Powerful synergy of whole food nutrition: The idea that our foods can provide everything our bodies need to be healthy and vital for a hundred years or more has its roots in centuries old perceptions. Hippocrates, a 5th Century BC medical genius, said “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food,” and this idea is still frequently used today by leading medical experts and scientists to summarise the importance of food to health. There is little doubt that Hippocrates had it right. He did live to be 90 after all, an exceedingly rare old age for his times.
Whole food Nutrient Synergy:
The New Health Paradigm
Since Hippocrates’ time, science has endeavoured to find what exactly it is in our food that promotes health when it’s present, and allows disease when it’s not. Until recently, researchers almost always took the pharmaceutical perspective of looking for things in isolation; searching for the “one thing” that does the trick. However, after decades of failed attempts it has become apparent that there is no “one thing.” In fact, the interactions between our whole-food, the nutrients they contain, and the cells, tissue, organs and systems that make up a human body are highly complex, synergistic involving a cast of hundreds, all inter-dependent on another.
Evidence of this change in thinking is appearing increasingly often in the world’s leading scientific journals. There is still long way to go, this new understanding brings a powerful opportunity for health-conscious persons to take even greater control of their health destinies.
Food Prevents Disease!
There is no doubt that some foods can prevent disease. It is equally well known that some foods can cause it. It’s a simple fact. That’s why an ever-growing number of forward thinking medical and health professionals tell us to eat more of certain foods and make sure to avoid others. The types of foods they want us to eat more of are the same ones we’ve been hearing about for years: fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish being at the top of the list. What they are saying about the importance of these Whole foods and specifically which nutrients they provide, highlights a change in thinking. Their list of nutrients includes carotenoids, omega-3 fatty acids, polyphenols, cruciferous compounds and more.
Carotenoids and Omega-3 Fatty Acids Offer Most Protection
Many scientific publications are drawing increasing attention to the importance of these whole-food nutrient groups in health protection and disease prevention. Nowhere is that evidence more compelling than for carotenoids and omega-3 fatty acids. The most important take-away message for the health-conscious consumer is the benefit of incorporating the complete range of these nutrients into one’s diet on a daily basis rather than just on occasion.
Nutrient Density and Diversity Is Key
The idea that nutrients exist in complex families that operate both individually and in synergy with others is a fundamental principle of our NeoLife’s nutritional supplement research and product line. We believe Nature always has a purpose in the way things are. We call it “following Nature’s blueprint” and it has allowed us to provide Whole food nutritional supplementation that delivers both the nutrient density and diversity a healthy diet demands. Evidence continues to point out, and has proven yet again to be the right thing to do.
Carotenoids:
Much More Than Just Beta-Carotene
When the evidence of the health protecting benefits of colourful fruits and vegetables first began to appear, many health and food marketers focused entirely on just one carotenoid; betacarotene. Even though there was no evidence that this nutrient was responsible all by itself, it was a quick and easy way for some marketers to capitalise on this emerging science and subsequent consumer interest.
However, since then, science has slowly but surely been pointing out the fallacy of that approach. As early as October 2000, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health published evidence in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluding that it was the family of several carotenoids, including alpha & beta-carotene, lycopene, lutein and beta-cryptoxanthin that together protect our health and reduce the risk of disease.
Lesser-known Carotenoids:
Now Getting the Attention they Deserve
In addition to their synergistic relationship with other carotenoid family members, several carotenoids that are less known have been getting an increasing level of scientific attention and proof of dietary importance. These include: Alpha-carotene, Alpha-cryptoxanthin, Beta-cryptoxanthin, Canthaxanthin and Capsanthin.
The NeoLife Difference
Paying respect to the diversity of Nature’s plan for human nutrition has always been a core principle in the NeoLife approach to nutritional health. Looking to Whole foods as the source for nutrients is always step one. Developing the processes and technologies needed to identify, concentrate and deliver the complete families of nutrients present in the human food chain is a hallmark of our history. Testing and proving their effectiveness at the frontiers of nutritional science are all powerful reasons for our decades of unsurpassed product success. For all those who look to assure they receive what Nature intended and the human body needs every day, NeoLife remains their best, if not only choice.
Whole Food Diversity
When NeoLife’s Scientific Advisory Board set out to develop the world’s first whole-food carotenoid supplement, the strategy then was to capture and deliver the entire family of carotenoids present in carrots, tomatoes, spinach, red bell peppers, peaches, strawberries and apricots. Since that time science has confirmed the presence of those carotenoids and the health promoting significance of that strategy. Carotenoid Complex is still the only product to offer such proven protection and benefit.
