The Nugent Report

English | 简体中文 Are calcium supplements dangerous?  Hello, my friends welcome to another episode of The Nugent Report, I'm Dr. Steve Nugent. This episode is dedicated to calcium but it's an entirely different approach than what you expected. For more than half a century people all over the world have been told “women need more calcium”. It is true that women need more calcium than men, however it is not universally true that women need calcium supplementation, in fact the majority of women consuming the modern diet don't need calcium supplementation. All of my subscribers know that the Nugent report is objective reporting about science and health and that means no bias and we don't care about groupthink. The phrase “Everybody knows” is not science. Scientific knowledge is growing at such tremendous speed that it's impossible for any single human being to keep up with. On the Nugent report we simply try to eat this elephant one bite at a time. In this episode of the Nugent report you're going to learn some things about calcium that may not only surprise you, they may shock you. Here are just a few of the questions that we will address in this episode… Are you getting too much calcium? How is calcium absorbed and utilized? Is calcium just for bones? Are there foods rich in Calcium besides dairy? Do calcium supplements prevent weak bones and fractures? What are the risks with excess calcium supplementation? People have been told for more than a century that you need calcium for strong healthy bones. This statement is correct. The average person however does not that healthy bones require much more than calcium, and the average person does not know that if you have too little magnesium or vitamin D that calcium will either calcified in your body or be excreted in urine which can lead to kidney stones. Both the food and food supplement industries have been pushing the idea that women need more calcium. Once again it is true that women require more than men but only about 30% of women have a need for calcium supplementation above and beyond what's in the modern diet. Too much calcium presents potential health problems. That's the kind of thing that I want to convey to you. Under the heading of integrative health is a psychologist I also need to point out that human beings have a need to have virtually any topic reduced to the simplest common denominator. The one-size-fits-all approach is always more welcome than an approach that requires complex analysis. The fact is, the one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to calcium supplementation is not accurate and not a good idea. For more details on how magnesium and vitamin D play a role in the absorption and utilization of calcium I would invite you to listen to my podcasts from my series on magnesium and vitamin D. “Science marches on” as I'm so fond of saying and things change. When I first learned the basics of clinical nutrition it was many decades ago and unfortunately the overwhelming majority of practitioners today are still putting that decades old information and are not aware of more recent scientific study that contradicts some of what we used to believe was true. Let's begin with what calcium is needed for before we go on to the other questions. Calcium is an essential mineral meaning that your body must have it but cannot make it within your body, so it must be supplied to your body from an external source. The most preferable source would be food and in some cases food supplements. Science is showing us that some nutrients need to be supplemented because the modern diet supplies insufficient levels whereas with some nutrients this is not yet the case. Even before the food industry began fortifying foods with calcium in order to sell more product to female consumers by emphasizing their food was fortified with extra calcium and then repeating the groupthink chant “women need more calcium” there is now an abundant leve...

Should you take iron supplements? Welcome to the Nugent report, I'm Dr. Steve Nugent. On this podcast I'll be addressing questions related to iron supplementation, including who should take iron supplements, food sources of iron, how much is required daily and how much is too much. I'll also address pregnancy and prenatals as well as lactation. Finally, what are the risks of taking too much iron. Several of my subscribers have written in to ask if they should take iron supplements. The short answer is yes if you need it and know if you don't. Perhaps that sounds too simple, but there is much more you need to know. The fact is, iron is potentially lethal. Iron is an essential nutrient and that means your body must have it, but your body is incapable of making it therefore it must be obtained from food or food supplements. Unlike water-soluble vitamins that are flushed from the body if taken in excess, iron is a storable nutrient. If too much is stored (based on body weight), illness and death can result. For this reason, throughout my career I have always been cautious about iron supplementation and typically recommended against it in multis opting for proper diet recommendation or medical intervention where required. So, the answer is not as simple as it seems. Most people have probably heard the phrase, “figures don't lie, but liars use figures”. That's a bit harsh perhaps for this subject because in many cases it's not a question of a deliberate lie, but rather innocent misunderstanding or misinterpretations. On the one hand, the most common mineral deficiency globally is iron, but that's a bit misleading because in modern countries iron deficiency is not common. The total global figures take into account the populations of developing countries that may have insufficient food sources of iron. According to the World Health Organization there are just over 1.6 billion people on planet Earth who are deficient in iron.(1)When that statistic was last updated by the WHO in 2008 there were fewer people on planet Earth, but the general averages remained the same today, because world food source conditions remain approximately the same. According to the World Health Organization, preschool children make up 47.4% of the total and pregnant women make up 41.8% of the total, of people included in the total number of those deficient in iron. (1,2) Pregnancy is not a chronic condition and preschool children grow up. The other significant issue is menstruating females, which I'll address shortly. When you examine the figures closely you see that less than 25% of people worldwide need iron supplementation in fact the World Health Organization says its 24.8%. Some need iron chronically but most do not. Turn that around and look at it from the other direction and it will tell you that just over 75% of the world's population does not need iron supplementation daily and because iron in excess is extremely dangerous, that is the first and most important part of the argument against including iron in daily multiple vitamin mineral products.(1,2) More is not always better. Too much iron poses a very serious danger. From 1980 to 1991 for example, iron in children's dietary supplements was the leading cause of death by poisoning in the US for children six years of age or younger. Children's chewable supplements were cute and tasty made with synthetic sweeteners. The childproof caps proved not to be childproof in all too many cases. (3) In 2020, the public was given a great deal of information about zinc and how important it is; however, the public was not told that too much iron can actually cause zinc anemia. I'll come back to that idea shortly. For now, let's examine the world health organization figures for better understanding. If you break down the numbers according to age, gender, pregnancy, and available food sources, iron deficiency in modern countries with sufficient available food sources is rare without an ...

