A couple years ago I enrolled in a program about Cellular Nutrition. The main reason was because as a nutritional supplement distributor I wanted to have a background in basic nutrition. Then there was just a natural curiosity to better understand how cells function and what I could do better to maintain my health as an anti-aging baby boomer. If it was a matter of food and diet, then I certainly could handle any new changes in positive ways.
The basic fact was obvious that good health is a fundamentally based on good nutrition which is a complex system requiring a synchronized balance of macro-nutrients and micro-nutrients for growth, development, and immune system empowerment.
It was the first time I ran across words I had never seen before like phytonutrient and bioflavanoid. In fact, I had to submit a research paper about some major phytonutrients already discovered and explored. Just visualize more than 500,000 plant species. Of that number, only a mere 10% have been investigated from a phytochemical or pharamacological point of view.
The more I learned, the more I realized that scientists were just starting to cope with nature’s pharmacy, trying their best to classify thousands of phytochemicals. The dozen or so identifiable vitamins were just a tiny part of the composition of plants and their nutritional benefits.
This study has changed my life in two ways:
(1) I have never looked at another fruit or vegetable in the same way again.
(2) I have changed my dietary supplement to represent as closely as possible to what natural whole foods provide.
This brief article introduces some basic facts that amazed and transformed my thinking and it might just do the same for you.
Let’s check out some basic definitions.
WHAT ARE PHYTONUTRIENTS?
Phytonutrients are disease fighting, health benefitting, naturally occurring plant molecules. They include pectin, carotenoids, glucarates, flavanoids, terpenes, liminoids, lycopenes, coumarins, and phenolic acid. They are abundant micronutrients in our plant diet and evidence for their role in the prevention of degenerative diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases is new and undeniable.
WHAT ARE FLAVANOIDS, ALSO CALLED BIOFLAVANOIDS?
These are water soluble plant pigments. They provide the color to flowers, leaves and stems. One system of categorizing them has identified as many as 20,000 flavanoids of which only 4,000 have been chemically analyzed or tested. Although they have common elements, their functions are different. They were initially called Vitamin P.
Here is an abbreviated list of some names you may recognize. (1) ALLYL SULFIDES found in onions and garlic (2) ISOFLAVONES found in soy foods (3) COUMARINS found in turmeric spice and ginger (4) LIGNANS found in rye and flax seeds (5) ANTHOCYANIDINS found in grapes and blueberries (6) CAROTENOIDS such as beta carotene,lycopene, lutein found in citrus fruits and tomatoes (7) SULPHORANE found in cruciferous vegetables
As alien as these words sound now, someday, they will be part of everyday vocabulary in the same way as our common vitamins. They are part of our rich heritage of ethno-botany and healing remedies that science is now validating. More and more studies continue to confirm their health benefits:
(1) strengthen capillaries and other connective tissue
(2) same function as anti-inflammatory, anti-histamine, and anti-viral agents
(3) some protect LDL cholesterol from oxidative damage (quercetin)
(4) help to correct biochemical problems at the cellular level which is the root of most disease
(5) help to maintain hormones, tissues, muscles, neurotransmitters and gene expressions
(6) many functional foods are aimed at boosting intakes of phytochemicals to reduce risk for chronic diseases such as adding isoflavones to cereals or phytosterols to margarine.
There is actually a rather unusual story about bioflavanoid or Vitamin P as reported in The Doctors’ Vitamin and Mineral Encyclopedia. When first “discovered” it did not fulfill the definition of a vitamin or a deficiency. However, many doctors began prescribing bioflavonoids encouraged by dozens of positive studies. Then in 1968, the FDA, relying primarily on the review of bioflavanoid literature conducted by a single panel from the National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council, withdrew the bioflavanoid “drugs” from the marketplace, declaring they were ineffective in humans “for any condition” whatsoever. The more than 50 companies, including many of the pharmaceutical giants that had been manufacturing bioflavonoid preparations for prescription use were obliged to halt production.
This was a curious episode. The Medical Letter, in an article called “Requiem for Flavanoid Drugs,” Feb. 9, 1968 implied that even competent researchers made mistakes. Looking back, one has to wonder if the dozens of independent researchers whose findings tended to confirm one another shouldn’t be considered more trustworthy than the conclusions of a single committee. Review panels also make mistakes and recent studies of bioflavanoids strongly suggest that they can have important roles in medical therapeutics.
One can only speculate as to individual patterns of health versus degenerative diseases had Nature’s bioflavanoids become a priority education to share with families.
Currently, this decade can be called the “renaissance of the bioflavanoid.” Thanks to consumers who are being informed and possibly interested in re-evaluating this interesting definition.
The Medicines Act of 1968 (Article 1 of Directive 65) defines a medicinal product as “any substance or combination of substances presented for treating, or preventing disease in human beings or animals…which may be administered with a view to making diagnosis, or to restoring, correcting or modifying physiological function.”
Can natural whole foods and its phytochemicals be classified as medicine because clinical evidence shows their benefits in preventing oxidation, reducing allergic responses, preventing formation of carcinogens, having anti-thrombotic and vasodilatory features, and protecting against bacteria and viruses…just to mention a few benefits?
The bottom line is whatever comes out of a laboratory will not be superior or as synergistic to what Mother Nature’s Phytonutrient Pharmacy has already evolved for generations in harmony with human cellular structures and functions. And, it’s available at minimal cost if you invoke the healing powers of exercise, and whole fruits and vegetables, and whole food dietary supplements.
Twitter
RSS
Free & Powerful
