I have some bad news: You’re not getting all of the nutrients that your body needs.
How can I be so sure? Studies evaluating not just the average American’s diet, but also people following various diets billed for their health-promoting effects, show rampant nutrient shortfalls.
The reason why we worry about nutrient shortfalls is that they increase risk of just about everything that can go wrong with us healthwise.
So, let’s look at the statistics showing that most people, even those who are incredibly intentional about every bite, still end up falling short of essential nutrients. And of course, how we can fix it.
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I have some bad news you’re not getting all of the nutrients your body needs wait how can I be so sure studies AV valuating not just the average American’s diet but also various diets build for their health promoting effects show rampant nutrient shortfalls for at least 10 essential nutrients more than
Half of American adults are not meeting the estimated average requirement of those nutrients and for at least four essential nutrients more than 90% of American adults are falling short of their dietary requirements I know what you’re thinking that’s not me it’s not like I have scurvy or rickets those are
Diseases of malnutrition caused by a single nutrient deficiency and while it’s great that these aren’t as common as they used to be I’m actually talking about nutrient insufficiency nutrient insufficiency refers to a dietary shortfall meaning your not hitting the recommended dietary intake of that nutrient but you’re getting enough to
Avoid a disease of Mal nutrition due to nutrient deficiency the reason why we worry about nutrient insufficiencies is that they increase the risk of just about everything that can go wrong with us healthwise so let’s take a look at the statistics showing that most people even those who are incredibly
Intentional about every bite still end up falling short of essential nutrients and of course how we can fix that let’s start by talking about what most people think when we’re discussing nutrient shortfalls which is nutrient deficiency a nutritional deficiency is defined as a dietary intake of a nutrient so low that
It causes a disease of malnutrition examples are iron deficiency anemia caused by iron deficiency it’s right in the name scurvy caused by vitamin C deficiency rickets caused by vitamin D deficiency berry berry caused by vitamin B1 deficiency pellagra caused by vitamin B3 deficiency and night blindness caused by vitamin A deficiency well these
Diseases of malnutrition are not as common as they used to be they’re still more common than a lot of people realize for example a 2017 study estimated the prevalence of deficiency of vitamin A B6 B9 B12 c d and e as well as anemia based on biochemical markers using data from
Blood tests taking a part of the 2003 to 2006 national health and nutrition examination survey this study showed that 31% of American adults are at risk for at least one vitamin deficiency or anemia 6.3% are at risk for two vitamin deficiencies or anemia and 1.7% are at
Risk for 3 to five vitamin deficiencies or anemia the study authors further identified low dietary intake as the reason for these high prevalence of nutrient deficiencies in fact their analysis showed that a mere 6.4% of their study population was hitting the estimated average requirement for all of the nutrients
They looked at vitamins a B6 B9 B12 c e and iron in addition the study identified certain groups at even higher risk for nutritional deficiencies including 37% of women 55% of non-hispanic blacks 40% of IND indviduals living in low-income households and 42% of individuals without a high school diploma and I’m
Sure it’s no surprise that dietary insufficiency of essential nutrients is more common among those living with food insecurity it’s important to note that often the earliest symptoms of a nutrient deficiency are vague and non-specific like fatigue irritability aches and pains and increased susceptibility to infection yes you
Could be in this nearly onethird of people at high risk for a nutrient deficiency and be blaming it on a stress a bad night’s sleep or the viruses going around your kids preschool but of course like I already mentioned dietary deficiency of essential nutrients is not the only problem nutrient insufficiency
Also contributes to health challenges nutrient insufficiency or inadequacy is defined as intake falling below the estimated average requirement but without a clear disease of deficiency the estimated average requirement is the estimated amount of a nutrient that would meet the nutritional needs of half of the healthy individuals in any
Particular age and gender group the remaining half needing more basically nutrient insufficiency refers to that amorphous gray in between getting enough nutrients and getting so little that it causes a disease of malnutrition as an example it only takes 10 10 mg of vitamin C daily to prevent scurvy but