 English | 简体中文 Vitamin D and Magnesium Part 6 Are you looking for the science behind health and nutrition? Welcome to this episode of the Nugent report, a definitive source for objective information on health and nutrition, featuring Dr. Steve Nugent the renowned psychologist, author, public speaker, and expert on science, health, wellness, and nutrition. Be sure to visit our website at drnuget.com and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @thenugentreport. Hello my friends, welcome to another episode of the Nugent report. I'm Dr. Steve Nugent. In this episode, we are going to conclude our series on vitamin D and magnesium. You may remember in part three of this series, I explained to you the differences between a nutrient deficiency and nutrient inadequacy. That podcast addressed the vitamin D, but in this podcast, we'll focus on magnesium first we'll address deficiencies. Magnesium deficiency typically needs to become quite severe before a person starts to show any symptoms. One of the many duties of the kidneys is to limit the amount of magnesium that can be excreted at any time. Individuals who are alcohol dependent or who consume consistently high levels of alcohol are among the first to become magnesium deficient. Another group that's at risk, but rarely gets the attention that they require. In my opinion, or individuals who are using proton pump inhibitors or PPIs have also discussed this. Previously, these drugs are used to kill the acid producing pumps in the stomach are typically prescribed for chronic heartburn and acid reflux. They also contribute very significantly to magnesium deficiency. In my opinion, it's prudent for individuals to supplement magnesium. If they're using PPIs chronically the prescribing physician may or may not be aware of this. Once again, remember the amount of magnesium in your blood is only 1% of the total magnesium. And if that's the only investigation your physician is doing, it's probable that he or she may not know that you need to supplement more magnesium people with type two diabetes, by the way, are also often prone to magnesium deficiencies. If you're in one of these categories, I would advise to ask your physician, if he or she thinks that you should be supplementing magnesium at request the appropriate tests, ultimately your health decisions should be made jointly between you and your physician. At this point, you might be thinking, how would I know if I'm deficient? What kind of indicators might I look for? Once again, my first recommendation is consult your physician and get the appropriate tests. But there are some indicators that might motivate you to talk to your physician, perhaps a little bit sooner. Keep in mind that nutritional biochemistry is not a set of absolutes and symptoms can vary between individuals. So having one of the long list of symptoms, doesn't confirm that you have a deficiency, nor is it necessary for you to have all of the symptoms to confer that you have a deficiency. So I'll give you a list of things, fatigue, weakness, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite. These are all common. And they're common in the early stages of deficiency. The longer the deficiency goes on. And the more deficient you become, you may begin to experience symptoms that relate to the nervous system, such as numbness or tingling, or even seizures in extreme cases. Remembering that muscles require magnesium to relax, calcium causes your muscles to contract. You may begin to experience muscle contractions that some people describe as Charlie horses. Muscle cramps may occur if you are deficient in magnesium. Remembering that magnesium is essential to brain health, you may be experiencing personality changes, particularly anxiety. Returning to the idea that your heart is the most important muscle cardiac arrhythmia may also occur. Once again, as I've cautioned before cardiac arrhythmia may have several different causes.

