Health updates: Exercising and vitamin C

The following is information regarding a new study that shows how making slight changes to the order of your daily exercise routine can dramatically improve your end results, plus the FDA’s crackdown on injectable vitamin C.

Exercising in the morning before eating is best

A new study suggests that exercising in the morning, before eating, can significantly lessen the ill effects of a poor diet. Researchers recruited healthy, active young men and fed them a bad diet for six weeks. The group that exercised before breakfast gained almost no weight, showed no signs of insulin resistance and more efficientlyburned the extra fat they were taking.

According to The New York Times: “… [W]orking out before breakfast directly combatted the two most detrimental effects of eating a high-fat, high-calorie diet. It also helped the men avoid gaining weight.”

Now the FDA is going after vitamin C

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) appears to be making vitamin C its latest target, and has notified one pharmacy that it may no longer manufacture or distribute injectable vitamin C, a powerful antioxidant which helps neutralize cell-damaging free radicals when taken orally. Intravenously, the vitamin appears to also directly attack pathogens and has shown promise for treating a wide range of infectious diseases, burns and for boosting the immune system. With at least one pharmacy, the FDA may also be banning injectable magnesium chloride and injectable vitamin B-complex 100. These two substances are often added to intravenous C to make the “Myers Cocktail,” which many people use for a variety of chronic conditions — usually under the care of a qualified physician.

The Alliance for Natural Health has this to say on the subject: “… [W]hy is this being done? What possible rationale is offered? Because it’s dangerous? No. Because it can’t be patented and therefore won’t be taken through the standard FDA approval process. No matter that vitamin C is one of the least toxic components of our food supply, and liquid forms of it have been used safely for decades.”

Sources: New York Times December 15, 2010,  Journal of Physiology Nov 1, 2010;588(Pt 21):4289-302, Alliance for Natural Health January 4, 2011 and www.mercola.com January 19, 2011.

Reprinted from AzNetNews, Volume 30, Number 1, Feb/Mar 2011.