Normal Blood Sugar Levels and Diabetes

A good daily diet that includes vegetables, fruits, berries, and some other foods, can provide a substantial amount of the essential vitamins and minerals needed by the human body to stay healthy. But the problem is that many people do not include enough of those foods in their daily diet to really acquire the best possible level of good health.

There is still much debate among health authorities on what are the minimum required daily allowances for some vitamins and there is much to be learned about their precise role in the human body. And while recognizing that many vitamins and minerals are essential for good health, there is some resistance regarding the merits of depending on manufactured and packaged supplements available in drug stores, health food stores and elsewhere.

It was not so many years ago that those who spoke as authorities in the practice of conventional medicine, denied, often with ridicule, that there could be any value whatsoever of any supplementary intake of vitamins and minerals. A saying of the times was that “ . . . vitamins produce expensive urine and nothing more”. But authoritative medical views are changing, national health associations, hospitals, and other health authorities, recognize the need to add supplements such as calcium and vitamin D to the daily diet.

An example of a government as supplemental vitamin advocate
Pregnant women or women expecting to become pregnant, are urged to immediately include an amount of folic acid, vitamin B9, in their diet.

In its publications, Canada’s government of Ontario health organization emphasizes the importance for women to add the supplemental folic acid to their daily diet, saying that women can reduce their chances of a spina bifida pregnancy by about 50 percent by taking 0.4 mg of folic acid each day. Folic acid is the most important of all vitamins for a healthy pregnancy.

From the Canadian point of view, since 1998, certain foods in Canada have been fortified with folic acid to provide about 0.1 mg a day in the average diet, enough to reduce neural tube defects by about 20%, but not enough to provide the maximum protection possible.

When it does occur, spina bifida develops early in pregnancy and is already happening by the time a home pregnancy test reads positive. Folic acid must be in a woman’s system at the time of conception. Women planning to become pregnant should be taking 0.4 mg per day all the time.

The uncertainty still exists regarding the adequate amounts of some vitamins, a good example now being debated is vitamin D, where current recommended daily amounts are about 400 IU but some scientists claim that should be changed substantially, perhaps into the thousands of IU each day. There is much to be learned.

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