Are you taking too many supplements—or not enough? In this month’s #WellnessWebinar, Dina the Dietitian explains the difference between nutrient deficiencies and toxicities, how age, medications, and health conditions may increase your risk, and what the science really says about so-called miracle cures.
In this video, you’ll learn:
✅ How nutrient needs change with age and health status
✅ What “tolerable upper intake levels” mean and how to use them
✅ How to spot social media myths and misleading supplement advice
✅ Practical tips for choosing safe, effective supplements
This session is ideal for adults, caregivers, or anyone looking to make informed choices about their nutrition and supplement use.
👉 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share if you find this helpful!
00:00 Welcome & Introduction
03:19 Micronutrients
05:30 What is a deficiency? What is a toxicity?
07:02 Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA)
08:05 Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL)
09:17 Risk Factors
11:35 Common Nutrient Deficiencies
16:26 Common Nutrient Toxicities
22:18 Myths, Marketing & Misinformation
26:09 Toxins & Detoxes
27:11 Red Flags in Product Marketing
29:22 Immune-boosting Claims
30:03 More Is Better
31:30 “Natural” Is Safe
33:02 Home Tests
34:29 Dispelling Common Myths
36:13 Legitimate & Knowledgeable Sources (According to Dina)
38:25 Practical Tips
42:15 Wrap-up & Next Steps
#MicronutrientDeficiencies #DishWithDina
—-
Feedback form:
https://forms.gle/S6pVZ7wZ4j5oDuZx5
Join our mailing list to stay connected, stay informed, receive exclusive offers, and be a part of the DishWithDina community –
https://forms.gle/VgDMkU8JDnBPywvh9
Check out our condition-specific online courses (launching soon) –
Schedule a nutrition consultation with Dina –
https://shorturl.at/ovCuB
—-
Check us out on social media –
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dishwithdina/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dishwithdina/
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@dishwithdina
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dishwithdina
—-
Disclaimer: The information on DishWithDina.com and in any DishWithDina session or program is intended for your general knowledge only and is not a substitute for medical advice or treatment for specific medical conditions. Please seek prompt, qualified medical advice for any specific health issues and consult your physician or health practitioner before starting a new fitness regimen, herbal therapy, or other self-directed treatment.
welcome everyone to another one of our free our free monthly wellness webinars uh my name is Dina Dellesjo i’ll introduce myself more formally in a bit today’s discussion revolves around toxicities and deficiencies oo sounds exciting this was a topic that has come up in a few other of the monthly webinars that we’ve done in the past most recently when we did the kidney disease one last month we talked about detoxification and healthy bodies and how much of too much is anything so I figured what a great chance to kind of walk through some things and give us all an opportunity to learn about some of the definitions and key words and topics as you can see here some of the takeaways that I hope you receive from after our presentation is over so some housekeeping rules as I’m sure you heard as you were entering into the webinar the session is recorded that is because most often the majority of the registrants aren’t attending live they’re going to receive a recording after that if you are attending live you still receive a recording after that too so just be conscientious if you want to leave your camera on or off or put your microphone on or off eventually in a few months these webinars do get uploaded to the Dishwith Dina TV YouTube channel for public viewing so that is also why we make sure we have it accessible and recorded too you can use the chat box at any time i’m going to take a look every few slides or so and see if anyone has questions that I can answer as I go along but these sessions usually run about 40 minutes or so and we purposely leave hopefully enough time at the end if you do have any questions doesn’t have to be about today’s topic it could be anything and I’ll do my best to answer um but that said as I always like to say I am a dietitian not your dietician so please make sure that you are checking with your own medical health care professionals before you start or stop anything regarding your habits and your wellness regimens lastly by registering for this we do capture your email so there is a disclaimer on the registration form that you’ll be added into our email list and that is purposely so we can you know uh legally send you things afterwards like the recording you’ll also get a follow-up email saying thank you for attending this and you’ll get a survey link as well it would be so great if you spent a few minutes on that because we love getting feedback to see where we can improve and also learn a little bit more about some topics that you might be interested in that we can plug into future sessions um in addition to that since you’re going to be part of the email distribution list you’ll get a newsletter as well i only send them out once a month unless we’re doing anything super special but you can always opt out or mute me or stick me in a garbage folder if you don’t want to hear from me or if I’m inundating your inbox all right so if we’ve never met before hello my name is Dina Dellesandro i am a registered dietician we sometimes also go by the title nutritionist i am also the adjunct lecturer here in New York City well technically today I’m in my Ocean County location in New Jersey but in New York City where I live and work I’m the adjunct lecturer of undergraduate and graduate nutrition sciences at Lehman College in the Bronx i’m also the campus dietitian there at the student health center and in the interest of time I won’t list everything else that’s on this screen you can take a look at it and ask me any questions if you have anything that you want to learn about what I do so if you attended one of our prior webinars I think it was in the end of last year it was called macros