Nutrition Articles

Taking some simple and easy to follow guidelines into consideration can help you live much longer while improving your quality of life.

First of all, keep in mind that taking the optimal amount of vitamins is essential for a great health. Optimal amounts are usually much higher than those generally recommended. For instance, recommended amount of vitamin C is just enough to avoid getting ill.

With the adequate ingestion of vitamins and other nutrients, and establishing some healthy practices from youth or maturity, you can improve your life quality and length up to twenty five or even thirty years.

The most important consumption increase must be vitamin C, although other vitamins are also important.

Secondly, don?t forget macronutrients. Proteins, carbohydrates and water are called macronutrients, because the body needs large amounts of them. Other substances that are required in smaller amounts are known as micronutrients. These include certain minerals, fat and essential aminoacids (called ?essential? because the body is not able to produce them naturally). The human body contains tens of thousands different proteins that have different uses. Proteins are large chains made of amino acid residues. There is more than twenty different amino acids and their position and sequence in the chain determines the nature (and functionality) of the protein. The necessary amount of protein to ensure aminoacid equilibrium in a human adult is proportional to the body weight, and is about 0.45 grams per kilogram. For children and babies, however, the protein needs are bigger.

Although most amino acids are produced inside our body, there are nine of them that must come from the food we eat, because our body is unable to synthesize them. As stated before, these are called essential amino acids.

Don?t forget to keep a varied diet. In western countries, nutrition science is learning to fight against diseases derived from excess of macronutrients rather than lack of them. In some of those countries, obesity reaches epidemic proportions. It?s useful to know that an overweight of about 25 percent causes minor health problems; at 40 percent, overweight causes frequent diseases and reduces longevity in 4 years. A 50 percent overweight causes an increment of 100 percent in the presence of diseases and reduces life expectancy in about 10 years.

For a treatment against obesity to be successful it must be possible to be kept uninterrupted; and for this to happen the diet should stimulate the appetite. Never, ever get radical with diets; for instance, don?t follow a diet that is based on a single type of food, like the so-called ?macrobiotic Zen? diet, which consists in suppressing every food except brown rice. Following a diet like that for too much time can cause weakening, body systems malfunction and even death. Instead of that, follow a diet that satisfies and fulfills your energetic needs, so you can follow that diet without suffering and keep it that way for years.