Most people know very little about the quality of the water they use. Even those of us who recognize the potential health risks in tap water often choose cost-effectiveness and convenience over superior quality.
Searching for information about your local water quality and how to improve it can make you feel like you're in chemistry class! Here's primer on why you should filter water and types of filtering systems.
Electro-pH™ Complex supports the body's fluid electrolytes through key minerals, including potassium, magnesium, sodium, and calcium. The potassium and sodium are in bicarbonate form for nutritional alkaline support.‡ Additionally, the formula utilizes trace minerals (zinc, selenium, and molybdenum).
Mix 1 scoop with up to 8 ounces of water. Mix well before drinking. Use once a day, or as directed by your healthcare professional.
Storage instructions: Store at room temperature away from direct sunlight. Keep this bottle tightly closed.
Energy Sports Drinks
By Gene Bruno, MS, MHS – Dean of Academics, Huntington College of Health Sciences
The longer an event lasts, the greater impact nutritional factors have on performance. In events lasting less than an hour, there is little need to consume extra fluid, electrolytes or calories during the physical activity. However, in longer events, problems such as glycogen depletion and hydration can occur.1
When liver and muscle stores of glycogen are depleted, any demanding physical activity comes to a halt. This is primarily due to a lack of readily available calories necessary to maintain blood sugar levels. As blood sugar levels drop, fatigue sets in. Low blood sugar is not immediately life threatening like dehydration but it does slow down performance.2 Carbohydrate loading in the days prior to the event will help store extra glycogen, but in long term events this must also be supplemented with some immediate form of calories 2-4 hours before exercise.3
By Gene Bruno, MS, MHS – Dean of Academics, Huntington College of Health Sciences
Cellulite is more common in women than in men. The reason for this is that a layer of connective tissue is more irregular and discontinuous in women than in men.1 The dimpled, “cottage cheese” appearance of cellulite is simply fat tissue which is pressing through connective tissue. This might be compared to wearing a button-up-the-front shirt which is too small for you, and seeing your tummy press through the shirt openings where the fabric is straining against the buttons. Nonetheless, as “unsightly” as cellulite is, it is actually no different than any other type of body fat.
This is good news for cellulite sufferers since they can apply many of the same effective strategies for losing cellulite, as they would use for losing body fat in other areas. This includes the use of natural agents such oligopeptides and chitosan which reduce dietary fat absorption, as well as thermogenic agents which help promote “fat burning.” In addition, a new dietary supplement strategy is currently being promoted in our industry which purports to enhance cellulite reduction. This strategy was originated by Dr. Gianfranco Merrizi.
Amino Acid Synergy is useful as a general supplement to diets that are insufficient in quality protein, for athletes that require additional amino acids to maintain or achieve greater lean body mass, for patients who are cachexic from chronic illness or GI malabsorption, for individuals who are in catabolic states due to stress or illness, for those recovering from surgery or tissue trauma, for people wanting better quality hair and nails and for patients who have been found to have confirmed amino acid deficiencies on metabolic testing. Amino acids play central roles both as building blocks of proteins and as intermediates in metabolism. The precise amino acid content, and the sequence of those amino acids, of a specific protein, determines the biological activity of the protein. Proteins not only catalyze all (or most) of the reactions in living cells, they control virtually all cellular processes. Humans can produce 10 of the 20 amino acids. The others must be supplied in food. Failure to obtain enough of even 1 of the 10 essential amino acids, those that we cannot make, results in degradation of the body's proteins, including muscle. Unlike fat and starch, the human body does not store excess amino acids for later use so amino acids must be consumed every day. Amino Acid Synergy provides a mixture of essential amino in the free-form, meaning they are immediately available for absorption and can be put to metabolic use much more readily and rapidly when compared to amino acids contained in dietary protein.
By Art Presser, PharmD - President, Huntington College of Health Sciences
Smart SupplementationTM is a free series of educational literature created by Huntington College of Health Sciences (HCHS) as a public service. Although copyrighted, it may be freely photocopied and distributed, but may not be altered in any way. Smart SupplementationTM is not intended as medical advice. For diagnosis and treatment of any medical condition, consult your physician.
Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, and the end-result of protein digestion. That is, the body digests protein into individual amino acids and then rebuilds them back into protein. Next to water, protein is the most abundant substance in the body. The body requires approximately twenty-two amino acids in a specific pattern to make human protein. There are eight amino acids that the body cannot make and must get through food or supplement. They are lysine, methionine, leucine, threonine, valine, tryptophan, isoleucine, and phenylalanine.
When used individually as supplements, particular amino acids may perform specific functions rather than the general function of a complete protein. For example, taking carnitine may help you lose weight; eating a hamburger would not.
By Gene Bruno, MS, MHS – Dean of Academics, Huntington College of Health Sciences
Smart SupplementationTM is a free series of educational literature created by Huntington College of Health Sciences (HCHS) as a public service. Although copyrighted, it may be freely photocopied and distributed, but may not be altered in any way. Smart SupplementationTM is not intended as medical advice. For diagnosis and treatment of any medical condition, consult your physician.
With the rise of democracy and the crumbling of political boundaries in the previous USSR, many long-time Russian secrets were slowly revealed to the western world. One of these secrets used to give Soviet athletes a decided advantage—one that we can now share. It’s a plant called Rhaponticum carthamoides, and it contains a remarkable substance called 20-Hydroxyecdysone which helps promote increases in muscle mass and athletic performance.
I was at the gym this weekend running on the treadmill and minding my own business. But then I noticed a gentleman on the machine in front of me. He caught my eye because I noticed he was talking while barely jogging. He was talking on his cell phone through his wired headset. Nothing out of the ordinary these days. However, seeing this really bothered me. I shouldn't care how he's doing his exercise, but something kept nagging at me. Then I remembered what I had learned in my "Moving and Sensing" class in grad school and I realized why his behavior was bothering me.
In this class we studied movement and learned that movement is life. If we don't have movement, if we don't move, then we are basically dead. If our blood stops moving through our veins; if our lungs stop moving the oxygen in and out of the air we breathe; if our heart stops moving - we die! I was reminded of this abruptly this weekend. My father's heart was taking four second pauses and causing him to go unconscious. His heart was resting when it should have been "moving." He's fine now after inserting a pacemaker to regulate his heartbeat. But this experience was a keen reminder of the importance of movement to life. We need to move!