Vitamin, Mineral & Herb Remedies
Dietary supplements can be surprisingly helpful for many common disorders. There is substantial science supporting the use of herbs, vitamins, minerals and other supplements.
How Are Vitamin D and Rheumatoid Arthritis Linke…
Vitamin D (the sunshine vitamin) is essential for good health. Human beings can make this hormone when skin is exposed to sunlight. In addition, vitamin D is found in a few foods: oily fish (and espec…
Should You Take Probiotics with Antibiotics? New…
Health professionals in the U.S. have been slow to embrace probiotics. European doctors have been recommending probiotics with antibiotics for a long time. For reasons that puzzle us, American physici…
Do Vitamin D Pills Lower Your Chance of Cancer?
Epidemiological studies have shown that people with low levels of vitamin D are more susceptible to various cancers. What can you do to reverse your risk? The answer is not clear. We do not know if …
Multivitamins No Help Against Heart Disease
Are multivitamins no help against heart disease? Millions of Americans take multivitamins, perhaps as many as 40 percent of older adults. A new study suggests that mixed vitamin and mineral formulatio…
Will Benfotiamine Ease Your Foot Pain?
Have you ever dropped a heavy can of food on your toe? The nail turns purplish-black and the foot hurts like crazy. After a few days, though, the pain calms down and only hurts when you wiggle or stub…
Can Cod Liver Oil Relieve Your Knee Pain?
Knee osteoarthritis can really interfere with mobility. Doctors prescribe pain relievers such as diclofenac (Cataflam, Voltaren) or meloxicam (Mobic), but patients should not take such NSAID medicatio…
Can Women Lower Breast Cancer Risk with Vitamin …
Vitamin D levels may be important as a way for women to lower breast cancer risk. That is the conclusion from an epidemiological study (PLOS One, June 15, 2018). Which Women Had a Lower Breast Cancer …
Why Won’t the Vitamin Wars Ever End?
Experts still cannot agree about vitamin and mineral supplements. Many health professionals maintain that they are a total waste of money and could be dangerous. Others say that vitamin insurance is e…
Natural Ways to Get Your Cholesterol Down
Cholesterol is only one of numerous risk factors for heart disease. However, physicians can't do much about some of your other risk factors, such as your family history. They can prescribe medications…
Show 1124: Should You Be Taking Vitamin Suppleme…
What is the value of vitamin supplements? There is no consensus on whether most people would benefit. Much of the research on multivitamins does not show a strong effect in preventing cardiovascular d…
Will Vitamin Supplements Prevent Heart Problems?
Does it make sense to take vitamin pills? A new systematic review looked at 179 recent studies of commonly used supplements to see whether any of these pills helped ward off heart problems (Jenkins et…
Is Fish Oil Really Useless for Dry Eyes?
Fish oil has a reputation for helping ease the symptoms of dry eye, but a recent study found it was no more helpful than the olive oil placebo the scientists used. (Both groups–those taking fish oil…
Will Zinc Help Woman with Unwanted Facial Hair?
What can you do about unwanted facial hair? Many women struggle with this problem. One reader did some online research, but the results were confusing. Could a supplement help solve this problem? Zinc…
Should Reader Worry About His Anticancer Supplem…
Once cancer patients finish treatment, do they put that entire episode behind them and just move on? Some do, but most find that periodic checkups to make sure the cancer has not returned remind them …
No Study Support for Fish Oil Soothing Dry Eyes
Fish oil is one of the best sources of omega-3 fatty acids. These compounds have anti-inflammatory activity, and doctors have hoped that fish oil supplements would prove useful against a wide range of…
Will Curcumin Pills Ease Your Knee Pain?
Who would guess that the yellow spice in curry would become controversial? For centuries, people have been using turmeric to add color and flavor to their food, and in traditional Ayurvedic medicine, …
Are You Wasting Your Money on Curcumin?
If you have ever shopped for supplements online, you may have wondered if you are wasting your money. Ever since 1994, when Congress passed the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act (DSHEA), FDA…
Agonizing Constipation from Calcium Pills for Bo…
Some medications cause constipation as a side effect. Occasionally, people report that simple supplements can trigger agonizing constipation. As a result, one reader faced a dilemma: Trying to Take Ca…
Do You Need to Take Calcium Supplements?