English | 简体中文 Vitamin D and Magnesium Part 5 Did you perform the science behind health and nutrition? Welcome to this episode of the Nugent report, a definitive source for objective information on health and nutrition, featuring Dr. Steve Nugent, the renowned psychologist, author, public speaker, and an expert on science, health, wellness, and nutrition. Be sure to visit our website at drnugent.com and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @thenugentreport. Friends, welcome to another episode of the Nugent report. I'm Dr. Steve Nugent. This is part four in our series on vitamin D and magnesium. And what we're going to do in this part is we're going to be answering some questions about how much magnesium you need by age and gender, what the food sources of magnesium or, and the benefits of magnesium first, what is magnesium? Well, magnesium is an essential mineral, as I've explained previously, essential means your body must have it, but your body cannot make it. So it must be obtained from a source outside of your body. In the case of magnesium, preferably it would be from food, but as I will discuss, the majority of people are not getting sufficient magnesium from diet alone. So we must also discuss the idea of food supplements since the body is incapable of producing minerals, the list of essential minerals are well quite low. In fact, you would think they're all of equal importance. If your health will decline at that decline could eventually result in death because you are significantly deficient in an essential mineral, then they must all be of little value, right? Well, maybe not. In fact, magnesium is towards the very top of my list. If I could find the time, I could probably take some real joy at writing an entire book about magnesium and its functions. However, a podcast must be by its nature. Magnesium is one of those nutrients where I would say to someone in a social setting, don't get me started on that mineral because it could take me orders to explain it. Well, we will take hours at this podcast. In my lectures globally many people have heard me talk about enzymes and in most cases, the discussions have been around digestive enzymes. However, there are thousands of enzymes. Only a small number have anything to do with digestion. Remembering my statement that no nutrient is an island onto itself. Magnesium is one of those examples. Magnesium is an essential cofactor in at least 300 different enzymes. The systems regulate a very wide range of crucial functions in the body. Some of which we will cover in the next few minutes, magnesium is an intracellular mineral. That means it functions inside of cells, not just in serum or blood. So as an [inaudible] mineral it's essential for really an astounding number of biochemical reactions in your body. And we may only be able to touch on the surface of those in this spot. The majority of people that I've interacted with more than 40 countries seem to have their understanding of magnesium, generally limited to LC of utilization. There are a few exceptions, of course, however, it's rare to find someone who understands the broad range of functions of this incredibly important mineral. Through my career every time I've recommended magnesium, the first literally knee-jerk reaction that I'll get will be something to the effect of when I take a calcium magnesium product or there's calcium magnesium in my multiple vitamin, then I have to explain to them that calcium will use up whatever magnesium it requires for transport. And if you require additional magnesium or specific functions of calcium, magnesium supplement will typically not do the job. It's absolutely true that calcium ions cannot be transported without magnesium. And therefore magnesium is as important for bone health as calcium is. In fact, there are some experts who are telling us that the modern diet provides too much calcium. I know you haven't heard that before,

English | 简体中文 Vitamin D and Magnesium Part 4 The Nugent Report. The science behind health and nutrition. Welcome to this episode of the Nugent report, a definitive source for objective information on health and nutrition, featuring Dr. Steve Nugent, the renowned psychologist, author, public speaker, and expert on science, health, wellness, and nutrition. Be sure to visit our website at drnugent.com and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @thenugentreport. Welcome to Nugent report. I'm Dr. Steve Nugent. In the last episode, we talked about blood testing for vitamin D and we talked about requirements and some important definitions. In this episode, we're going to be talking about sources of vitamin D conversion from sunlight, a little bit about seafood and the benefits of vitamin D. Let's talk about how you get vitamin D. The body is an amazingly adaptive organic machine. I'm not going to argue with anybody about how the adaptations occur or why the adaptations occur. The fact is we are adaptive. We have an adaptive nature. That's the fact vitamin D is crucially important to your health and you aren't designed to convert vitamin D from sunlight, although you do it less efficiently as you age, and you should get your vitamin D then from sunlight and preferably food. If those first two options don't provide you with enough vitamin D, you have to use a food supplement. It's the only sensible alternative. The science is very strong and very clear about the need for vitamin D for healthy bones and teeth. I think just about everybody knows that, but you may not know that it's also very important for your immune system and it's even important for your mental health and thought processes. So vitamin D is a pretty amazing and pretty important nutrient. Now there's a very significant amount of science to show us that as we age our ability to digest and absorb our nutrients, as well as our body's efficiency in producing new cells, decreases steadily. Remember that strong, healthy bones require vitamin D not just calcium and not just magnesium. And as the bones get soft, we begin to see the obvious results in the aging population. Also, as we age, as I mentioned, our ability to synthesize vitamin D from sunlight decreases, this is why the RDA for vitamin D started at 8 70 and up increases by an additional 200 international units each day. The typical source, as I've mentioned, the vitamin D it's why they call it. The sunshine vitamin is sunlight. And the most abundant source of vitamin D from food is from seafood. Well, everybody's been told for more than 50 years now that you should eat more seafood and less land animal. And the argument is all about cholesterol and heart disease, and all have different episodes about that. That bring you the truth of that, that you will be surprised, but for now, let's talk about seafood in my lectures, all around the world, I have frequently discussed the environmental decline of our planet and the ever increasing level of toxins in our waterways. There are some lakes in North America where you are warned not to eat the fish at all the food and drug administration, the FDA in the United States. They actually have a list of fish, other website that you should not eat at all. If you're pregnant, you shouldn't eat, or you should limit your about, and then they have a list of fish that you should limit, the amount that you consume. The folks, unlike my fish, I do. And all I'm here to do is to give you objective data. The decision is yours. You're an adult. You decide, hopefully you'll make wise decisions. You can't do that unless you start with objective data. And this is while you're learning information on these episodes on the nutrient report, much of which you've never heard before, because it's important for your health decisions. I have a real thing about tuna. I love tuna, and I probably eat too much of it until that's a decision that I make.