The recommended dietary intake is 75 Mig per day for adult Fales and 90 milligrams per day for adult males and uh meeting our nutritional needs of vitamin C reduces risk of cardiovascular disease including stroke and heart disease some forms of cancer type 2 diabetes cataracts and age related
Macular degeneration as well as gout that reminds me of a joke why do pirates eat or for the Vitamin C I hope that mom joke earned your subscribe nutrient insufficiencies put a strain on the biological systems that require those nutrients to function it creates a nickel and diming effect that
Chips away at our health increasing our risk for just about every uh disease and symptom Under the Sun including increasing risk for cardiovascular disease type 2 diabetes cancer chronic kidney disease asthma allergies neurod generative disease autoimmune disease gout and infection but importantly nutrient insufficiencies don’t cause health problems directly the way
Nutrient deficiencies do it’s not one toone instead nutrient insufficiencies interact with lifestyle like how active we are sleep habits and stress levels and with genetics and the environment all together increasing risk for health problems so how common are nutrient insufficiencies let’s look at the numbers these data come from a 2011
Study that evaluated Americans uh usual intake of nutrients including those naturally occurring in foods from fortified foods and from supplements like a multivitamin 100% of American adults consume less than the estimated average requirement of vitamin D 97.8% of American adults consume less than the adequate intake level of potassium 96.2%
Of Americans consume less than the estimated average requirement of vitamin E 90.2% of American adults consume less than the estimated average requirement of vitamin B9 also known as folate 80.1% of American adults consume less than the estimated average requirement of vitamin A 72.4% of American adults consume less
Than the adequate intake level of vitamin K 66.3% of American adults consume less than the estimated average requirement of magnesium 56.3% of American adults consume less than the estimated average requirement of vitamin B1 54.9% of American adults consume less than the estimated average requirement of calcium and 52% of American adults
Consume less than the estimated average requirement of vitamin C it’s also worth noting that this doesn’t take into account how certain diet and lifestyle factors can increase our needs for essential nutrients for example uh eating a lot of sugar can increase our needs for B vitamins vitamin C vitamin D
Chronic stress can deplete our levels of vitamin C vitamin B3 magnesium calcium iron and zinc and smoking increases our body’s requirements for V vitamin C vitamin E carotenoids selenium zinc copper and iron what about people who eat healthy a 2006 analysis of 70 food logs from 20 healthy subjects half male
And half female and including 14 athletes showed that each of them had dietary shortfalls of anywhere between three and all 17 essential nutrients looked at by this study and a variety of studies show widespread nutrient shortfalls among popular diet templates from low carb to vegetarian gluten-free
To the DASH diet I’ll talk about the most common nutrient insufficiencies among these popular diets in a future video This is why the nutor philosophy is so important nutor has the very simple goal of getting all of the nutrients our bodies need from the foods we eat it’s quite simply a way of
Approaching food choices that is geared at fixing this big problem of nutrient insufficiency it’s such a simple concept yet a lot of what different diets have taught us over the last 50 to 70 years works against achieving that nutrivore goal so neutor isn’t just a dietary philosophy it’s also a broad nutritional Sciences
Education so that you can learn about nutrients and what foods contain them and how to choose different foods to get the full range of nutrients our bodies need the good news is there’s millions of different ways that we can choose different foods so that the sum of the
Nutrients those foods contain add up throughout the day to meet or safely exceed our body’s nutritional requirements all while staying within our caloric intake requirements and for that reason there are no foods that you have to eliminate on nutrivore nor are there any foods that you have to eat you
Can think of nutrivore as a diet modifier rather than a diet itself it’s a set of principles you can apply to however you eat now if you’d like an overview of the neutor philosophy make sure to check out my video answering the question what is neutor and make sure to
Stick around for a new video dropping every Tuesday tackling an important topic related to nutrivore like discussing the most nutrient-dense foods and their health benefits and if you’re all ready to dive in and adopt a newtuber lifestyle I’ve got you covered with the best resource it’s my new book
Neutor you can order it from any online book seller or your local indep dependent bookstores