Women Need Folic Acid
January 4, 2009
National Folic Acid Awareness Month is taking place this month so brides-to-be should start taking a daily multivitamin with 400 micrograms (mcg) of Folic Acid daily to protect their own health and the health of their children-to-be.
What is Folic Acid?
Folic Acid is a water-soluble B vitamin found in foods, such as leafy green vegetables, fruits, beans, yeast, liver and fortified cereals. This essential B-vitamin helps build and maintain healthy cells, which is especially critical for the developing fetus. Studies have shown that if taken before and during early pregnancy, folic acid can significantly reduce the number of birth defects of the brain and spine called neural tube defects (NTDs) by up to 70 percent. Despite the food fortification program that began in 1998, which enriched breads, cereals, flours, corn meals, pastas, rice, and other grain products with folic acid, the average non-pregnant Caucasian woman gets only 128 mcg per day of folic acid from fortified food, and African American and Hispanic women get even less folic acid in their daily diet.
“Nearly half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned and that the average woman is getting less than one-third of the recommended amount of folic acid. We also know that the odds of having a baby born with an NTD could be greatly reduced by women of childbearing age getting the recommended amount of folic acid.” says Elizabeth T. Jordan, a perinatal clinical nurse specialist.
SOURCE: PR Newswire
Fish Oil Plus Red Yeast Rice Lowers Cholesterol
July 24, 2008
By Scott Welch
Okay, now the next time your aunt Shirley whines to you about her high cholesterol you can tell her to stop eating the donuts, get her ass to the gym and go eat some Fish Oil stacked with Red Yeast Rice (whatever the heck that stuff is)? A recent study published by the medical journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings found that a combination of Fish Oil supplements, therapeutic lifestyle changes and Red Yeast Rice was as effective as the statin drug Simvastatin (pictured below) in lowering LDL-C cholesterol. The group taking supplements, who were also encouraged to lower their intake of saturated fats and to increase their daily exercise, also displayed larger reductions in triglycerides and weight loss than the Simvastatin group. 
Read the full study here: http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/inside.asp?AID=4722&UID