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Flu season is here in the northern hemisphere. While there’s still no epidemic of “novel H1N1 flu” or “swine flu” as has been feared since last year, medical centers across the United States are reporting widely varying levels of flu infections. To date, sunny warm areas like Southern California have few infections, cold and cloudy areas like the Upper Midwest have many more. You can find maps showing the US CDC’s attempt at showing levels of infection outbreak across the United States at 2009 H1N1 Flu U.S. Situation Update. Unfortunately, these maps are of poor quality as they really don’t show much of any useful data because the CDC considers most areas to have “widespread” flu outbreaks at this time their maps don’t distinguish sufficiently between the level of flu activity in different areas.
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Many children (and adults) often can’t or won’t swallow tablets or capsules, but they still need vitamin D supplements. A couple of interesting options that Costco is now selling include a vitamin D3 liquid product and “gummy vitamin” style vitamin D3 supplements with or without calcium. For kids, I would recommend they take 1 a day, rather than the suggested dose of 2 a day for adults. Some of these are available in certain stores, but for many customers they must be ordered on Costco’s website and shipped to the customer. Here are links to the products:
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New Vitamin D3 Supplements Provide High Doses

Until recently, it was cumbersome for people who don’t like to take a lot of pills per day to be taking high doses of vitamin D3 because many products provided only 400 IU to 1000 IU of vitamin D per capsule or tablet. That is changing rapidly now that the word of high-dosage vitamin D3 supplementation has spread and affected the products being released by dietary supplement manufacturers.
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Last week, I posted an article on N-acetylcysteine (NAC) that mentioned a number of health conditions for which it is believed to be helpful. I also discussed my experience with the supplement and how and why I’ve used it. As is usual with articles, some of the feedback I got was along the lines of “so does it work?” That’s a good question.
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N-Acetylcysteine (NAC) is an inexpensive and highly absorbable form of the amino acid cysteine which has numerous health benefits. Previously, I’ve written about several applications for NAC:

• As a preventive measure against the common cold and flu infections
  (see Preventive Measures for Swine Flu)
• Helping prevent liver damage from Tylenol
  (see Health Risks from Tylenol, Acetaminophen, and Paracetamol)
• Detoxifying the body of the mercury from dental fillings, predatory fish, and high fructose corn syrup (see High Fructose Corn Syrup is Dangerous for Many Reasons)
• Aid for mental health conditions such as OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) and trichotillomania which is a surprisingly common compulsive behavior involving hair-pulling (see N-Acetylcysteine (NAC) Reduces Hair Pulling Compulsion and May Also Be Useful for OCD)

Furthermore, there is solid evidence that NAC helps boost the body’s levels of glutathione, one of the main antioxidants produced by the body. In particular, glutathione is critical to liver health. Many people suffer from elevated homocysteine levels, an amino acid that is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Several studies indicate that NAC can significantly lower homocysteine levels. Finally, if you sometimes drink alcohol and get a hangover, you’ll be interested to know that NAC plus vitamin B1 (thiamine) may help the body reduce the severity of hangovers. There are many other lesser known uses for NAC. I’ll discuss more of these at the end of the article.

Available Forms of NAC

NAC is often sold in capsule form containing 600 mg per capsule, but the bulk powder form of the supplement can be much less expensive. NAC is also the primary ingredient in some pharmaceutical products including a product called Mucomyst that is used to treat mucus build-up by inhalation of a sterile liquid solution of NAC.