Omega-3’s:
Way Beyond Heart Health
When researchers first discovered that people who had high dietary intakes of fats known as omega-3’s did not get heart disease, they were shocked. Up to then a high fat diet was bad for you…period. That was the dawning of the understanding that when it comes to nutrition and health there are good fats and bad fats. Along with that came the realisation that we eat far too much of the bad and not nearly enough of the good.
As research began to look into what made omega-3 fats so cardio-protective, new nutrient names began to emerge. First was eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). Then came docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Both of these nutrients became synonymous with heart health and a new market was born as consumers got the message and felt the benefits of omega-3 supplementation.
For decades after, EPA and DHA were regarded as the primary bioactive omega-3 fatty acids. As more new evidences emerged showing benefits beyond heart health it was initially just considered another aspect of EPA and DHA.
Look Closer at Nature’s Blueprint and You See There are 8
In recent years as science has looked ever more deeply into omega-3 fatty acids and their roles in human health and nutrition, it became apparent that there was more going on than could be easily connected to just these two omega-3’s. As important as EPA and DHA are, other members of the omega-3 family began to get attention; and they all seem to play important roles, either individually or synergistically, to your health.
Omega-3’s Boost Benefits of Carotenoids: Synergy within Synergy
As researchers continue to delve into the depth of human biochemistry a consistent finding is that things are complicated. There’s an increasingly long list of nutrients that play individual and synergistic roles never before understood or fully appreciated. Such discoveries are not as surprising as they once were however. Increasing numbers of researchers are accepting that the benefits of nutrients for health protection, and functional longevity will be found in their broad array and interactions.
The NeoLife Difference
The NeoLife Scientific Advisory Board first began investigating omega-3 fatty acids in the late 1970’s. The goal was to deliver a product that respected Nature’s blueprint and fulfilled the scientific discovery that people who ate the most cold, salt-water fish had the lowest risk of heart disease. To do that we relied upon whole, pure Salmon Oil from the most pristine waters of the cold North Atlantic. Following decades of ongoing research, today’s Omega-3 Salmon Oil Plus represents the leading edge of omega-3 supplementation. Still based on pure salmon oil, it is the first product to apply the technology known as “molecular differentiation” and deliver all 8 members of the omega-3 fatty acid family involved in human nutrition.
Lesser-known Omega-3s: Getting More and More Attention
As the intricacies of omega-3 nutrition become more clearly understood new nutrients names are taking the spotlight. Docosapentaenoic acid (DPA) is now known to play important roles in heart health individually and with EPA and DHA. Eicosatrienoic acid (ETA (3)) and Eicosatetraenoic acid (ETA) are being seen as key nutrients in inflammatory balance and natural repair processes.
DPA and Heart Health
Initial indications that another omega-3 known as docosapentaenoic acid was important to heart health began to emerge in the early 2000’s. In an article published in the journal of Circulation in November 2002 researchers concluded that there was a stronger beneficial cardiovascular association between serum DHA and DPA than for DHA and EPA2. Since many articles have pointed to the importance of DPA, especially in synergy with other omega-3’s.
ETA (3), ETA & EPA: The Power of 3
Evidence continues to emerge for these three members of the omega-3 family. Together they are known as the “eicosanoids”; Eicosatrienoic acid (ETA(3)), Eicosatetraenoic acid (ETA), and Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). These three omega-3 eicosanoids work together as the anti-inflammatory counter-balance to their inflammatory omega-6 counterparts that dominate the western diet. They are also the building blocks for the omega-3 “autacoids” which play key roles in the auto-repair functions of the body.
Factoid:
Though in relatively small quantities in the body in general, DHA is the most abundant fatty acid in the retina. It is safe to say that the human body is programmed to need and work with many hundreds of nutrients present in the natural human food chain. Those nutrients need to come from whole-food sources if they are to fulfil those needs. And they all need to be present all of the time for things to work their best. An example of how important those nutrient-nutrient
relationships are can be seen in an article published in the European Journal of Nutrition that showed that omega-3 fatty acids seem to have the capability of boosting the benefits of some carotenoids.
- Though they play critical roles in nutrition and health protection, carotenoids cannot be manufactured by any animal and thus must be received through the diet.
- All omega-3 fatty acids have their origin in plants as alpha-linolenic acid. It is considered a dietary essential because humans (or other animals) cannot make it and thus must obtain it from the daily diet.
- Just as good fats like DHA have been linked to calmness and mental clarity in children and adults, bad fats in general, and trans-fats in particular have been linked to increased aggression and irritability. (UC San Diego Dept. of Medicine, Plos ONE, Omega-3 Mar 2012).
NEOLIFE SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
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