Obese women that supplemented with a multivitamin lost an average of seven pounds more than women using a placebo.

I’m a firm believer that there’s no such thing as a diet drink or diet pill that will help you lose weight.  There are only two things that will help you lose weight and that’s moving more and eating less.

Yet as much as I believe diet and exercise to be the most important elements to any weight loss program, a new study finds that women—obese women, to be specific—are able to lose more weight if they supplement with a multivitamin as well.

Researchers found this to be the case after a conducting a six-month study that involved 87 Chinese women.  All of the women were obese and were randomly assigned to one of three groups:  a placebo group, a multivitamin group, or a calcium group, where they supplemented with 162 milligrams of calcium every day.

After 26 weeks of observation, the researchers found distinct differences among the women.  For starters, the women taking the multivitamin lost an average of seven pounds more than women taking a calcium supplement and about 7.5 pounds more than women taking the placebo.  What’s more, there were distinct differences in the women’s measurements, as the multivitamin supplementing women had more significant reductions in waist circumference.

Commenting on their study, the Harbin Medical University researchers said, “The results suggest that, in obese individuals, multivitamin and mineral supplementation could reduce body weight and fatness and improve serum lipid profiles, possibly through increased energy expenditure and fat oxidation.”

Their study will be published in the print version of the International Journal of Obesity.

Now, notice the researchers’ word choice:  They say that the results “suggest” multivitamins “could” help people lose weight and that the weight loss was observed among “obese individuals.”  That wasn’t by mistake.  Because if they were to say definitively that multivitamins help all people lose weight, that would be a huge story and would be the top story of evening news broadcasts and news disseminating websites everywhere.

They’re merely stating that a multivitamin “may” help certain people lose weight by initiating greater energy expenditure.  This may be because the cells have the nutrients they need to stoke the body’s metabolism that they didn’t have before.

But the importance of taking a multivitamin daily is important for other things as well.  On the go lifestyles tend to adversely affect our nutrition, so multivitamins give our bodies the vitamins and nutrients they need that we’re not getting from high quality food (sadly, only one in five people get at least five to seven servings of fruits and vegetables a day).  Even people who are extremely conscientious about what they’re feeding they’re body every day fall short here and there.  Multivitamins pick up the slack.

There are many great multivitamins out there, but the one I’m taking currently is Ola Loa (It’s a good idea to switch up your multivitamins now and again).  Unlike most multivitamins, which are pill-form, Ola Loa is a drink mix.  I prefer drinking my multivitamins because 1) it tastes good and 2) the vitamins and nutrients are better absorbed by the body’s cells when in liquid form as opposed to tablet form.

But as LeVar Burton of “Reading Rainbow” likes to say, you don’t have to take my word for it.  Go to Ola Loa’s web site and send away for a free sample.  I know you’ll go back to them again and again for all your multivitamin needs.

I’m in no way affiliated with Ola Loa and I don’t earn any commissions from my recommendation.

Sources:
swansonvitamins.com
energeticnutrition.com

A recent study suggests that multivitamins assist in the anti aging process.

Have you noticed the onslaught of negative press regarding traditional takes on health lately?  From the notion that exercise doesn’t rev metabolism, to antioxidants doing nothing for the body, to the benefits of fish oil being nothing more than a figment of the imagination (I’ll address this in a future article), it’s enough to drive a natural health nut, well, nuts!

Propaganda like this is a real shame.  It confuses and disappoints the average person who has been striving to get healthy, leaving them skeptical of their methods and wondering whether it’s all been worth it.

I know of many people, for instance, who have taken a multivitamin for years, but decided to stop after it was reported that they bring no benefits to the body.  Sure, there’s some legitimacy to the notion that some multivitamins aren’t as good as others, but I flatly reject the notion that they’re nothing more than water pills.

And the National Institute of Environmental Health agrees with me, as a study of theirs indicates that those who supplement with a multivitamin tend to live longer, or have what they call a younger “biological age.”

You’ve probably heard of the body having a biological clock, but we also have a biological age, which is basically a fancy way of describing the age of a body’s cells.  Scientists are able to determine a body’s biological age by looking at things called telomeres.

Telomeres are DNA strands found at the end of chromosomes that progressively shorten as the body’s cells age.  The shorter they are, the more advanced in age the body’s cells are.  Cells are constantly multiplying, so it’s natural for the body’s cells to eventually die (called apoptosis), but ideally, you want the body’s healthy cells to stay that way for as long as possible.

So when researchers compared the telomeres of those who supplemented with a multivitamin regularly with those who did not, they found that those who supplemented had telomeres that were more about five percent longer than the non-multi users.  In other words, those that supplement with a multivitamin have a cellular structure that’s in a younger state.

To be fair, there were some aspects to the study that require further review.  For instance, it was a study that only included women, and since males and females have different cellular structures, the findings might be different in men.  But among women, the researchers were able to make the appropriate adjustments to their findings based on what nutrients the women were high or low in (via food frequency questionnaires).

The study is published in The American Journal of Nutrition.

It’s estimated that 35 percent of the population supplement with a multivitamin.  That’s great, but it could be higher – much higher.

That doesn’t mean those that don’t supplement should go out and get any old multivitamin.  A recent ConsumerLabs.com report found that 30 percent of the multi-vitamins tested in their labs had ingredients that were above or below their dosage listed on the bottle.  For instance, one multivitamin had half the amount of folic acid it claimed to have, and 30 percent of the calcium.

Personally, I use the multivitamin made by Nature’s Way.  It’s called “Alive!  Whole Food Energizer.”  You can get a complete breakdown of its benefits and ingredient listings here.  I also use Ola Loa, which is a drinkable multi vitamin. I have no financial ties to Nature’s Way or Ola Loa, LLC.  I simply use these brands because I believe in the products and believe them to be among the best multivitamins on the market today.

To keep your body’s cells alive, go out and grab a bottle of Alive! today.

Source:
nutraingredients.com
calgaryherald.com