and micros and food groups oh my where we talked about food and the components of food so this and the next slide are just a little bit of a refresher around that so we have macronutrients which are known as your carbs and your fats and your proteins these are macros because they’re large molecules and macros because we require them in large amounts we use grams as the unit of measurement for that and it also provides us with calories or the energy we need in order to function in our daily lives micronutrients however and this is what’s closely tied into today’s discussion with toxicities and deficiencies micronutrients are those vitamins and minerals found in all of our food items the different colors indicate different things and also this is micro because not only are they smaller molecules but we also require smaller amounts of them as you can see micrograms or milligrams so this is what I call the quality of your food the things that provide us with our daily requirements this is where I also just want to recognize obviously we’ll share in a second and we’ll see in a second why some people might not be able to meet those daily requirements whether it’s physiological issues or otherwise and we also always like to recognize what are known as the social determinants of health which are factors like education and location and accessibility and affordability when it comes to quality food and nutrition so sometimes those factors outside of a person’s own individual responsibility or control that can affect their health outcomes so what contains foods high in micronutrients um everything everything does however there’s a different ratio of what is in certain foods and this is why we always encourage a diverse and varied diet because what’s missing in one thing you’ll be able to get in something else so just to uh give you a little list of things that you see on here literally a little bit of everything and because of this if you are taking into account a particular diet or you’re managing a particular disease state that you might not be able to get certain foods that’s what we’ll talk about when it comes to deficiency so let’s distinguish with the definitions here of what this means when we talk about deficiencies in the micronutrient world in our bodies we’re really sp uh focusing mostly on food so if you’re not eating a proper diet if you’re not getting those vitamins and minerals from your food items you can become deficient in those things and I’ll share with you shortly some examples of that but this is where the body lacks those essential nutrients vitamins and minerals in order for us to properly grow and develop and function and maintain our overall health so it’s only when we find out usually from a doctor a lab test that we’re deficient in something a particular vitamin or nut or mineral where then supplementation would be necessary where you’re getting your micronutrients from a pill form or an IV of some sort in contrast a toxicity so not always this is death like sometimes it’s just adverse reactions so we’ll talk a little bit about that coming soon but here in the toxicity language this is really more about excessive supplementation or if your body is unable to process or utilize the micronutrients in your food and there’s a buildup of that so this is where we can see things like harmful effects happen um an excess intake of the supplementation can cause even from fortified foods can cause uh what is known as levels of toxicity and can impair other absorption of other micronutrients and nutrients to be available in the body so we encourage people to just be careful with excessive supplementation and maintaining a balanced diet i always like to share a little behind the scenes of what it is to be a dietitian and what we learn i had to memorize this thing back in DFN445 if any of my students are watching this you know what I’m talking about we had a textbook and this is actually right now what you’re looking at is an excerpt of a reference list so there’s something called the dietary reference intakes it’s kind of a broader general term for reference values that we utilize in order to plan for and also assess nutrient intake and diets and so on and so within that umbrella term there’s something called the RDA the recommended dietary allowance so here you can see on screen left hand side is through the life cycle stages and there’s also the sex differentiations males and females and across the top this is an example only of vitamins and what the recommended level is per day in order for generally healthy people the majority of them to be able to function accordingly if people are dealing with you know chronic conditions and not as quote unquote healthy then obviously we would make accommodations for that then in comparison we also do have something a chart a reference called tolerable upper intake levels or ULS so same thing you can see on here on the left hand side we have the life stage groups and broken down into males and females this excerpt is an example of the elements or the minerals so you can see on top there and this is kind of like the max dosage that somebody should get before there’s an adverse reaction so again this is why I said before if you’re eating your food it’s kind of hard to hit this level in fact a lot of people are usually deficient because they’re not getting good quality or enough food to begin with and the supplementation part is really where it kicks in to be a little bit more concerning with um toxic levels so as an example if you count I think it’s four columns over you can see on the top it says calcium milligrams per day and at the very bottom there you can see about 2500 to 3,000 milligrams a day is the cap and as a comparison the recommended allowance for calcium uh for an example for women of a certain uh age range around 20 to 45 or so is about 1,00 to,300 milligrams per day so that is about you know 2 to 2 and a half times higher before we start getting concerned about what the issues might be in toxicity all right so I want to summarize for all of you here some of the more common risk factors that take place some of these could be age related some of these are condition specific so you