GynoFiles

Zinc is potent micronutrient that we need for general wellness, your thinking processes, as well as fertility and gyno health. It's been in the news again as it was reported in JAMA that a new study tried to look at zinc supplementation for improving sperm count, and found that it sadly did not work. Zinc is a trace mineral, also called trace element, widely available in meat and plant sources. It has long been known that antioxidant nutrition has benefits against cancer and heart disease. Because the zinc is harder for us to chemically extract from vegetarian food sources there is lower bioavailability in plant sources. In other words, having lower bioavaibility means, its there in your food, but you just can't extract it. Vegetarians and vegans are urged to get approximately 50% more zinc from supplements than those who do eat meat. In fact your zinc blood levels will vary depending upon how much meat you do eat. Fish sources have zinc too, and oysters are among th...

Biotin is a water soluble vitamin, known as Vitamin B, and excreted in the urine. There is no real toxicity as excess is just excreted. Food sources are egg yolk, wheat, liver, dairy, sweet potatoes, and legumes such as soybean. But the biotin in food is protein bound and gets released by an enzyme. We can manufacture biotin in the small intestine from healthy gut bacteria, so the only source is not technically just from food. Biotin is an essential part of our metabolism of carbohydrates, protein amino acids, and blood fats by being a co-factor known as a co-enzyme that helps us produce glucose from food. Biotin is critical to much of our protein synthesis as well as cell growth, which is why it’s an important co-factor in hair, skin, and nail growth. Biotin can actually cause lab test disorders, including thyroid testing abnormalities, so be sure to disclose to your MD if you are taking this when interpreting tests. Breastfeeding and using acutane are two common rea...

Iron deficiency anemia is common and causes many unwanted health effects from sleeplessness, to weight gain, to listless hair, loss of hair, brittle nails, restless legs, fatigue, and brain cloud. Women lose iron through menstrual blood on a monthly basis, and this, combined with poor nutrition can cause iron deficiency anemia. Having your gyno help you normalize hormones and menstrual cyles may make all this advice moot if you aren’t losing much blood at all! However we all benefit from proper iron in our diet which varies according to our age, sex, and diet! Iron supplements, may be necessary, but it is also possible to boost your iron through diet. Iron supplements are so poorly tolerated it is now recommended that they be taken only every other day rather than daily so as to minimize side effects and allow for better absorption by your gut. Vegans, vegetarians, pescetarians and those with food allergies can all have nutritional solutions that will be successful.  ...

A few years ago a gyno mentioning probiotic to their patient would be met with a pause and a stare, no one had the slightest idea. Sowly but surely it came to be recognized that probiotic food in one's diet, such as yogurt, could help a woman avoid vaginal yeast infections. Now, in the age of anti-aging medicine we have found that probiotics can do a lot more for your overall health than just prevent a few yeast infections, but they are a critical component of fighting off the major causes of poor health including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer to just name a few. Now we talk much more than probiotics when speaking about healing the colonies of bacteria that live within us so they help us be as healthy as we can be. We now speak of pre-biotics and there is a new concept of 'psychobiotic' or certain types of healthy gut bacteria that help to reduce depression and anxiety. It has now been shown that some bacteria release compounds that go to the brain and can...

The skivvy on Vitamin C is that it is a nutrient which supports our production of collagen, elastin, and the cartilage of our body. For fitness this means the ligaments, the tendons and the joints all need optimum Vitamin C support. Some inflammation in our body is actually a very important process that helps our body fight off infections, cancers, and repair injury. Chronic, up regulated, inflammation however can cause the reverse processes in our physiology and lead to chronic illness and general inability to function. Vitamin C is one such substance that can help repair injured tissues and stabilize their health.     Magnesium ascorbate is a magnesium salt of vitamin C that is instrumental in muscle and joint repair and maintenance, decreases trauma to muscles, and thus reduces the pain of intense exercise and training. Overuse of muscles triggers the release inflammatory proteins and optimum Vitamin C can prevent these inflammatory compounds from being released. Th...

When you get a migraine it's tough to know, is this your hormones, is this the weather, are you lacking hydration and vitamins, or the few sips of red wine you had last night?! Migraine headaches are common in women, and often more difficult to treat in the menstrual period of time. Some women almost exclusively have menstrual migraines.. Migraine sufferers have headaches, but often they will have warning symptoms as well. These may be nausea, light adversity, odd sense of smell or even vomiting. These non-headache neurological symptoms that occur when the pain starts are known as auras. Recent studies have shown that it is actually very common to have migraines without warning than with warning auras. But other women might have migraine symptoms that precede the actual headache pain by a day or even several days. And these symptoms may be those that are commonly recognized to be associated with migraines: like spots before your eyes, vision changes or, fatigue. When ...