English | 简体中文 Vitamin D and Magnesium Part 3 The science behind health and nutrition. Welcome to this episode of the Nugent report. I definitive source for objective information on health and nutrition, featuring Dr. Steve Nugent, the renowned psychologist, author public speaker expert on science, health, wellness, and nutrition. Be sure to visit our website at drnugent.com and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @thenugentreport. Welcome to the Nugent report. I'm Dr. Steve Nugent. This is the third in a series of episodes of vitamin D and magnesium two nutrients that need to work together for your health. In this episode, I'll be throwing a lot of numbers and values your way, but don't panic. It's my goal on the Nugent report to make sure that you have transcripts written, supportive data tables or hotlinks to tables. When I give you a whole bunch of numbers, I don't want you to stress out, attempting to remember the numbers, just enjoy the episode and then go to drnugent.com to look for the numbers that you have in mind. I want you to remember that the nutrient report is a labor of love, and it's not my day job. And in fact, I have two very talented, very dedicated individuals helping me on this website, and it's not their day job either. So we're posting these things as soon as we can. And if things don't come out as fast as you want them to just try and be patient, please. Now back to vitamin D. As I mentioned in previous episodes, once a lab test for physicians was developed so that they could easily test vitamin D levels of their patients, the general perspective on vitamin D supplementation changed almost diametrically before the test existed. And I can remember frequently arguing with medical physicians about vitamin D supplementation. No, a very significant percentage of patients. According to study, as much as 42% are deficient in vitamin D and physicians who have been taught that vitamin D supplementation wasn't necessary, or perhaps even toxic. Now they find themselves recommending thousands of units for patients each week. Remember garbage in, garbage out. If the data you're using to, with to make your decision is flawed and not accurate, it's highly probable that your conclusion. So be flawed and inaccurate. Okay. The first step, when you have a health question, any health question, not just about vitamin D is to get the appropriate tests from the appropriate practitioner, go to a doctor who knows what they're doing in the case of vitamin D testing. Any physician can do this for you. When you see your physician, ask them for a vitamin D blood test, a serum analysis these days it's pretty routine. And it's unlikely that you'll get any arguments. When any lab test comes back from any lab, it'll be pretty simple, right? On the printout. It will say low, normal or high. This is not rocket science. You'll hear me talking again. This podcast probably many times about inadequate levels versus deficiencies. There is a distinction and that distinction is important when making decisions for your health. So let's apply that to vitamin D. If your blood test comes back with less than 30 millimoles per liter, and by the way, that is written as lowercase MMOL forward slash upper case L so 30 millimoles per liter, less than that amount, that means it's low. And this is typically associated with deficiencies that can lead to serious health issues. If your test comes back between 30 and 50 millimoles per liter, it's classified as being less than adequate for bone health in already healthy individuals and amounts greater than or equal to 50 will be considered adequate for bone health, as well as general health for already healthy individuals. Now don't panic. If I said those numbers too fast, remember the tables or hotline sports tables will be provided for you on drnugent.com. It's probably a good idea for me to go through some terms for you right now, because it occurs to me that you'll be looking...

