Stop Guessing: Get The Facts About Your Nutritional Needs

Posted by on Apr 3, 2010 in DNA-Based Nutrition, Nutrient Deficiencies, Total Body Magazine | 1 comment | 370 views

Total Body Magazine - March/April 2010 IssueYou spend hours every week in the gym and try to eat right, but maintaining a good figure, good skin and good health seems like it gets harder and harder. Isn’t there an easier way stay on top of physical health?

Science has made some of its most impactful strides recently to help us determine when and how our bodies are out of balance. But where do you start? It seems like every day brings a new wave of information about diet and nutrients. And that can get overwhelming. When it comes to nutrition, there are two ways we can go about deciding what our body needs – guessing or assessing.

There is a lot of information and research out there about the best diet for weight loss, for putting on muscle or for specific athletic activities, but they rarely answer the three most important questions about nutrition:What does my body need? What is my body missing? What shouldn’t I eat?

What does my body need?
There are long strands of molecules in every cell of our bodies called DNA – the language of living beings. Certain combinations of the molecules in the DNA create stories. These stories are called genes. Our genes determine every process in the body, from the natural color of our hair and eyes to our resting heart rate to how likely we are to get certain diseases.

They do this by creating workers inside the cell called enzymes. This happens thousands of times a second. How well the genes do their job depends on the nutrients they receive from the food you eat. Nutrigenomics is the brand-new field of research that is determining which nutrients help each gene work its best.

Scientists can now read our DNA and see what kind of story it tells us. This can let us know if our parents gave us strong or weak genes. Some of these genes relate to specific parts of our health such as bone strength, blood pressure and toxin removal.With a simple DNA test from a swab of the inside of the cheek, we can know exactly which genes are weak. Better yet, we now have the research that shows exactly which nutrients we need to make those weak genes stronger.

A number of companies can do this testing, but only one company is able to manufacture a completely customized supplement to address 12 different potentially weak genes that have a huge impact on your overall health. This completely customized supplement is called LifeMap Me and has more than 50 nutrients in each caplet completely customized for your DNA.

These are nutrients your body will always need to keep your genes strong since there is no way to change the genes themselves. Think of this as a very specific and customized replacement for your multivitamin that you take right now (or the one you should be taking). For more information, visit www.ILoveDNA.com.

What is my body missing?
Nutrients are the parts of food that are needed by every cell in the body to function properly. Vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids and fiber are all considered nutrients. When nutrients are missing for a long period of time, it can make the body more prone to disease. Many lab tests can give a snapshot of what nutrients are missing inside the body. The problem is that these tests give just a snapshot that shows what has been missing during the past 24 to 48 hours.
A better way to see what the body is missing is to look inside the cell and stress it to see what it really wants.
One company has developed a procedure that looks inside white blood cells to test for more than 30 different essential nutrients to see what has been missing during the past three to four months. SpectraCell, headquartered in Houston, has been on the cutting edge of this kind of testing for more than 15 years.
To make getting this test worthwhile, you must commit to a pretest, a three- to six-month nutrient therapy regimen prescribed by your doctor and a follow-up test at the end. If everything gets balanced, it is recommended to get the test once a year or every other year to make sure you stay on track. For more information about SpectraCell and available lab tests, visit www.SpectraCell.com.

What shouldn’t I eat?
Sometimes it’s not about what you eat, it’s what you don’t eat. Due to our modern habits of eating the same foods over and over and all of the additives, preservatives, binders and fillers that we get in our foods, food allergies and sensitivities are on the rise. A food allergy is basically the body’s immune system or cells reacting negatively to a food that you may have eaten your entire life.
There are two important tests to get done. One looks directly at the immune system for what is called a true allergy. These occur in about 5 percent of people, and the symptoms are usually very immediate (like people whose throats close up when eating shellfish). True allergies can be tested for in two ways.
The skin patch or scratch tests place a small amount of each allergen just below the surface of the skin. Doctors wait about 15 minutes to see how the skin reacts. There is also a blood test that looks for a specific type of immune molecule called IgE. Different IgEs form for each true allergy. True allergies are dangerous and should be taken seriously. These tests only need to be done once, and the bad foods should be avoided forever.
Another type of food allergy that affects more than 80 percent of the population is known as a food sensitivity. A food sensitivity is the one whose symptoms – like headaches, upset stomach or skin break-outs – occur hours or even days after eating a particular food. A simple blood test can reveal these sensitivities. The most advanced form of this test looks inside the cell to see which foods it does not like. ALCAT is a company at the cutting edge of this type of testing.
This test requires a commitment to a pretest, a four-day rotation diet to help desensitize the body to the bad foods, and an optional follow-up test. Luckily, once desensitized, you can start eating most of the foods again. For more information, visit www.ALCAT.com.

Getting Started
These tests and the nutrient regimens that follow are rarely covered by insurance because they are not designed to treat a specific disease. It is recommended to implement these programs early to help prevent diseases from developing in the first place. As usual, you should always consult your medical doctor, chiropractor or registered dietitian before beginning any nutritional program or to decide which test to do first.
This article was authored by Dr. Al Jameson and is re-published with permission from Total Body Magazine.  To view the original article, please go to the March/April 2010 Issue.