April 11, 2012
SPRING SALE: Supplements from New York Buyers’ Club
It’s time for our SPRING SALE at the New York Buyers’ Club nonprofit nutritional supplements co-op.You’ll get 10% off the already low prices on NYBC’s extensive catalog of supplements, especially selected for quality and for evidence-based effectiveness in supporting health. Among the products on sale: SuperNutrition multivitamins; Nordic Natural fish oils; Jarrow brand CoQ10, B-right complex, Jarrodophilus, and glucosamine chondroitin; Green Vibrance (Vibrant Health); acetylcarnitine, NAC, and alpha lipoic acid (Montiff); and many others.
Just go to the NYBC online store at
and use coupon code COUP10 when you check out.
Place your order soon–this offer EXPIRES APRIL 30.
Questions? Call us toll-free at 800 650-4983, or email us at contact.nybc@newyorkbuyersclub.org
February 6, 2012
The Versatile Vitamin C
Most people associate Vitamin C with help in reducing cold symptoms. Indeed studies have shown that taking high-dose Vitamin C (500- 1000mg every hour) at the first sign of a cold can shorten its duration by one-third, helping to relieve symptoms faster. Vitamin C revs up the immune system by increasing the body’s production of antibodies, white blood cells, and interferon (a natural antiviral), and so it may be effective against many infections.
But that’s not the only way Vitamin C can keep you healthy. Here’s another major benefit of this versatile vitamin:
Joint health. Vitamin C’s anti-inflammatory properties help the body maintain cartilage, the all-important connective tissue that keeps your joints working smoothly. It’s also important to note that NSAIDS (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), a whole group of drugs commonly used for arthritis pain, regularly deplete Vitamin C, so anyone taking these medications (which range from aspirin to prescription items like Celebrex) absolutely needs to replace the lost Vitamin C. In short, supplementing with 1000-3000mg of Vitamin C per day is essential if you’re also taking NSAIDS.
For some Vitamin C supplement choices, see NYBC’s descriptions of:
C1000- Ascorbic Acid Plus Olea
October 19, 2011
The New York Times on turmeric (curcumin) for joint pain
Our hometown newspaper, The New York Times, has featured a report on turmeric (also known by its most active medicinal ingredient, curcumin) for joint pain. The recommending physician is Dr. Minerva Santos, director of integrative medicine at Northern Westchester Hospital in New York:
“I use a lot of turmeric in my practice,” she said. “It’s an amazing spice. Usually what I do is I make sure nothing else is going on, that it’s just plain old inflammation from wear and tear.”
While many people may encounter turmeric only in curry dishes and South Asian restaurants, Dr. Santos advises her patients to find it in health food stores in pill or capsule form. She recommends a dose of 1,000 milligrams a day. The benefit of buying it in a bottle, she said, is that it’s usually combined with a compound called piperine, which aids absorption.
NYBC stocks Curcumin (Jarrow) in two formats:
As new studies of Curcumin have emerged, NYBC also began stocking additional forms from Vibrant Health, which add bioperine (black pepper extract) for enhanced absorption:
Curcuminoids 1000 mg/30c w/bioperine
Curcuminoids 1000 mg/60c w/bioperine
Read the full story at http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/the-doctors-remedy-turmeric-for-joint-pain/?hp
January 20, 2011
Vitamins C and D for osteoarthritis
There’s a lot of scientific evidence that simply supplementing with key vitamins C, D, E and B complex can improve joint health and reduce symptoms of osteoarthritis.
Osteoarthritis is the most common form of joint disease and a leading cause of disability in older people. The usual recommendations for managing the disease concentrate on relief of symptoms, using agents such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs – “pain relievers”). These drugs, however, do have significant side effects and don’t slow the progression of osteoarthritis.
Perhaps the most important of all the vitamins for osteoarthritis is vitamin C, which slows inflammatory response in the body (and moreover has many other health benefits, such as reduction of cardiovascular risk). Here are two important studies on vitamin C and osteoarthritis:
•The Framingham Osteoarthritis Cohort Study found that moderate intake of vitamin C (120-200 mg/day) yielded a three-fold lower risk of osteoarthritis progression. The association was strong and highly significant, and was consistent between sexes and across different severities of the disease. The higher vitamin C intake also reduced the likelihood of development of knee pain.
•A smaller 2003 study from Denmark carefully tested 1 gram/day of calcium ascorbate (containing 898mg Vitamin C) versus placebo for people with verified osteoarthritis of the hip and/or knee. The main finding was that vitamin C reduced pain significantly compared to placebo.
As for Vitamin D: bone and cartilage metabolism depend on the presence of vitamin D. Several studies of vitamin D suggest adequate intake of vitamin D may slow the progression and possibly help prevent the development of osteoarthritis. See, for example, the older study, “Vitamin D and bone health in the elderly,” in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 1982; and again, in the Framingham study mentioned above, risk of osteoarthritis progression was seen to increase three-fold in participants with the lowest levels of vitamin D intake and serum levels of vitamin D.
For recommendations on how best to take these vitamins see NYBC entries at
January 8, 2009
D3: Still another treatment note on the “sunshine vitamin”
We get a lot of health newsletters and offers of same in the mail, especially newsletters that focus on dietary supplements. Sometimes it’s hard to get through the pile, but we do keep sifting in search of notes of interest.
So here’s a tidbit from the Mayo Clinic Health Letter. It’s in the form of a thank you note from one of their subscribers, who followed the newsletter’s advice and tried daily Vitamin D supplementation for “unspecified musculo-skeletal pain”–in his case, long-term, nightly knee pain that led to sleep loss and did not respond to physical therapy or acupuncture. The result of Vitamin D supplementation, taken with food every evening: the pain was relieved, and he was able to sleep soundly.
Of course we know much about the role of Vitamin D and calcium in maintaining healthy bones, but this little anecdote suggests that the Vitamin may also have application to some specific everyday quality of life issues. Certainly it’s a low-cost, low-impact intervention!
For more on Vitamin D (the best-absorbed form is D3), see the NYBC entry
Many will want to consider this Vitamin D3 + Calcium combination supplement, which provides dosages similar to those used in a number of recent research studies on Vitamin D:
Bone Up (Jarrow)
(available at http://www.newyorkbuyersclub.org)
July 23, 2008
The Problem with Celebrex and other NSAIDS: Another Reason to Consider Glucosamine and Chondroitin as Alternative for Osteoarthritis Pain
As Dr. Hyla Cass points out in her excellent book Supplement Your Prescription: What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know about Nutrition, NSAIDs (including older ones such as aspirin, as well as newer ones like Celebrex), which are very widely used for arthritis pain, have the unfortunate side effect of inhibiting the enzymes needed to create cartilage. “Essentially,” she writes, “this means that the drugs used to relieve arthritis-related discomfort accelerate the progression of the disease.” (p. 86)
Indeed, as Dr. Cass goes on to note, there’s a study showing that people taking NSAIDs on a regular basis to relieve knee arthritis pain actually have a greater risk of worsening the disease over time than people who take a dummy pill! Moreover, another study showed that people taking NSAIDs for knee arthritis were at higher risk for developing arthritis in the hip or in the other knee, compared to people who did not take these drugs.
Just another reason to consider use of the supplement glucosamine chondroitin to support joint health. See additional information, including dosage recommendations, at NYBC’s Glucosamine Chondroitin entry.