English | 简体中文 Men's Health Intro: The Nugent, the science behind health and nutrition. Welcome to this episode of The Nugent Report, a definitive source for objective information on health and nutrition featuring Dr. Steve Nugent, the renowned psychologist, author, public speaker, an expert on science, health, wellness, and nutrition. Be sure to visit our website at DrNugent.com. And follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at The Nugent Report. So, we're going to talk about men's health, and that includes mental health. So, we'll talk about some psychology. Keep in mind that in less than one-hour presentation, we couldn't possibly cover all of these things in detail. That just can't be done. So, this is kind of an overview of what I feel are very important topics as it relates to men's health. And so we're also going to talk about brain health, prostate, and hormonal health, we'll talk a little bit about the nutrition of aging as well. There are a few things that a lot of people just don't know when it comes to men's health. And I would say including, and especially men don't know a lot of this stuff. Let's start with the way people think. Now, a lot of how we think is determined by the way our brains are structured. And so I'm going to throw in a little bit of neurobiology for all of you, which I hope that you'll find both informative, and hopefully even maybe a little bit entertaining to learn some of this information, that there are indeed, structural differences between male brains and female brains. And before I go too much further, you know, I get way too many emails to get into circular conversations with folks about differences between men and women. I'm just not going to go there, folks. I'm going to present to you as a scientist, and I'm going to give you facts, and I hope that these facts will help you make good decisions about your health, that's where it will be. Okay? Because, gosh, I'm getting so many emails now, I can't possibly answer all the emails. I want to but I can't. So, structural differences, it is indisputable that there are structural differences between the brains of men and women. That's not an argument. And there are also certain behaviors, which are innate behaviors. And these behaviors are to a very large extent, based on the structural differences in our brains. Now, some people get a little uptight about that, because then they think, “Oh, my gosh, are you saying that we have certain behaviors that simply can't be changed?” Well, I would say that there are certain survival behaviors that can't be changed. For instance, you do need to eat. If you don't eat, you will not survive. So, there are innate messages coming from the brain through your genetic code that tells you that you must eat. So, there are certain innate behaviors that you can modify, like, how much do I eat, when do I eat, but push comes to shove, at the end of the day, you're going to have to eat. Okay. So, what I'm trying to say to you all, is that there are innate behaviors. And that means, and if we say this in modern terms, genetic behaviors. So, there are things that are printed into your genes that tell you how to behave. These are not things that you learn. So, the old nature versus nurture argument is what we're talking now. And these are not things that you learn, these are things that are actually printed in your genes before you are born. And these are passed on to you from your parents, these survival behaviors. Okay. Scientists now say that at least 50%, of all of your behavior, of all of your behavior that is seen as psychological behavior, at least 50% of it is genetic, it is actually programmed into your genes, telling you how to work. Again, folks, don't freak out and think that thinking sets of absolutes and say, “Oh, that means this behavior, that behavior could never be changed.” You can learn to modify your behaviors. But there are certain aspects of genetic behavior which you can...

English | 简体中文 Vitamin D and Magnesium Part 2 Intro: The Nugent, the science behind health and nutrition. Welcome to this episode of The Nugent Report, a definitive source for objective information on health and nutrition featuring Dr. Steve Nugent, the renowned psychologist, author, public speaker, an expert on science, health, wellness, and nutrition. Be sure to visit our website at DrNugent.com. And follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at The Nugent Report. Welcome to The Nugent Report, Episode Two of the series on vitamin D, and magnesium. At the conclusion of the last episode, I left you with two questions. Do you really need to supplement vitamin D? Do you really need to supplement magnesium? Well, that's what we're going to talk about in this episode. Remember, Parva and his research team states that “Vitamin D deficiency is becoming an epidemic in the US. The people most likely to be deficient are African Americans, and Hispanic Americans.” I'll give you more information on why a little bit later. Regardless of race, people who are obese or who suffer from diabetes, are also at high risk of vitamin D deficiency. Depending on the study that you consult, you'll find anywhere between 39% and up to 42% of the US population are believed to be deficient in vitamin D. This is huge, and does present a very serious health concern. I'm using US statistics, but keep in mind that people are people. We are all biochemically the same. We're all human beings. And you can take this data to the country that you live in, for the most part, maybe not the specific percentages, but the concepts, the ideas, the understandings you can use in any country. In Episode One of this series, I briefly talked about changes in conditions between the 21st century and previous centuries. Almost all jobs now are indoors. Our young people have become addicted to their digital devices, and social media. Versus their grandparents, who as children did most of their