know as we go through our life cycles as we get more involved in different kinds of environmental factors we have some maybe disruption in nutrient absorption and metabolism or utilization kidney and liver very very important in everything that we do as far as managing moderating and then excreting certain things from our body so if we have damaged uh kidney or kidney disease liver disease that can impact the processing and the utilization of those micronutrients gi you’re eating things you’re drinking things right in your mouth and out the back so along the line we have what is known as sites of absorption so if you’re having gastrointestinal issues flare ups episodes diagnosis or you’ve had resected bowels or barriiatric surgery that can definitely affect where things are getting absorbed and how your body processes those micronutrients as well and then we sometimes see things like medication nutrient interactions which I’ll give some examples in the slides coming up where things can block the pathways and it’s meant to be in a certain way for benefits of managing a particular condition but then it puts you at risk for either deficiency or toxicity with your micronutrients and then the last two items here again acknowledging potential issues with limited variety in the diet and food insecurity if you’re unable to access certain things obviously you won’t be able to get what you need out of your diet and so here I want to also just elaborate um when we talk about the immunompromised or special populations people who are pregnant people who smoke or drink excessively again there’s certain things that they may or may not be able to absorb or acquire from their diet anybody who is on a very strict diet whether it’s on purpose or involuntary like if they have disordered eating patterns um older adults we see this too the gut microbiome goes through a lot of changes on average we tend to see people who have more pharmaceutical needs and managing multiple conditions so that can really mess with our gut and mess with our immune system as well vegetarians and vegans might opt to avoid certain food groups and certain ingredients that again contain those micronutrients so they might be deficient in some of those things as well and then of course things like allergies or malabsorption problems come up as well so let’s go into the discussion around common deficiencies and as you can see on screen here just to reiterate usually this is because people are not getting what they need from their diet that is going to be where the indicator happens and some of the more common micro nutrients that we see that people are deficient in starting with vitamin B12 this is very prevalent in mostly animal foods and some fortified foods so if people are eating more veganbased diets or more plant-based diets they might not be getting that micronutrient and because it does do a lot of good things in the body you can suffer the consequences when you’re deficient in this in things like fatigue and nerve damage and even memory loss next up we have vitamin D not always related to food we do have vitamin D rich foods like sardines and fish and egg yolks and fortified foods but the sun is a great source of vitamin D and our body requires vitamin D to to convert into other things to create different functions in our cells and our body functions and so if we are deficient in vitamin D whether we have limited exposure or limited food intake or as you’ll see in a second when it comes with kidney and liver disorders like I mentioned before our organs do process and utilize certain things so if they’re unable to do that with vitamin D you can find yourself deficient and you’ll see because it’s uh pretty directly related with bone health you’ll see things like being more at risk for things like bone thinning or muscle weakness calcium is also tied into vitamin D as well sometimes if you’re calcium deficient you might also be vitamin D deficient and vice versa so maybe you’re not getting enough calcium in the diet it’s usually found in a lot of dairy products but it’s also found in a lot of food plant-based foods as well like leafy greens and so again here if you don’t have a well varied diet or if you’re allergic to dairy products and you’re avoiding things like that it’s a little harder to get that in in the proper levels that you need and it can mess with your uh bone bone structure as well so you’ll see things like bone loss fractures and higher risk of osteoporosis foley uh I can’t remember how long ago we talked about this during maybe one of the pregnancy discussions or life cycle discussions in a past webinar folate and folic acid the synthetic form of folate folate is technically vitamin B9 and if people are deficient in this whether it’s poor diet or there’s something blocking the pathway like excessive alcohol use or certain medications and they become f folate deficient then that can lead to things like anemia and I’m going to point out for a second here and explain what that means with elevated homocyine so homocyine is like the breakdown products of protein folate plays a role with that pathway so if you don’t have enough folate then the homocyine product builds up in our body and that can put us more at risk for things like cardiovascular disease and stroke and folate folic acid is very important during childbearing years and reproductive health because it does tie in to the birth process and so the deficiency issue here would be things like neural tube disorders something called spinoipida iron iron deficiency so if you look at what I have here we have iron is found in a lot of animal and plant products however in the plant-based foods it’s a little harder for the body to absorb it it’s not as what we call bioavailable for our body to absorb it the workaround if you’ve heard me talking about this before is you can add in some vitamin C rich foods to kind of pull or extract that iron out of the plant walls but usually in the animal form it’s way better as far as absorbability and availability but if you have an iron poor diet or if you are a chronic bleeder or a heavy menstruator that can also deplete your iron stores and you’ll see things like iron deficient