Schwartz Labs

Vitamin D is creating a lot of buzz amongst the health conscience community.  Vitamin D plays a role in maintaining healthy bones, but the sunshine vitamin also helps prevent certain cancers, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic pain, and neurological disorders.

In the dark, cold winter months, especially if you live in the northern half of the U.S., you are probably lacking vitamin D.  Research suggests that about half of all men and women and up to 70% of children are Vitamin D deficient.

Individuals at highest risk for vitamin D deficiences include:

• Anyone who lives in a cold climate.
• Children and older adults
• Those with dark skin
• Individuals who are overweight or obese

Increasing vitamin D to at least 400 IU per day is the best way to boost vitamin D in the absence of sunlight, and here’s how to do it.

Few foods naturally contain high levels of vitamin D.  Eggs and mushrooms are a good source of vitamin D, as well as milk and other dairy products like cheese and yogurt.  Some 100% fruit juices, spreads, and cereals are also fortified with this vital nutrient.

Get your daily dose of Vitamin D with Schwartz Laboratories Vitaplex and fulfill all you supplement needs by visiting www.Schwartzlabs.com

Have you seen it at the gym?  The blue half-ball dome lurking near the other gym “toys” is the bosu (pronounced bow-sue).   This two-and-a-half foot-wide half ball is like a stability ball with a flat bottom.  This piece of equipment will take your regular training to another level by focusing on your core.  The bosu is versatile but consistent – it consistently requires your core to be engaged.  It is designed to keep you slightly off balance as you perform a variety of exercises.  

Benefits include:

        -improved balance

        -improved core stability

        -improved awareness of the position of one’s body 

One characteristic of the bosu is that it can be used with the dome up or the dome down.  This is actually where the name came from: “Both Sides Utilized”.  

Here is a short list of exercises to try with the bosu:

        -with the dome up, stand on the bosu and do bicep curls and/or shoulder presses (after a month or two, when you feel confident, turn the dome down and do the same curls or presses)

        -with the dome down, put your hands on the flat surface and do pushups

        -with the dome up, sit on bosu and do abdominal crunches

        -with the dome down, stand on the bosu and do squats

Get started with these exercises and you will feel the difference!  You may even notice that you are sore in “new” areas on your body.  Help your muscles recover by replenishing them with products from Schwartz Laboratories.

Aspartame can be found in more than 6,000 foods, including soft drinks, chewing gum, table-top sweeteners, diet and diabetic foods, breakfast cereals, jams, sweets, vitamins, prescription and over-the-counter drugs. Sold commercially under names like NutraSweet, Canderel, and now AminoSweet, Aspartame producer Ajinomoto chose to re brand it under the name AminoSweet, to “remind the industry that aspartame tastes just like sugar, and that it’s made from amino acids – the building blocks of protein that are abundant in our diet.” Until I started doing some reading I did not even realize that aspartame is the most controversial food additive in history, and its approval for use in food was the most contested in FDA history. In the end, the artificial sweetener was approved, not on scientific grounds, but rather because of strong political and financial pressure. In this case, the agenda is to make you believe that aspartame is a natural sweetener made with two amino acids that are essential for health and present in your diet already. They want you to believe aspartame delivers all the benefits of sugar and none of its drawbacks. While I am not an expert on aspartame I  certainly would not classify amino sweet as a “health” product as the name suggests.

I would like to hear from others out there that feel like they may have experienced side effects from ingesting aspartame?

Chris @ Schwartz Labs