activities of their youth, primarily outdoors and in the sunlight. Sun exposure is without question a factor in the increasing number of people in the 21st century, who are vitamin D deficient. Vitamin D is after all called the sunshine vitamin, because it can be converted from sunlight through an amazing process that requires magnesium. A person who is deficient in magnesium is almost certainly still going to be deficient in vitamin D, even if they are supplementing vitamin D. Perhaps this is why so many physicians have patients on thousands of units per week chronically, and their vitamin D deficiency doesn't seem to get solved. Are those prescribing doctors aware of the magnesium connection? The answer is most likely no. Scientists believe that darker skin is an adaptation to protect people from ultraviolet radiation from the sun. This theory is based on the fact that at the equator, you have the highest rate of sun exposure and solar radiation. And the closer any genetic group is to the equator, the darker their skin tone. The reverse is also true. As you go north into the Arctic Circle as an example, the skin tone of genetic groups native to those areas gets lighter. There is less sunlight available as they go north. So, in order to absorb vitamin D from the sun, skin has to be lighter. Rickets, as an example, which is a disease caused by vitamin D deficiency was very common in areas such as the United Kingdom prior to vitamin D supplementation -- because they've had limited sunlight due to weather conditions as well as their geographic location. But one of the reasons that vitamin D deficiency is more common on average, as individual skin is darker is that the darker skin is blocking absorption like a natural sunscreen. In this series, I'll discuss how vitamin D affects your health. And it will become obvious to African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and other individuals whose genetics are from areas such as the Indian subcontinent and other areas where s...

English | 简体中文 Episode 4: MSG The Nugent Report The Nugent Report the science behind health and nutrition. Welcome to this episode of The Nugent Report, a definitive source for objective information on health and nutrition. Featuring Dr. Steve Nugent, the renowned psychologist, author, public speaker and expert on science, health, wellness and nutrition. Be sure to visit our website at ‘drnugen.com' and follow us on Facebook, twitter and Instagram @TheNugentReport. Steve Nugent: Hello and welcome to another episode of The Nugent Report. On this Nugent Report, we're going to be talking about MSG (Monosodium Glutamate). A poll was taken on The Nugent Report Facebook page and the majority of the respondents said, they wanted to hear a podcast or see a blog on MSG. Well, I wasn't really planning on this, but this is what my subscribers wanted so, so be it. If you're sensitive to MSG or at least you believe you are, then you already have a good idea of what it is but not everyone does. So, let's start by explaining what MSG is. MSG is an abbreviation for Monosodium Glutamate and it's commonly used as a flavor enhancer in many foods. From Bouillon cubes to canned vegetables. Believe it or not, MSG was first isolated by a Japanese scientist back in 1908. He was researching a particular flavor which is found in a seaweed an edible seaweed, which is called Kombu. And he was successful in his effort. So, it's been around for a long time. Chemically, it's a sodium salt of glutamic acid. Glutamic acid is a non-essential amino acid and that means it occurs naturally in the body. It's required for building proteins in your body. It's found in many different types of animal and plant proteins. It also is a neurotransmitter, so that makes it pretty important and it's required for ammonia metabolism. So, please understand that glutamic acid is not MSG. I get that question a lot. So, they're not the same thing. So, MSG is a sodium salt of glutamic acid. The US FDA says that, MSG is safe but some disagree. Some have even implied that MSG could lead to brain damage. I must point out that there is no peer-reviewed science literature to support that. Remember that The Nugent Report is dedicated to bringing you objective science. That means you're going to get both sides of this story. The people who report various symptoms associated with MSG are often said to have Chinese Restaurant Syndrome or CRS. Because it's most commonly used in Chinese food. The first paper on Chinese Restaurant Syndrome was actually published in the new England Journal of Medicine back in 1968 and the author was RH Quok. In his paper, he reported that after consumption of Chinese food, there was some reports of what he called Transient Subjective Symptoms. Which included some of the classic symptoms discussed in this episode. To report this episode to you, I looked at quite a number of individual studies and they all unfortunately were reporting inconsistent results. So, that took me to the next step and that was to look at systematic review papers of the individual papers. So, the question that comes up is. Is MSG actually bad for you? According to the FDA and numerous scientific studies, it isn't. however, there are people who consume food or liquids with MSG and report a number of different unpleasant symptoms. Including headache, flushing, nausea, chest pain, sweating, general weakness, pressure or tightness in facial muscles. As well as numbness, tingling and even burning sensations in the neck or the face. Some people also report heart palpitations. Could all these people be wrong and the government be right? Is this a simple yes or no answer? Well, the Food & Drug Administration classifies MSG as gras. So, that's an abbreviation. So, GRAS in capital letters and it means generally regarded as safe. MSG is not only used in Chinese food; it's also used to enhance the flavor of soups and canned vegetables and canned meats and other things.