anemia fatigue weakened immune system etc i wanted just to say um in here with the medication there’s something called methtorixate so that helps with allev inflammatory things like um arthritis and psoriasis so if you are taking that that can also deplete your iron stores and make you iron deficient so again just make sure you’re contacting and speaking with your doctor to make sure you stay on that or if you need to get supplemented last but not least we have magnesium magnesium rich foods or things like a lot of the plant stuff soybeans legumes nuts whole grains fruits and veggies and we also see this in dairy products like yogurt so if you again are not getting a well-rounded plant-based diet that can lead to deficiencies in it and also if you are a diuretic user so what I’ve been learning about diuretics is yes it can relieve the excess fluid in your body but sometimes along with that fluid excretion along comes some of your micronutrients as well and magnesium is one of those things as well so if it is left untreated and you have um severe deficiency it can lead to things like muscle cramps and arrhythmias all right switching over to toxicity so now as you can see from the picture on here we’re really focusing on that excess supplementation and or issues with the body that don’t allow excretion of excess things to happen and so things build up in the body so one of the common micronutrients of concern here is vitamin A if we have highdose supplements or liver issues liver damage liver issues that can’t get rid of that then we can see things leading to further damage of the liver bone loss and what’s known as a territogenic effect that is with fetal fetal abnormalities or um birth disorders uh I just want to point out here vitamin A is one of the four fat soluble vitamins so what happens there it’s not like you can pee out the excess if you have excess amounts of your fats soluble vitamins they’re going to be stored in the liver and that is why it’s important to understand it can cause liver damage we’ll move on to vitamin B6 and I’ll actually share with you here a personal story when I was working at one of our community health centers um vitamin B6 is given as a supplementation it’s sometimes known as an anti-imetic meaning if you’re suffering from nausea like during uh pregnancy and morning sickness will sometimes give vitamin B6 to alleviate nausea it’s also in anybody who’s had gastric bypasses or beriatric surgery vitamin B6 is often supplemented because that part of the intestines is where the sites of absorption for some of your B vitamins are and so we had a patient come in complaining of facial twitching facial ticks that she was getting very regularly throughout the day and as it turned out I don’t know if it was because the doctor accidentally overprescribed or she was taking excess amounts of vitamin B6 but ching we figured that was the deal and so she was able to alleviate that particular symptom of that sensory issue going on there uh just by correcting the dosage that she was given next up we have calcium so like we said before if there’s calcium to deficiency there might be also a vitamin D deficiency they kind of go hand in hand same thing as you’ll see soon too with calcium and vitamin well I don’t think I put vitamin D toxicity in the slides but calcium toxicity and vitamin D toxicity kind of go hand inand there as well so since I don’t have it in the slides I just wanted to share here about vitamin D so a lot of people are very deficient in vitamin D we don’t go outside we just said that before in one of those slides if you are given a mega dose and I’ll talk a little bit more about this in the end of the presentation your doctor’s going to be checking your blood and probably putting you on a very short-term regimen so please make sure you’re not taking it upon yourself to ingest more than the u regulated dosage or given dosage on a bottle but back to calcium here so again if somebody’s suffering the consequences of osteoporosis and they’re getting an overcorrection or over subscription of supplements this can end up leading to something that I think is the most painful painful thing on earth which is kidney stones if anybody’s ever suffered from a kidney stone you know exactly what I’m talking about next up we have iron toxicity not just with supplementation but there’s actually a genetic disorder called hemocromattosis where the treatment for this is actually bloodletting they have to go to a phabbotomist regularly or sometimes they’ll opt for something called a chilation method where it extracts the you know heavy metals or these types of substances from their body because their body is not naturally able to excrete this and so an excessive amount or a toxic level of iron can lead to things like liver and heart damage and as you can see their joint pain or at risk for uh type 2 diabetes all right I’m taking a little bit of liberty here with sodium technically technically there’s no determination no determined level of toxicity when it comes to sodium intake but but you’ve heard me say a million times before that more than 75% of American sodium intake comes from outside foods whether it’s packaged products or takeout items and in doing so we have a very high level of sodium much more than you could ever possibly put on when you’re in control of your own food at home so I bring this up because the recommended allowance of sodium to allow our bodies to function properly is somewhere between 1500 to about 2,200 milligrams per day but the research has shown and surveys have shown that with that excessive sodium intake from convenience foods outside foods packaged goods things are known as highly processed foods as well some Americans are hitting somewhere more along the lines of 3500 to even as high as 6,000 milligrams per day so what that ends up doing is taxing your kidney and your blood pressure system um making you more at risk for high blood pressure and of course any heart disease issues that go along with that last up yes you can drown yourself so even though we want you to stay very well hydrated sometimes we see things like this come up in endurance athletes who run run sweat sweat sweat and then