Welcome <> to the inaugural edition of Making You Healthy. It's not as esthetically beautiful as I had pictured it in my head, but I'm still learning. Besides, the information is the most important thing anyway, right?

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Here Is The
#1 Health Tip
You'll Ever Receive...

Plain and simple. Giving your body everything it needs to function optimally is the best thing you can do to either improve your health and/or prevent future health problems.

Why? Your body is designed to be self-repairing. It can do a WAY better job of "fixing" you than any medical intervention we have. BUT it needs to be functioning properly to do this. To get it to function properly, you need to give it everything it needs. The only way to do this is through optimal nutrition.

The key word here is "optimal". Most people believe that if they eat a properly balanced, healthy diet, they're doing enough. Sorry to burst your bubble, but that is absolutely wrong. It's no longer physically possible to get everything you need from diet alone. For example, do you eat 33 pounds of spinach every day? Or 5 pounds of wheat germ? No? Then you're not getting the optimal amount of vitamin E your body needs. And that's just vitamin E- what about everything else you need?

Let's use a houseplant for an analogy... The houseplants in my house get a splash of water every month or two (basically when I notice they're getting "wilty") and that's it. Consequently, my plants are not the best-looking specimens around and they don't often grow- they just exist. Eventually, they deteriorate to the point that they're dead. My friend's houseplants get watered every few days and are on a regular schedule of the appropriate plant food. She also puts new dirt and compost in them regularly and whatever else you're supposed to do with plants. Her plants are the most beautiful ones I've ever seen and they grow like crazy. Because she gives them optimal growing conditions.

Our bodies are like the houseplants. We can either give them optimal nutrients and they will be healthy and thrive or we can give them little nutrients and they will be unhealthy and slowly die. Most people's plant care is somewhere in the middle of my two examples and most people's diets are somewhere in the middle as well. In both cases it's still suboptimal.

Suboptimal nutrition results in your body not functioning the way it's supposed to. This causes all kinds of problems you usually don't even notice until much later. One of the major problems is that your body isn't able to repair all the damage it's exposed to everyday. That damage is what leads to disease and the "normal" symptoms of aging. In an upcoming newsletter, I'll tell you why there is no such thing as "normal" symptoms of aging.

In the meantime, click here to find out more about optimal nutrition.

Next month: How to actually achieve optimal nutrition.

Joke of the Month

1. The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

3. The Japanese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

4. The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than the British or Americans.

CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Nutrition News

What Is Vitamin D? What Are The Benefits Of Vitamin D?

High Levels Of Vitamin D In Older People Can Reduce Heart Disease And Diabetes

Development Of Dietary Formula That Maintains Youthful Function Into Old Age

Mediterranean Diet: Ingredients For A Heart-Healthy Eating Approach

See you next month...

Good Health to You,

Kristy Russ, BScPharm Pharmacist and Health Consultant