English | 简体中文 Episode 3. Vitamin D and Magnesium Part 1 The Nugent Report, the science behind health and nutrition. Welcome to this episode of The Nugent Report, a definitive source for objective information on health and nutrition. Featuring Dr. Steve Nugent, the renowned psychologist, author, public speaker and expert on science, health, wellness and nutrition. Be sure to visit our website at ‘drnugen.com' and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @TheNugentReport. Steve Nugent: Hello my friends and welcome to another episode of The Nugent Report. This episode is going to be the first in a series about Vitamin D and Magnesium. Two of the most important nutrients for the 21st century. In these episodes, you're going to learn some things about Vitamin D and Magnesium that you've probably never heard before. In fact, I'm nearly 100% certain of that. The scientific research team led by a scientist named NR Parva states that, Vitamin D deficiency is becoming epidemic in the United States. And if we were to use the same statistical measures and apply it to the nutrient called Magnesium, then we'd have to say the same of Magnesium as well. Every time a nutrient gets mentioned on TV or in popular media, I pretty much immediately get people contacting me from countries all over the world asking me about that nutrient. For many people, it's the first time they've heard about it or they know very little about it generally. So, they want to know if they should be taking that nutrient that they saw on the popular media. The problem with getting your nutrition information from TV shows and other forms of popular media is that, they're rarely objective. Television shows earn their money through advertisement and the higher the shows are rated, the more money they can charge to their advertisers. Unfortunately, this means that most media is typically more concerned with ratings than representing information objectively. Journalism students are typically taught the phrase, ‘If it bleeds it leads.' That's not about facts that's not about objectivity, that's about catching people's attention. Unfortunately, most people are more likely to be captured by extremes than by objectivity. Objective data typically falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum versus one extreme or the other. Simply speaking, objectivity is rarely extreme and sometimes not the best thing for ratings, okay. Let's talk about Vitamin D and again, this is going to be a series of episodes. Remember, I did promise my subscribers that I would cover all nutrients from A to Z. I didn't promise that I would do it in alphabetical order. So, with Vitamin D in mind, that's where we're going to start. Before a laboratory test became available to practicing physicians, the belief that virtually no one needed to supplement Vitamin D and certainly no one would ever need to supplement more than 400 international units of Vitamin D in a single day. That belief was almost universal. In fact, physicians were cautioned to avoid giving too much Vitamin D. Because they were told it could become toxic. Well, that's true just about everything can become toxic if you get too much of it. In fact, if you drink too much clean pure water even that could become toxic, but we're talking about ridiculous amounts obviously. So, the 400 IU rule was observed pretty strictly for a very long time for decades. Once physicians began to test people for Vitamin D, that tired old belief was shattered very quickly. To the great surprise of all the physicians that I've spoken with, the new blood test was showing very high percentages of people who needed more Vitamin D. And in fact, physicians were finding that they needed to recommend not hundreds of units, but thousands of international units per week just to get their patients back up to adequate levels. Later on, I'm going to explain the difference to you between deficiencies and less than adequate levels,

English | 简体中文 Episode 2: Are Dietary Supplements a Luxury or Necessity? The Nugent Report, The science behind health and nutrition. Welcome to this episode of The Nugent Report a definitive source for objective information on health and nutrition. Featuring Dr. Steve Nugent, the renowned psychologist, author, public speaker and expert on science, health, wellness and nutrition. Be sure to visit our website at ‘drnugent.com' and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @TheNugentReport. Steve Nugent: Hello my friends and welcome to another episode of The Nugent Report. In this episode of The Nugent Report, we are going to be answering a simple question. Are dietary supplements a luxury or a necessity in the 21st century? Some of you will be very surprised with the information you hear. Some of you may be simply reaffirmed. But in any case, you will be getting scientific information in plain simple language that anyone can understand. That can help you make a decision as to whether or not you should be taking dietary supplements to support your health. When I say dietary supplement, what am I talking about? A supplement is something designed to supplement what may be missing from your diet. Now that could be a tablet, a capsule, a powder, a drink. Any way that you can get a nutrient that may supplement what may be missing from your diet. Understand that dietary supplements are not medicines. They are not designed to treat or cure or ameliorate disease. That is not their purpose. Your body has a system of mechanisms in its amazing design to deal with almost every kind of natural occurrence that you can possibly imagine. It does so by fueling the systems through nutrition. Sometimes there are challenges where in some cases a human being is not able to cope with some kind of outside threat. And in those cases, pharmaceutical drugs or medical procedures may be required. Understand that your doctor has been trained well to understand when to prescribe