Aging and Micronutrient Deficiency

Jessica Forbes MS, CCN — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 04:10:30 +0000

As a nutritionist, I am continually aware of the latest and greatest supplements out there to help combat the aging process. I do agree that many of these supplements—especially those containing antioxidants—are important, but I am sometimes concerned that all the media hype around anti-aging formulas makes people forget that the basic micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) found in food and in multivitamin formulas are part of the foundation for healthy aging. Here are a few things to consider:

Our modern food supply is lower in micronutrients than it was 50 or 100 years ago because crops nowadays tend to be grown in soil that has been stripped of nutrients through over-farming or use of chemical fertilizers. To make sure you are getting the most nutritious food available, buy food as fresh as possible from local sources such as farmers markets and/or start your own backyard garden using compost as fertilizer.
All of the bodily processes that are intimately involved in healthy aging such as cell division and producing correct copies of DNA rely on a vast assortment of essential vitamins and minerals that should be found in a healthy diet. When our diets are deficient in these nutrients due to food processing or eating the wrong types of foods, it sets us up for the signs of accelerated aging caused by unhealthy cell division and damage to DNA.
A simple multivitamin formula may provide “extra insurance” to help supply your daily needs for micronutrients. Just be sure that it contains absorbable forms of nutrients and does not contain a lot of fillers. One way to quickly check the quality of your multivitamin is to look on the label for what form of calcium it contains. The “calcium carbonate” form of calcium is the cheapest form out there and is one of the least absorbable. If a multivitamin contains this form as its sole source of calcium, I usually take it as a sign that the overall formula is not as absorbable as others out there. This is not a hard and fast rule, and there are times when calcium carbonate is helpful (such as in antacids) but I personally don’t think it belongs in a quality multivitamin.

For an interesting read on micronutrients and aging, please see the article by Bruce Ames printed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America titled “Low micronutrient intake may accelerate the degenerative diseases of aging through allocation of scarce micronutrients by triage”. The full text article is available online.

Even More Questions

Jessica Forbes MS, CCN — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:05:12 +0000

We have had such a great response to the request for questions for the upcoming “Ask the Nutritionist” webinar on December 20th that I thought to spend another week’s blog sharing them with you. If you’d like to register for this free webinar please click on the following link:

To send your questions in advance, please e-mail us at info@marilynfarms.com. We’ll get to as many questions as we can in the one-hour session. I hope to talk with you soon!

 What is the major difference, besides price, between a generic multivitamin that I would buy at the drug store and the multivitamins that Marilyn Farms sells?

 Is calcium the best thing I can take for bone health? What is the difference between Marilyn Farms OsteoDefense and Calcium Complex?

 Please explain the difference between the different Omega Oils, 3, 6, and 9. Do I need all of these every day? And if so, in what quantities?

 Is saturated fat bad for me? If so, what are better fats to eat?

 Sometimes when I feel like I’m getting sick I exercise, and I start feeling better. Why is that?

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Aging and Micronutrient Deficiency

Even More Questions