Let’s face it, almost everybody wants to live a long, healthy life. But, maintaining the strict dietary and exercise regimen needed to do this isn’t so easy.

One of the best ways to “cheat,” however, is to include a powerful nutritional supplement as part of your daily routine. It’s a lot easier to take a high quality supplement everyday than to avoid all fast food, eat spinach around the clock, and devote 2 hours a day to exercise

If you’re health conscious at all then you probably already take a daily multi-vitamin.  That might be a good start – if it contains the right type of nutrients, and if the manufacturer uses the right delivery system, so that the nutrients are released in the right place at the right time. 

A daily nutritional supplement is important because the foods that we eat (even if we try to eat healthy) are not nearly as nutritious as they once were. This is simply a result of modern farming practices. Many studies show that even healthy foods like spinach, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, and other crops, have a great deal less vitamin and mineral content than they did 30, 40, and 50 years ago, because of the way foods are farmed, which affects the soil they are raised in.

To make matters worse, many respected doctors, scientists and researchers believe that most chronic and life-threatening diseases are caused by nutritional deficiencies or imbalances.

Everything within the body is about balance.  Too much of one substance, and not enough of another, throws that balance off.  This causes damage to the cells of the body and leads to aging.  For example, free radical molecules perform some necessary functions within the cells of the body, but without the balancing presence of antioxidants, they go “hay-wire” and start damaging DNA strands.  This DNA damage is one of the causes of aging, but it is not the only cause.

Chronic inflammation, another example, had been linked to a variety of health problems.  Arthritis is an obvious one, but heart disease and cancer are also caused by chronic inflammation.  Researchers have found that synthetic anti-inflammatory drugs are not effective against chronic inflammation, although they may provide some temporary relief from joint pain and other “symptoms” of inflammation. 

Natural anti-inflammatory agents present in fruits, vegetables, fish and other foods can effectively fight chronic inflammation.  Other foods, such as high amounts of saturated and transfats, cause inflammation.  The nutrients needed to reduce and prevent inflammation include flavonoids, alpha lipoic acid, carnosine, turmeric, glutathione and resveratrol.

You may have heard of inflammation and the damaging effects of free radicals.  But, have you heard of glycation or methylation? 

To learn more continue to part 2 of this report.