a pharmaceutical drug, when to recommend a particular medical procedure or test. However, medical schools do not teach doctors how to be experts in the clinical use of dietary supplements. So, don't make the mistake of thinking that all doctors know all things about well everything, because it's just not the case. So, what we're going to talk about today is some science that perhaps your doctor is completely unaware of and that's fine with me. Because this is an educational podcast. All right, so a supplement is designed to supplement what might be missing from your diet. But well all governments tell you that if you eat right you won't get sick, you don't need supplements our food supply is the best every country will say. Our nutrition is the best every country will say. And discussion of dietary supplements is well, pretty limited by most governments if at all. Your body is the key. Your body is the true miracle. Whether you know this or not, your body has well in my mind the most amazing design ever. In fact, your body is designed to cope with almost any kind of naturally occurring challenge you could possibly imagine. How does it do this? Well, you have a number of systems in your body that cope with different challenges. And when I say this, most people think about their immune system primarily. Well okay, let's talk about the immune system for a moment. I want you to think of your body as a big industrial complex and I want you to think of that industrial complex your body, as having many factories inside of the complex. One of those factories would be your immune system. Well, let's say as an example that you know you got yourself pretty rich one day and you decided to buy an automobile factory. In order to run that factory, of course the factory will have to be powered naturally. But you're gonna have to have certain materials certain supplies nutrition for that factory if you will. That would include things like steel and rubber and plastic and...

 Intro: The science behind health and nutrition. Welcome to this episode of The Nugent Report. A definitive source for objective information on healthy nutrition, featuring Dr. Steve Nugent, the renowned psychologist, author, public speaker, an expert on science, health, wellness and nutrition. Be sure to visit our website at drnugent.com. And follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at The Nugent Report. Dr. Steve: Hello, and welcome to the first episode of The Nugent Report. I'm Dr. Steve Nugent. The Nugent report is dedicated to presenting any information that relates to human health, science and the environment in a thoroughly documented objective way, versus opinions. To make the best decisions for your health, you need accurate, objective information. This first episode is designed to lay the foundation for what you can expect in future episodes, and to introduce you to terms and definitions that you may be unfamiliar with. All support these terms with some examples that should make sense to anyone regardless of their level of education. This first episode will be longer than the others because of the content necessary to establish the foundation of the report. In this episode, I will also give you some insights into my personal history that even my lecture audiences from around the world have never heard. The Nugent Report will always be clear and easy for virtually everyone to understand, regardless of how complex the topic is. Typically, I will state the science and then translate it into plain language. So, don't panic when you hear the science. Just stay with me, and you'll understand it. First, I'll give you some brief examples of what to expect in future Nugent reports. Did you know that there's about a 50% probability that you're not getting adequate levels of magnesium? Did you know that many people in North America are consuming a diet that has too much calcium? Did you know that there are cases where vitamin D deficiency is actually caused by magnesium deficiency? Did you know that there are industrial chemicals that can affect not just your physical but also your psychological health? Chances are, you've never heard this information and chances are you're still getting the same tired old information that's been printed and reprinted hundreds of thousands of times, without anyone bothering to check to see if anything has changed. All people have opinions, and I'm just as human as anyone else. But, scientific objectivity is the key to making the best possible decisions for your health, and the health of our planet. Fortunately, I'm not beholding to any company products or politics for this podcast. I'm an objectivist and that's someone who thinks objectively. The Nugent report will always bring you the most objective, thoroughly documented information in health science and the environment. information that you can always trust, unbiased and accurate. The new GAO report is a labor of love. It started as a paper newsletter with Volume One, issue one back in 1994. At that time, I had an integrative medicine practice. I was the author of a desk reference for Applied Clinical Nutrition, which was used by many thousands of practitioners. I lectured to doctors of all disciplines on a monthly basis, and I had a co-authored a manual for understanding how to interpret blood chemistries for nutritional versus medical needs. I was an internationally respected expert in the field of integrative medicine, and the clinical use of dietary supplements. Doctors from 17 countries subscribed to that paper newsletter. For more than a quarter of a century, I've lectured on Integrative Health to audiences on every continent, well, except Antarctica of course. I'm trained in many areas of science, but I will devote a great deal of time in future episodes to integrative medicine, dietary supplements, and diet. I've also written some books for public consumption, which are currently out of print.