Optimal Daily Amounts (ODA’s) are often ten times the standard Recommended Daily Amounts (RDA’s), which reflect only the minimum level of nutrients required to prevent obvious vitamin deficiencies.
But who wants to just function with the bare minimum? What about enjoying a state of good health with boundless energy and a general feeling of wellbeing. This can be achieved by being optimally rather than minimally nourished. Look at the chart again and you’ll notice the disparity between ODAs and the nutrients provided by a standard diet (black bars).
What’s even more concerning is the shortfall in nutrients provided by a healthier diet with plenty of whole foods, fruit and vegetables, which still fails to meet the ODAs for each nutrient. That’s why I’m convinced of the essential role of supplements to top up the shortfall in nutrients from the diet, and want to show you the difference that optimum nutrition can make.
The Concept of Optimum Nutrition
The concept of optimum nutrition was probably first put forward by the ‘Father of Modern Medicine’, Hippocrates, who lived around 400BCE. He believed that ‘food should be your medicine’ and that ‘medicine should be your food’.
In more modern history Linus Pauling, twice Nobel Prize winner, put forward his beliefs on optimum nutrition which he described as ‘orthomolecular nutrition’. Pauling believed that ensuring optimum levels in the diet of natural substances like vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acidsAmino acids are commonly known as the building blocks of protein. There are 20 standard amino acids from which almost all proteins are made. Nine… and fatty acids resulted in less chemical imbalances in the body, thus allowing the body to achieve optimal health. Dr Pauling was convinced that optimum nutrition would be the ‘medicine’ of the future.
I take optimal levels every day. It’s my insurance formula for a full and healthy life. Having spent years researching nutrition, in the early 2000’s I formulated exactly what I’d like to be taking.
You can see this in the table below.
The Optimum Nutrition Pack is my daily insurance policy. This pack meets the shortfall between what I get from my diet and what I feel I need to deliver optimum health. It could meet your dietary shortfall too, if you have any, ensuring the levels in your diet to deliver optimum nutrition.
Antioxidant Protection
Every minute of your life you are bombarded by oxidants. Some come from sunlight, even on a cloudy day, others come from fried food, smoke and exhaust fumes. But most come from the normal body process of burning food for energy. If present in excess, these can cause damage to the cells that make up your body. Antioxidants are the solution. The main antioxidants are vitamin A, vitamin CWhat it does: Strengthens immune system – fights infections. Makes collagen, keeping bones, skin and joints firm and strong. Antioxidant, detoxifying pollutants and protecting against…, vitamin EWhat it does: Acts as an antioxidant, protecting cells from damage, including against cancer. Helps body use oxygen, preventing blood clots, thrombosis, atherosclerosis. Improves wound…, anthocyanidins (found in berries, which recycles glutathione), seleniumWhat it does: Antioxidant properties help to protect against free radicals and carcinogens, reduces inflammation, stimulates immune system to fight infections, promotes a healthy heart,… and zincWhat it does: Component of over 200 enzymes in the body, essential for growth, important for healing, controls hormones, aids ability to cope with stress…. They are all team players, recycling each other and working in synergy, so they all need to be provided in your daily supplement in order to harness their benefits.
THE OPTIMUM NUTRITION PACK gives you antioxidantAntioxidants are substances that protect cells within the body from damage caused by free radicals. They help to strengthen the body’s ability to fight infection… protection through:
Vitamin A • Beta-carotene • Zinc • Anthocyanidins • Selenium • Vitamin C • Vitamin E
Boost Your B Vitamins
We all want to enjoy boundless energy, be able to cope well under pressure and maintain a balanced state of mind. The answer is B vitamins. B1, B2, B3 and B5 are all essential for turning glucose from food into fuel and for supporting healthy levels of important brain chemicals, called neurotransmitters. Your body communicates through chemical reactions, a billion every second. This chemical ‘dance’ depends upon B6, folic acidWhat it does: Critical during pregnancy for the development of a baby’s brain and nerves. Also essential for brain and nerve function. Needed for utilising… and B12. So an optimal intake keeps your body chemistry in balance and helps maintain healthy homocysteineHomocysteine is an amino acid found in the blood. Elevated levels of homocysteine have been associated with narrowing and hardening of the arteries, an increased… levels.
THE OPTIMUM NUTRITION PACK safeguards B vitamins intake with:
B1 • B2 • Niacin (B3) • B5 • B6 • Folic Acid • B12
Immune Support
With more bacteria inside your body than living cells, your immune system is constantly being challenged. The immune system depends on a whole host of nutrients for support and maintenance, including vitamin C and zinc. Vitamin C has no less than 10 known functions in immune health and with the demands on your immune system ever present from the stresses and strains of everyday life, I recommend you take an optimal dose.
