13 February 2010

Stay young with better nutrition?

Aksenov et al studied the effects of a well-rounded nutritional supplement in engineered mice. Helped 'em (the mice, that is) stay young. Your mileage may vary.

And Rucklidge et al found that a lot of nutritional supplements can help people with attention deficit disorder and severe mood dysregulation. Just to see how much extra was being given to people in her study, I did the sums:
               Dose     Max    Min  % Dose/Min
Vitamin B-12 902.4 - 2.4 37600%
Vitamin B-6 37.3 100 1.3 2869%
Vitamin E 320.4 - 15 2136%
Thiamin 19.2 - 1.2 1600%
Riboflavin 14.8 - 1.3 1138%
Copper, Cu 8.025 10 0.9 892%
Vitamin D 1640 2000 200 820%
Vitamin C 690 2000 90 767%
Zinc, Zn 59 40 11 536%
Pantot acid 26.75 - 5 535%
Selenium, Se 259 400 55 471%
Folate, total 1840 1000 400 460%
Iron, Fe 21.875 45 8 273%
Magnesium 1020 350 420 243%
Calcium, Ca 2320 2500 1000 232%
Phosphorus, P 1540 4000 700 220%
Niacin 35 35 16 219%
Vitamin A 1745 3000 900 194%
Manganese 2.42 11 2.3 105%
Potassium, K 4940 - 4700 105%
This is really a lot of extra nutrient! I'm inclined to believe that simply ensuring that you get 100% of what you need should do the trick. Trouble is, we don't.

If you wanted to find the lowest-cost diet that matched all that, it would look something like this:
  • 341.2 grams, Cereals ready-to-eat, KELLOGG, KELLOGG'S ALL-BRAN COMPLETE Wheat Flakes,
  • 351.1 grams, Cereals ready-to-eat, GENERAL MILLS, Whole Grain TOTAL,
  • 1.8 grams, Tea, instant, unsweetened, powder,
  • 923.8 grams, Beef liver, fried.
That's pretty much two boxes of fortified cereal and two pounds of liver. Oh, yeah, and a cuppa tea. Eeeeewwwwww! Again, your mileage may vary.

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