overhydrate and it’s not necessarily drowning yourself it’s just the fact and you can see the certain medication on here too going back to the discussion around diuretics it’s actually what ends up being called hypo low nreia meaning a very low amount of sodium in your blood sodium is necessary to help balance out our body and our functions and when you’re drinking consuming excessive amounts of water or you’re using excessive amounts of diuretics then again along goes out the sodium and it can cause things like confusion and seizures and we’ve even seen some case studies where athletes um are dead because of that so please you know be conscientious obviously um I’m sure the lay person the regular general population is not consuming that much water but a good rule as we tend to say is if you turn around when you are done urinating and just chuck it in your toilet if it’s pale yellow you’re probably okay with hydration if it’s very clear you’re probably over consuming so you can scale it back a bit all right I’m going to venture into my you know controversial soap box section of the presentation here and I think as I was putting together the materials and looking through the research for this topic I was getting a visceral reaction when I stopped along this section i mean I’m the one that created it i’m the one that designs these these webinars so I could have opted to leave it out but I thought it was a good opportunity for my me to kind of figure out why why I get so anxious talking about these things and it’s because I feel like it’s quite predatory right a lot of people have some false hope and they look to see what’s out there as miracle cures and I think some companies take advantage of that whether it’s their money their need to manage a particularly challenging disease or this issue about you know socially acceptable body images and body sizes and they don’t disclaim that there’s sometimes it’s more harm than good or it’s really hard to sustain and maintain that so before I advance to the next slides I wanted to share kind of what I wrote down why I think people go and listen and believe some of this stuff the first one is cognitive biases and emotional appeal like I just said it gives people hope even if it’s false hope but it’s you know especially fear around things where um people might confirm oh that’s that’s what I was thinking that’s what I was doing if it worked for them it works for me as well and obviously we know that’s not always the case uh the second thing is honestly some of these things are just marketed better right storytelling things um branding marketing whether it’s visual or verbal but the issue around this is you know as an example it’s like don’t eat the free poison food in your supermarket instead come and for a certain price every month you can join my membership and I’ll send you a meal plan and these you know protein powders that I approve and there’s an excessive amount of money being spent on things that are not necessarily science science-based the next thing I came across too was just distrust in institutions i I get it i get that there’s sometimes you know some skepticism around the healthare system and government agencies and so people love an underdog people love a whistleblower fighting for the truth you know advancing the advocacy of the patient population and that can really appeal to people who feel sort of disillusioned and then confirm those mainstream narratives which are not always accurate the next thing is the algorithm holy cow well listen back in the day when you were just shopping online you know Amazon would say “If you like this book you might like that book.” And now it feels like I watch television and I’m getting ads that are targeted to things that are very specific to me or I’m online reading something in my email and I see these ads pop up as well and so these social media algorithms really tend to amplify those sens that sensational content where you know the evidence-based stuff is nowhere near as sexy and exciting to listen to and so there’s strength in numbers there if you see reput repetition and popularity and people who maybe you follow and have interest in supporting that particular item or product or approach then you get this false sense of credibility and if enough people share it right it must be it must be true but it’s not usually always true and the last thing on my little list here is just lack of basic scientific and health literacy no offense to everyone but you don’t know what you’re doing when people tell you “I did my own research.” You don’t you don’t know you don’t know understanding how science and the scientific methods work let me just disclaim this maybe some of you who are watching this do because I know we’re in school together and or I’ve met with you and if you’re working with me as a patient I educate you a lot on what to be keenly aware of when you’re reading the research but you might not understand what correlation versus causation means you might not understand what cherrypicked data is you might not understand the significance of a single study and so there’s a lot of misinterpretations that can often get passed along that that end up perpetuating the myths in that so continuing along this controversial soap box of mine I’m going to point out a few things here right so detoxes I just got done saying you might have an iron toxicity and the workaround for that is bloodletting like that’s an actual medical condition and a medical treatment for it but it’s not a medical treatment for everything and just because you think you’re quote unquote toxic or you’re dealing with things that need to be detoxified if you’re managing your health and your as best as you can and your diet your body is a self-cleing entity system you have the skin the respiratory system your gut your kidney and your liver like I said your kidneys and your liver so your body can really defend itself against most things that said if you do feel like you’re not acting appropriately or things are going a little wonky in your body please visit your doctor and let them figure out what’s up a lot of things that may or may not be prescribed to you or may or may not be diagnosed