soda (or any beverage that is both acidic and low calcium) can cause layers of your teeth to deteriorate.
You can lower your risk of stomach cancer 50% by eating 1/2 an onion a day, according to a 4 year study in the Netherlands.
From the Back Cover
America's #1 Vitamin Book - with extensive new material, special sections, and a total guide to good health
This classic guide has been completely updated to put the information you need at your fingertips: to live healthier, better, and longer.
Discover:
- How to maximize the effectiveness of your vitamins and supplements - by taking them in the right combinations and avoiding problems
- New antiaging Vitamins and supplements - they will keep your skin and body healthy and young looking.
- The art of personalizing your dietary regimen - to fit your lifestyle, your health profile, and even your job
- Natural alternatives to hormone replacement therapy (HRT), Viagra, Prozac, and Valium
- Expanded sections on nutraceuticals, homeopathy, and aromatherapy - and how to find the best practitioners in these fields
- Healing regimens - for heart patients, stroke victims, diabetics, and arthritis sufferers
- New Warnings - about dangerous drug interactions and "miracle cures"
PLUS Expanded sections on herbal teas and tinctures, beauty aids, diets, salt and sugar intake, and new ways to boost your energy levels, fertility, and sex life.
Mass Market Paperback: 592 pages
Publisher: Warner Books; Rev&Expand edition (September 1, 2004)
Language: English
ISBN: 0446614092
Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.8 x 1.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.8 ounces.
