All posts by cytoffice

Happy woman in gym wear taking fat-soluble vitamins to help with hormone balance

The role of fat-soluble vitamins in hormone balance  

Hormones play a significant role in our health and while it’s natural for them to change during certain life stages, if they are out of balance, they can cause a variety of symptoms and conditions. When we experience hormonal problems, it is our body’s way of letting us know that something is amiss.

Unfortunately for many of us, we’ve just come to accept that they are a part of life. However, these symptoms aren’t normal, nor should they be an inevitable part of life.

In fact, there are various ways to promote hormone balance and reduce or eliminate some of the associated symptoms of an imbalance. Our nutrient status, for instance, is incredibly important and for the purpose of this blog we will take a look at the role fat-soluble vitamins play in our hormonal health.

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In the news – health and nutrition research

In this week’s article we provide a roundup of some of the most recent health and nutrition related articles in the news, five items comprising:

    • You can’t exercise away poor dietary choices, study finds
    • Study: Vitamin D deficiency raises risk of death from COVID by 50%
    • Vitamin B6 may reduce anxiety symptoms, study shows
    • Whether you’re 18 or 80, lifestyle may be more important than age in determining dementia risk, study reveals
    • Could eating fruit more often keep depression at bay

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supplement

What is a well formulated supplement?

There is a wealth of research highlighting symptoms and diseases linked to poor nutritional status, and hence, supplementation is increasingly becoming a practical solution to supporting our health and delivering micronutrients that are diminishing from our food. Supplement recommendations are widespread and can become a minefield, and it can be difficult to know sometimes which supplement is right for you, if it is of good quality and what you should be looking for on the label.

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Bored woman procrastinating by balancing a pencil on her lip

Pondering procrastination

In this blog our guest writer and mindfulness, yoga and stress management consultant, Bev Alderson, shares her top tips for dealing with procrastination.

We have probably all experienced times, when faced with an important event or activity, where we have found ourselves frittering away time on something more trivial. In a world ripe with delicious distractions, there is plenty to turn our heads too – rather than focus on the task at hand.

The call of digital white noise can see many hours lost to the likes of social media or the latest box set. Or we may simply find ourselves list writing, paper shuffling, or doing a few chores – anything or everything other than what is required.

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Inside-out skincare: nutrition for skin health

In this blog our guest writer, Fiona Lawson – a nutritionist, researcher and skin specialist – shares her nutrition advice for supporting skin health.

We knew that diet affected skin before we could even define nutrients. In the mid-18th century, British sailors dreaded the bleeding gums, skin haemorrhages and bruising that could develop on long voyages. In one of the earliest clinical trials recorded, Scottish physician James Lind determined that giving sailors a ration of citrus fruit would help prevent these symptoms from appearing. It would be another 181 years before vitamin C was isolated and identified, but now we know this condition to be scurvy and vitamin C – rich in citrus fruit – to be the cure.

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Your guide to a healthy pregnancy

Pregnancy provides a unique and critical window of opportunity to implement healthy dietary habits, and balanced maternal nutrition during pregnancy is important not only for the health of the mother but also to provide the right environment for optimal development of the baby. Nutritional status of the mother at conception and during pregnancy can also determine, at least in part, the risk to the foetus of developing disease in later life. In the absence of adequate nutrition, the foetus will ensure preservation by limiting growth, which results in an infant with a higher insulin response to food and less growth of muscle (including the heart), nephrons and bones.

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