for you might still cost you out of pocket versus spending a ton of stuff on things like this that might not be well regulated and again could be doing more harm than good the next thing I want to share are things like red flags in product marketing i’ll talk a little bit more about this in a few slides coming up as well some very vague or exaggerated claims now there are definitely some instances where products food brands can say certain things like an example is uh Cheerios you know is a whole grain oat product and whole grains have been shown to lower cholesterol or help you manage cholesterol they can state that as a claim but sometimes food brand manufacturers will put things that are don’t really have a proper definition or doesn’t make an understanding like in a way that somebody who is looking at it and shopping for food they don’t really know what it is that they’re looking at so it’ll say like natural healthy kid approved light lit there’s no real distinction or understanding of what those claims mean and so some of those things um can can be a little bit confusing i think one of my big pet peeves big pet peeves also is when people are putting things like that like all natural or you know this cereal or this other thing that I’ve read to this chocolate chip muffin contains one serving of vegetables in it or it’s the day’s worth of magnesium in it and it’s like oh that’s fantastic what a great way to get in my vegetables and magnesium but then they’re not telling you that it’s also packed full of saturated fat or added sugar sugar or excess sodium so you’re offsetting all the good there by the not so healthy ingredients that are also included in that in that food item so some of this like deceptive packaging I guess we could include in that or high levels of added things that are not really bringing much to the table like one of my big things is natural peanut butter my peanut butter has one thing in it nuts that’s it just nuts that’s all you need nuts and a little pinch of salt and you’re good not added sugar i don’t want it to be dessert i want to be in control of the sugar that I take in over the course of the day and it doesn’t need more oil because nuts already produce oil i don’t need more oil in it so if you’re curious as to like well then why is this in the food system my friends that’s good yes be skeptical and curious about that stuff and advocate advocate why things are cheaper when they’re less quality and why things are more expensive when they’re better quality write your representative for safe healthy accessible and affordable food products thank you friends all right next up this thing called immune boosting man a few years ago when we were at the height of the pandemic this was this was the key word of the day a lot of things that can quote unquote boost your immunity what I think they are trying to say is support your immune health immune boosting from what I was reading up on in the clinical sense technically means you are suffering from an autoimmune disorder so this boosting word that’s thrown in there is just a marketing term if you want your immune system to work obviously feed it good stuff go get screened make sure you’re doing the best you can to stay away from stress and keep up on your sleep habits etc but don’t give in to things that are going to quote unquote boost your immunity the weird thing about that though is I was reading up on some of the stuff when I was putting this webinar together was legitimate websites and sources that I would look for to go towards you know research etc they were also incorporating that boosting word so that kind of really grinded my gears okay next up more is better no it’s not just totally told you that there’s some toxic effects when things are eaten or taken in in excessive amounts so this could be coming up on like jumping on the bandwagon of something right a hot topic a hot food item has just made its way into things or people read a research study but didn’t know exactly how to analyze it and so they didn’t know if it was an animal study or human study or what kind of controls were on it but they were just like “This is the new thing this is the new hot quote unquote superfood so add it to everything.” And that’s not what our body wants our body is I said before right our body wants diversity and variety and balance and so we don’t want to lean too heavily in one way or another so you know with again with due respect to people who are following their own experimental paths with food and health this is where things like the keto diet is a little tricky because if you’re completely foregoing a lot of things that are more plant-based and you are eating a high level of meat and meat products and highfat products again you might be suffering the consequences later on down the line with colarctal cancer or heart disease etc also it’s it’s expensive it’s expensive to buy things like that all the time so just be careful of again giving in to come some of these claims that some is good but more is better um speaking of claims you know this again this word natural isn’t always safe i’m going to give you some examples of that here too especially since the food dye discussion is a very hot topic right now at the time of this this webinar um as an example something like carmine which is like a red dye a red naturalbased dye actually comes from ground up crushed up insects so if you don’t know that and you have a protein allergy that can trigger that allergy and conversely if you’re using plant-based dyes like turmeric to dye things yellow or red again somebody with a plant-based allergy might not know what’s in something and that can cause a trigger or reaction now in I guess the benefits of having safe synthetic dyes or food dyes are because of a few things number one they’re a little bit more shelf stable so they’re not degrading in that sense and they’re more uniformly vibrant we’ve had studies that show people who eat things that don’t look visually appealing think that they don’t taste good and or they’re just not going to go for it so if you have something that’s like gray or light colored and it’s not like rich and vibrant you know we’ve had this discussion