For decades, women and older adults were advised to take calcium supplements to help maintain bone strength. More recently, however, concerns have been raised about the possibility that calcium supple…
How to Treat Seasonal Allergies: Drugs or Natura…
Allergy season is here. Even if you did not realize that, the warring drug commercials on television should have alerted you. On the same program you can see ads for Xyzal, Allegra and Nasacort. There…
Will Bromelain from Pineapple Ease Aching Joints…
What can you do for the aching joints of arthritis or the sore muscles and soft tissue of fibromyalgia? Many sufferers are caught in a difficult dilemma: without relief for the pain, they have trouble…
Will Vitamin D Help Prevent Cancer?
Is there a connection between vitamin D levels and cancer risk? Previous studies have shown that people with low levels of vitamin D appear more susceptible to cancers of the pancreas, colon, breast a…
Will Excess Vitamin B6 Damage Nerves?
Whether you utilize pharmaceutical medicines or look to natural remedies such as vitamins and minerals, you must make sure the treatment is not worse than the ailment. That is a significant danger of …
Do Glucosamine and Chondroitin Increase Your Cho…
What happens if you take something for a presumed benefit only to discover that it has a downside? This happens pretty frequently with pharmaceuticals; everyone is familiar with the idea of side effec…
Should You Worry About Serious Melatonin Side Ef…
More than three million Americans take melatonin to get to sleep. That's twice the number that used this supplement in 2007 (National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health). This makes melat…
Fish Oil Flops When It Comes to Heart Protection
For years, Americans have been taking fish oil and other types of omega-3 supplements. Their goal was heart protection, but it seems that expectation is unrealistic. Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Heart Prot…
How Much Vitamin C Do You Need?
Vitamin C, isolated and named more than 100 years ago, is crucial for good health. Even before it was discovered, vitamin C entered history. A lack of fresh fruits and vegetables on long sea voyages m…
Will Women Run Faster After Swallowing Supplemen…
A new supplement under development may help women run faster. In a pilot study, women taking the dietary supplement, which contains three minerals, carnitine and phosphatidylserine, cut nearly a minut…
Will Valerian Help You Sleep Better?
Who has not had the experience of tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep? Anxiety about a new job or an upcoming trip often keeps people awake for a few days. Others find that ruminating about rel…
Will Aged Garlic Fight Heart Disease?
Obesity is associated with inflammation that can exacerbate pain and contribute to chronic conditions such as diabetes or heart disease. Now researchers have found that a dietary supplement containing…
Do You Absorb Magnesium from Your Armpits?
Milk of magnesia is a time-honored medicine to treat constipation. But that is not the only use for this versatile compound. We first heard about using milk of magnesia in the armpits to suppress odor…
Can Magnesium Help You Sleep Without Causing Dia…
Have you seen warnings that too little sleep will ruin your health? Sleep deprivation keeps the brain from functioning optimally (Slama et al, Sleep, Dec. 2017). It can also lead to insulin resistance…
Are Gummies a Good Way to Take Supplements?
What vitamins and minerals do you take? Do you prefer pills, capsules, drops, softgels, chewable tablets or gummies? There may be differences in how well your supplements work, depending on their form…
Can a Vitamin Really Help Prevent Skin Cancer?
Skin cancer is the most common type of malignancy in the US. Between 40 and 50 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with either basal cell carcinoma or squamous cell carcinoma by the age of 65. (Mel…
Can You Avert Diabetes with Cinnamon?
Type 2 diabetes is increasingly common. According to the American Diabetes Association, 9.4 percent of Americans have diabetes. Most of those individuals have type 2 diabetes, in which the cells stop …
Can You Prevent Macular Degeneration with Supple…
As we grow older, our senses may become less sharp. Many people find it harder to hear; others find it more difficult to see clearly. One of the leading causes of impaired vision among senior citizens…
Will Boswellia with Turmeric Ease Your Joint Pai…
Millions of us suffer with joint pain, and the older we get, the more likely we are to have achy knees or sore hips. It is little wonder, then, that there are many home remedies or dietary supplements…
How Much Fat Is Best for Vitamin D Absorption?
How should you take your vitamins? Most of the time, you don't get much guidance. Maybe you take them with meals, figuring that food contains vitamins too. Or perhaps you try to take them without food…
How Can You Choose a Good Supplement?
The topic of supplements has long been controversial, with some health care professionals claiming that people who eat a well-balanced diet need no additional vitamins or minerals. Others, in contrast…
Which Drugs Mess with Vitamin B12?
Keeping track of the nutritional consequences of medications can be tricky. Doctors don't always ask about possible problems; nor do pharmacists necessarily take these into account. But there are some…