This article reviews the 1Fast400 N-Acetyl-Cysteine, NAC sold in bulk powder form. It is priced less than 1/2 the price of the 600 mg capsules from inexpensive reputable makers such as Puritan’s Pride and NOW Foods. Thus the bulk powder form of NAC is a good choice for people who use large quantities of it. Such people might include those with families with several people who use it for general health, immune system boosting, detoxification from mercury and heavy metals, and especially people who use it for mental health care applications similar to clinical testing being done with dosages of 2000 mg per day or more.
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Sunburn protection is traditionally associated with staying indoors especially during intense daylight hours from 10am to 3pm, wearing sun screen, and covering the body with clothing such as hats to block the sun from hitting the skin. Ultraviolet light from the sun is the form of solar radiation that causes most of this damage, ranging from evident sunburns to hidden but accumulating genetic damage that can cause skin cancer. The common sun protection methods mentioned above can be very effective at preventing sunburns and reducing damage to the skin.

In recent years, consumers have come to depend upon the Sun Protection Factor (SPF) ratings printed on sunscreen products sold in the United States. People think that SPF 30 provides more protection from sun damage than SPF 15 and may make purchases accordingly. Unfortunately, this perception can be totally inaccurate due to the egregiously flawed design of the US Food and Drug Administration’s SPF rating system.
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Here’s a promotional code for 10% off orders at Swanson Health Products. Enter YES0923 as a promotional code to get 10% off your order. It appears this code may be good until September 30, 2009, but that is unclear so if you’re interested, it would be better to try it sooner than later. I tried it on September 24 and it appears to work successfully.
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Often one of the challenges of raising children is getting them to brush their teeth. Cavities are a common problem in children. While it is undisputed that brushing and flossing help reduce the number of cavities, actually getting your children to do this is often another matter entirely. Even if you succeed at getting your kids to stop fighting brushing their teeth and they learn to do their own dental hygiene well, you’re still typically stuck with kids and their love for sweet foods and juices feeding bacteria that damage their teeth.

A few months ago, I wrote an article that discussed a new development in oral health care that would help both kids and adults. My focus at the time was on the improvements for adults, but the same idea applies to kids, too. The article Mouth Probiotics Speed Canker Sore Healing and Reduce Cavities, Arthritis Pain, Heart Disease discusses the use of “oral probiotics” to seed the mouth with bacteria that reduce or prevent cavities and common ENT (ear, nose, throat) bacterial infections.

Mouth Probiotics Can Knock Out Harmful Bacteria

No matter how much you brush, floss, and rinse with dental solutions, you are still left with a mouthful of bacteria and many of those bacteria are harmful to your teeth. The basic idea of dental probiotic lozenges is that by chewing or dissolving a probiotic lozenge containing “friendly” oral bacteria such as Bacillus coagulans and Streptococcus salivarius, the bacterial flora in the mouth is shifted towards a higher percentage of bacteria that do not attack the body and in fact interfere with the growth of harmful bacteria.
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If you’re shopping for amino acid and protein supplements, Affordable Supplements is one of the best web sites around. They carry a wide variety of products from hundreds of large, medium, and niche manufacturers including quality low-priced dietary supplement makers such as NOW Foods and 1FAST400.

For the next week, until midnight on Tuesday, September 22, 2009, you can get an additional 5% off your order at Affordable Supplements by entering the promotional code SaveBig976 in the lower left of the checkout screen. As usual, if you order $75 or more then standard ground shipping is free.

In this article, we highlight a few of the products available at Affordable Supplements that help slow aging and prevent complications from diabetes. These include NOW Foods Carnosine and 1FAST400 bulk powder amino acids including Beta Alanine, Histidine, and Taurine.
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If you’re taking advantage of the buy 1 get 2 free sale at Puritan’s Pride and buying $25 or more of products, enter the coupon code 200903 during your checkout to get another $5. That’s enough to cover the standard $4.95 shipping amount with a nickel to spare. The coupon code is claimed to last until September 30, 2009, but the buy 1 get 2 free sales is over September 19, 2009.

Puritan’s Pride carries a huge variety of dietary supplements, vitamins, amino acids, skin care formulas, and other products for your well-being. Some of our favorite Puritan’s Pride products useful to a lot of people are their Vitamin D3 5000 IU softgels and 5-HTP 100mg mood and sleep aid capsules.
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