around food waste when things start looking a little meh or starting to rot that people will start throwing things away obviously in certain cases yes that’s appropriate but my point to this is if it doesn’t look visually appealing people might not eat it so we want to make sure we’re enticing people and this is also just with a quick side note that yes people could be sensitive to or have reactions to synthetic dyes as well so I just want to make sure I disclaim that in this discussion and then next here on my list are home tests not tests that your doctor is sending you home with like finger sticks or blood pressure cuffs we’re talking about things that you’re buying off the internet because they’re telling you find out if you have high levels of heavy metals in your body or find out if you are deficient in something so I looked up some research on this too and there were some reviews on hundreds and hundreds of different atome self tests from the internet that were found generally inadequate and or unsafe to use and in the very very small print of these home tests were written things like disclaimers like oh this will probably give you a false positive or false negative result so again what are you spending your money on if it’s not true whereas if you’re going to spend your money maybe go request a lab test that you’re might not be you know covered under your insurance but it’s still kind of the same out-of- pocket cost and I think it’s a little bit more legit and safe to do that so take that into account also uh my note here states that in America we have something called in vitro diagnostic products IVD products so there are certain standards and regulations when it comes to lab tests and and kits and things and if you’re buying something off the internet it is very imp it’s impossible to find out if those companies are following those standards and regulations so again be really careful with what you’re looking at online all right next up some other kinds of hot topic keywords that are popping up all over the place and I’ll dive a little deeper in this particular discussion really to focus in on something known as fearmongering and like I mentioned before cherrypicking of data you know if you can’t pronounce it then don’t eat it because your grandma probably wouldn’t have had it and we only want to eat things that our grandma ate all right we’ve already gone through this in some of the past webinars tcopherel riboplavin those are names that some people can’t pronounce i know somebody right very recently who couldn’t pronounce it those are just names of vitamin E and and a vitamin B vitamin so sometimes just because you can’t pronounce it it’s just the chemical name or a chemical structure of something that is very common and a micronutrient and an and an essential nutrient at that so be careful with the fear-mongering of things also sometimes we we’re talking about this conversation around pesticides and how high things are again how much of too much is anything one of the examples I like to give is if you accidentally swallow an apple seed okay while you’re eating an apple no big deal but if you ingest 17 buckets of nothing but apple seeds you’re going to get cyanide poisoning so generally safe or generally recognized as safe is really the goal of how much of too much is anything we’re hoping that our government is running through some proper safety uh protocols and the people who are calling attention to this fear-mongering approach are probably not using or might be using questionable scientific methods and or are doing what is called cherry-picking their data which means that they don’t have enough information but they have just enough to confirm or deliberately select to endorse and support their own narrative so that’s not that’s not super cool but you might not know that and that’s okay and that’s why you’re here today to learn about that all right so what I’m going to share with you in the next few slides are people who I think are doing a great great job at explaining the information that is currently circulating and they’re doing in a way that is very respectful and educational I believe i mean there is some sminess every so often sarcastic like I said before I get a visceral reaction when I’m like “Oh stop asking me these questions.” But I think these three people do a great job we have Erin who on the internet world space is known as food science babe she’s a chemical engineer and food scientist she does a great job breaking things down she has a Tik Tok uh platform and Instagram platform and I think even a YouTube channel if I’m not mistaken so she provides factual information very clear understanding of what it is that you just heard that is incorrect and something that she wants to explain uh the difference of it or clarify that information next up Dr jessica Norick who is a registered dietitian like myself but she also has a doctorate degree in nutrition science she is I mean I don’t even know how some of these people do it it’s like a full-time job they just get on and make these Tik Tok videos or these reals on Instagram where someone will comment something either kind of like deliberately trying to dig at her or they curious they have a curious question and they ask her to explain it and she does a great job explaining things in a very clear and concise way last but not least one of my favorite people on this planet Monica Ryan Agel she and I I met her in person and I fang girlled terribly over it when I first became a dietitian and I think she does a great job also about explaining information she has a podcast called Nutrition Diva it’s under a platform called the Quick and Dirty Tips platform where they have a lot of things like money financial guidance um different fitness and wellness things on there too but she takes a either a listener’s feedback question or she pulls out a particular research article that has just made its way out into the general population and has become you know through again the mainstream is getting a hold of this and she goes through and really dissects it and then what I love about it too is that she doesn’t think she’s going to talk you into or out of anything if you