Healing with Vitamins

There's an explosion of new research showing that individual nutrients do everything from preventing and curing disease to holding back the aging process. Vitamins and minerals can ease the pain and inflammation of arthritis. They can help burns and other wounds heal faster. They can help women get through menopause and help men stay sexually vital on into their later years. Vitamins and minerals can help prevent recurring headaches and ease symptoms of the common cold. They can protect you from heart disease and the damage that comes from high cholesterol. They can help preserve your memory and help keep your skin smooth as you age... Does all of this sound a little too good to be true? Well, it all comes from top doctors and researchers around the nation. Over the past few years, they've made incredible leaps forward in understanding how to use common vitamins and minerals for healing. All that new knowledge is presented in this book in easy-to-use format. The editors of this book spent two years reviewing studies and interviewing hundreds of researchers to answer your vital questions about how to use vitamins and minerals to prevent and cure disease.

Fans of Prevention magazine, familiar with its enthusiasm for nutritional supplements, will probably welcome having its suggestions handy in a single volume. Brief descriptions of 16 minerals, seven trace minerals and seven vitamins give for each an official Daily Value (if known; otherwise, the Estimated Safe and Adequate Daily Dietary Intake), as well as good food sources of the nutrient and advice on using it safely. Oddly, zinc is with the vitamins, not with the other minerals. Next is a catalogue of health problems from Age Spots to Yeast Infections, with some entries rather lengthy (Osteoporosis runs a dozen pages). In general, the editors take a fairly conservative approach, citing research studies and noting when findings are preliminary or merely suggest that a given nutrient may be effective. Each entry features a table listing specific amounts of recommended "healing" nutrients, but whose recommendations these are is unclear. Vague expressions such as "some experts" and "some doctors" are used repeatedly, making the tables' value questionable. For getting a fuller picture, the text is essential.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.