Healthy Me

Have you heard about the acai berry?  I am hearing good things about it and I see it a lot in juices at the store and in supplements.  I am going to look up acai reviews and see what this berry is all about!  I wonder if it can help you lose weight or perhaps it is high in antioxidants!  Either/or would be wonderful. 

I also need to look up some supplements for my teenage daughter who gets migraines during her period.  She needs something to stop the huge hormonal fluctuations that cause her migraines. Poor kid.

I've read several of Suzanne Somers' books about staying healthy and one of them talked about how she takes human growth hormone for her health.  This is one subject that I will readily admit that I know nothing about but I know there are many people who claim benefits from it. 

Do you get this or do you know anybody who gets it?  I'm curious to know as much about it as I can find out.  I find the older I get, the less I trust mainstream doctors and tend to lean towards what is considered alternative by many.  My natural thyroid medication, while once the only medication used for thyroid disease for years and booted out of the way for the synthetic thyroid medication, is one "alternative" treatment I use.  It took me years to find a good doctor for it too!

The FDA took a smack at Dr. Weil's knuckles last week, issuing him a warning letter about selling supplements that claim to support the immune system and that have "antiviral and immunity-enhancing properties".

Apparently, the FDA doesn't want him saying on his web site that certain herbs can help ward off colds and flu. It appears as if they only want Big Pharma to make the money with their drugs instead.

Big Pharma and our government really need to get out of bed with each other!

I've started taking vitamins with Iron in them to raise my ferritin levels a little bit. I also need to get some good Iodine, which I've read will help shrink the nodules in my neck (as long as I don't overdue it and throw myself into hyperthyroidism).

I'm wondering if I should be taking supplements for the digestive system (the good bacterias...like eating yogurt but for people who don't like yogurt like me). I also have green tea supplements that I need to read up on. Do I need Vitamin E? Not sure. I know my Vitamin D was a little on the low side so I need to raise that too. With my fair skin, I don't go out in the sun often so I either need to do that or supplement. I also have Omega-3 but I need to find smaller ones. They're like horse pills and it got stuck at the top of my throat and I felt like I had heartburn for hours afterward the day before yesterday. Omega-3 is really good for you. It's also supposed to be very helpful for kids with ADHD from all we've researched. I know when I'd give it to my stepson during his visits, we saw a noticeable improvement in his ADHD behavior.

I've been hearing a lot about the Acai (ah-sigh-ee) berries from Brazil as being some superfood, increasing energy, and weight loss hype. If the hype is to be believed, it sounds like a perfect food. Is it?

I tried Mona Vie Acai juice a couple of weeks ago when somebody gave me a sample when I went to the meat market. The Rep. claimed all kinds of benefits from it. The taste was ok and the benefits I was told about seemed promising if they were true. I'd like to buy some of the Mona Vie to give it a try, more long-term, but at $40/bottle, I can't afford to spend money we don't have on what may just be hype. One claim was that a small cup a day of Mona Vie was three daily servings of fruit/veggies. It was also talked about on Rachael Ray. I did pick up a small bottle of Acai juice (different brand) mixed with Mangosteen from Wal-Mart for a couple bucks but I doubt it's the same quality as some of the others.

I am aware of people's seemingly unending quest to fraud people so I don't want to take one person's word for it. I found on Oprah's site statements that it is full of antioxidants, amino acids, and essential fatty acids. The problem with juice is the added sugars.

How do you know what is hype and what is documented truth? Is this worth the money or are you better off getting the needed nutrients from more readily available foods?