still decide to make your own decisions on stuff that’s totally fine but she gives you really practical alternatives in which to do that in a safe way okay so she’s like “If you don’t if you still don’t believe what I’m telling you at least you know take this into consideration moving forward.” All right speaking of practical tips this is coming to um the end of our conversation where I always like to give you a little bit of some takeaways here to help you better assess your own intake like what is it that you might be deficient in or toxic in high levels or low levels first and foremost get savvy with reading nutrition labels we know we’re going to be taking convenient foods totally understood so if we’re going to do it let’s be savvy about it i have always always said that the front is fiction and the back is fact on food packaging and I still stand by that because like I said before with the marketing issue and people not necessarily complying with the guidance but all the stuff you need to know about what you’re ingesting is on the back now the disclaimer breaking news alert is I just got a notification from the FDA Food and Drug Administration that they’re actually considering putting a little info box on the front of packaging which will call out attention to saturated fats sodium and added sugars it hasn’t gone through and passed just yet but you might see that in the next couple years and then the front is kind of like a nice little summary of what you get in the food item next up as best as you can emphasize food sources that are around whole foods before you supplement anything you know again that mix of variety and diet and really meal I mean we talk about meal planning a lot you can go back and watch the webinar that we had in the beginning of the year about meal planning but just be mindful about what you’re taking in try to make decisions ahead of time if you can and if you are gearing more towards nonhole foods like more heavily processed foods or canned goods or whatever again look at the information instructions and give yourself kind of like a tally like how much did I ingest of a particular ingredient or how little did I get of something over the course of the day and see if you can backfill and then if you need to you can supplement now here again with a disclaimer as I’m not entirely sure of the how this is going to stay in the next few years with some of the government agencies um being picked apart at this point but currently the National Institutes of Health underneath it has something known as the Office of Dietary Supplements if you are a consumer you can look stuff up online i’ve put the website there on here if you are a healthcare provider or someone in the wellness space they have some downloadable data fact sheets that are very helpful for us to use with our patients and then we want to make sure like I said earlier talk to your healthare team don’t start or stop anything without notifying your doctor because they could just capture that information and then if something does or does not happen good or bad positive or negatively they can at least go back and be like “Oh the history of what you shared with me points to this being the issue.” and then you can better address whatever it is that you need to modify or monitor and then here we have reputable sources so if you I’m sorry um supplementing safely so if you are supplementing look for those organizations that put their stamp of approval on it over half of Americans actually take some kind of vitamin or supplement even if they don’t need to and very few of them I think realize the quality could be quite off in a lot of the brands and can vary greatly as well so that’s why these organizations exist and there’s even that middle one says certified sport because if you are a performance athlete there are certain performance-enhancing supplements or drugs that are off limits when you’re testing so that gives you the stamp of approval that this this is clear and then as I shared earlier with especially with some of those um fats soluble vitamins if you’re going to supplement don’t give yourself mega doses or if you are being given mega doses by your doctor please make sure that is very short term like one to two weeks and that you are getting tested for blood disorders within or I should say for disorders or any levels of damage in your liver very very important to make sure you’re monitoring that all right finally we’re coming up on the end the final end i’m looking in the chat i don’t see any questions or comments just yet so if you have anything you can drop them in in the next slide we’re going to address Q&A but think about some of the things that you’ve learned from today i always ask what do you want to start keep or stop doing maybe you start looking at nutrition facts labels maybe you keep integrating whole foods and really vibrantly colored fruits and vegetables into your diet and maybe you stop listening to people on the internet who don’t know what they’re talking about okay stop spending your money inappropriately become that savvy consumer that we want you to be in order to take care of your health so this my friends is the end of our webinar the end of our presentation i invite you to come back again next month we’ll be talking about brain health and cognitive function that’s going to take place on Thursday June 12 from uh 12:00 to 1:00 p.m eastern time and again if anybody has any questions comments or feedback feel free to put that in the chat otherwise keep an eye out for the thank you email that’s going to be coming soon i don’t know three to five days maybe a week from now where I’ll send you the link to the recording again if you watch this live you can replay it or if you registered and were not able to attend live you can watch it on your own time at a later date and at some point in the near future in a couple of months or so you’ll see this on the YouTube channel but in that email thanking you for being here today or for watching this you’ll also have a link to the survey where you can fill that out and let us know how you think things went and what I can do or what I can integrate in the future so thanks everybody for being here