THE OPTIMUM NUTRITION PACK supports your immune system with:
Vitamin C • Zinc • Black elderberry • Bilberry
Essential Omega 3 & 6 Fats
Omega 3 and 6 fats are essential for your health for two main reasons:
• They are essential for every single cell in your body, including your skin and your brain, the dry weight of which is 60% fatThere are many different types of fats; polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, hydrogenated, saturated and trans fat. The body requires good fats (polyunsaturated and monounsaturated) in order to…. They make ‘prostaglandins’ which are involved in a huge range of different functions in the body.
• They cannot be made by your body so you need to obtain them through your diet. So much so that the Food Standards Agency (FSA) suggest that fish should be eaten every week (for women they recommend 2 portions of fish a week and up to 4 portions for men). However many people do not like the taste of fish and there is also the worry about heavy metal pollution like harmful PCB’s in fish. Good quality fish oil supplements can be purified to give you a virtually PCB free oil.
The Optimum Nutrition Pack contains the key fats: EPAEPA is short for Eicosapentaenoic Acid. It is an essential omega-3 fatty acid found in fish such as salmon, mackerel and herring, and is often… • DPA • DHADHA is short for Docosahexaenoic Acid. It is an essential omega-3 fatty acid found in fish such as salmon, mackerel and herring, and is often… • GLAGamma Linolenic Acid (GLA) is an essential fatty acid within the omega-6 family. It is found primarily in plant based oils such as evening primrose…
Maximise Your Minerals
Vitamins get a lot of press, but did you know that we are often more deficient in minerals than we are in vitamins? Many people do not achieve even the RDA for ironWhat it does: As a component of red blood cells, iron transports oxygen and carbon dioxide to and from cells. Also vital for energy production…., zinc and magnesiumWhat it does: Strengthens bones and teeth, promotes healthy muscles by helping them to relax, also important for PMS, important for heart muscles and nervous… in their diets. Iron is essential for haemoglobinHaemoglobin is the protein that is found in red blood cells. It contains iron and is responsible for carrying oxygen from the lungs to the…, the molecule that carries oxygen. Your cells can’t ‘breathe’ without it. Zinc is involved in 200 enzymes in the body, as is magnesium, an essential component of bones, muscles and nerves.
Not all minerals have RDAs but that doesn’t mean they’re not essential. ChromiumWhat it does: Helps balance blood sugar, normalise hunger and reduce cravings, improves lifespan, helps protect cells, essential for heart function. Deficiency Signs: Excessive or… and selenium are a case in point. Achieving an optimum intake of these minerals is one of my key ‘optimum nutrition’ objectives. That’s why I eat both mineral rich foods such as seeds and take a mineral supplement every day.
The Optimum Nutrition Pack tops up your mineral levels with:
CalciumWhat it does: Promotes a healthy heart, clots blood, promotes healthy nerves, contracts muscles, improves skin, bone and dental health, relieves aching muscles and bones,… • Magnesium • Iron • Zinc • Chromium • Selenium • Iodine
Not All Supplements Are Equal
It is one thing to take a supplement. It is quite another for that supplement to be absorbed into your body. Take zinc as an example. Zinc citrate is twice as well absorbed as zinc sulphate. Of course the latter is cheaper which is why many companies use it. Patrick Holford supplements don’t cut costs or corners. And nor should you. By eating the right food and taking the right supplements, you can achieve optimum nutrition for you and your family.
Will the Optimum Nutrition Pack Make a Difference?
Take the Optimum Nutrition Pack for a month and I am sure you will see and feel the difference.
So there you have it – three carefully chosen complexes in the Optimum Nutrition Pack, all working together to help you maintain good energy and to support your body and mind to remain strong and healthy.
Is It Expensive to be Optimally Nourished?
The Optimum Nutrition Pack costs only £1.73 a day at RRP – or £1.38 if a Holford Health Club Member Sometimes less if there’s an offer – see FEEL YOUR BEST offer until 18 September.
That’s half the price of a coffee!
Is It Enough At Any Age?
When you get older your need for many nutrients increase. When I hit 50 – I am now 64 – I developed a souped-up 100% Health Pack, also giving an antioxidant complex called AGE Antioxidant®, with glutathione, alpha lipoic acid(ALA) and ten other key antioxidants; and Brain Food® providing phospholipids and extra B vitamins and other nutrients required by the brain. If you are over 50, or have a very demanding life, you might want to take the 100% Health Pack instead.
Further Information
Each Pack gives you two strips a day, for 28 days. For complete convenience, the days supply of supplements comes in a handy tear off strip, which can easily be slipped into a pocket, wallet or handbag ready to take whenever it suits. So there’s no need to count out pills from different bottles or try and remember whether supplements have been taken. This has to be the easiest way to achieve peace of mind.
Optimum Nutrition Pack and 100% Health Pack are available from HOLFORDirect and are part of the FEEL YOUR BEST selection of supplements – on offer until 18 September.
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