Dr. Chet’s Health Memos
If it’s in the health news today, I’ll be writing about it as soon as I read the research, both old and new. With my email Health Memos, you’ll know more about making lifestyle choices that will help you get and keep good health. These free, concise updates on health are emailed to subscribers twice a week. Subscribe today and get a free MP3, in English or Spanish, of Dr. Chet’s Top Ten Tips—Small Changes for a Healthier Life.
How Long Does Fitness Last?
Does exercise when you’re young have any impact when you’re older? That’s the question researchers sought to answer in a very unique study. They recruited men who competed in running events in the 1968 Olympics and evaluated fitness variables to see how they had changed since then. The subjects were tested in 1993 and retested […]
How Chromium Conflicts with Levothyroxine
In the recent series of Memos on thyroid issues, I explained what you need to know about levothyroxine, the medication prescribed for an underactive thyroid gland. New research highlights a key factor in ensuring its effectiveness. Researchers examined a dietary supplement to see what impact it would have on absorption of levothyroxine. They found that […]
Bioavailability Ends with Bioactivity
Here’s where we stand: we’ve digested a nutrient and it’s been absorbed into the bloodstream. How is it going to be used? How do we get the benefit of vitamin C, magnesium, alpha-carotene, or caffeine? Let’s take a look. Many target cells have receptors that are specific to a nutrient, like a wrench that fits […]
Bioavailability Continues with Absorption
On Tuesday I talked about some of the processing required to get nutrients ready for absorption. The next phase of bioavailability is the absorption of the nutrient from the gut into the bloodstream. Let’s look at what’s involved. The absorption process occurs via the intestinal epithelial cells and they vary in size and function in […]
Bioavailability Begins with Digestion
Last Saturday’s Memo introduced a new concept: a systems approach to nutrition. One term that gets bounced around a lot related to dietary supplements or different types of food is bioavailability. Claims are made that “this form of our supplement is 10 times more bioavailable than that form.” It sounds so simple, right? It’s not—we’ll […]
Why Nutrition Is a Process
A celebrity doctor who specializes in cancer treatment said something that caught my attention, and it goes to this question: why are some people cured by specific treatments while others don’t respond at all? In his opinion, it’s because the cancer creates a new system in the body that competes with the other systems. The […]
You Actually Have to Take the Supplements
The authors of the study on calcium and vitamin D supplementation as they relate to fractures were all orthopedic surgeons, as stated in the paper. They had no known training in nutrition. Maybe not statistics either. When you perform a meta-analysis, each research study included is given a weight in the form of a percentage, […]
Are Vitamin D and Calcium Still Worth Taking?
Maybe you recently read a headline that went something like this: “Vitamin D and Calcium Do Not Prevent Fractures.” Many headlines were much worse. Over this past weekend I read the research paper published in JAMA. Is it real? Should you not bother taking your calcium and vitamin D to protect your bones? No—keep taking […]
What’s New on DrChet.com
With a new year just beginning, it’s time to update you on what’s happening in the next month or so. New: The Bottom Line on Alzheimer’s Disease Your brain makes you who you are. We may fear cancer or diabetes but we dread the thought of losing our ability to think. In this Bottom Line, […]
Excuses for Avoiding the Gym
The New Year is upon us and with that, a commitment by many to exercise regularly. No matter where you live, that may involve joining a gym, but all gyms are not created equal. What you need, besides a convenient location and reasonable price, is a facility that provides you with the equipment you need […]
