Eating Well Boosts Your Immunity

With cold and flu season upon us, certain nutrients such as vitamin C, zinc and selenium are often touted by some to provide protection against seasonal illness. While it’s true that these nutrients do boost the immune system, more is not better! “Almost all vitamins and minerals play some role in ensuring an optimal immune response,” says Catherine Field, registered dietitian and spokesperson for DC, “but high doses do not help and may do harm.”

Here are the ’straight goods’ based on evidence provided by dietitians – your trusted source for food and nutrition advice:

Vitamin C Read more

Good diet in USA influenced by education level, not earning level of people

For healthy diet, learning level counts more than earning level

Americans are eating healthier diets than they did in 1965, but college-educated people are doing better than high school dropouts, new research indicates.

That may seem obvious, but it wasn’t the case in 1965. Then, people who had not finished high school, those who were high school graduates and those who went to college all had about the same level of diet quality.

But a more recent survey by Barry Popkin, Ph.D., and colleagues from the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that while dietary quality has improved overall, those with more education now have much healthier diets.

‘In fact, the gap in diet between higher educated persons and lower educated persons may explain the large disparity in health between higher and lower socioeconomic groups in the United States,’ Popkin says.

The research is published in the July issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Popkin emphasized that this study examined the composition of the diet, not energy intake or obesity. Read more