Benefits: Gain a basic understanding of nutrients.
So That You Can: Fully embrace an intentional living lifestyle by taking care of your body.
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Intentional Living: What You Need to Know About Nutrients
Intentional living places a lot of demands on your body. When you live with intent, you face your limiting beliefs, stay true to your values, and let your authentic self be seen every day. That all requires a lot of intellectual and emotional energy. And that’s why it’s important to have a basic understanding of the nutrients your body needs to fuel your personal growth.
We began discussing the role nutrients play in your personal growth in my last post, One Surprising Way Daily Habits Can Sabotage Personal Growth. There, we discussed the idea that environmental factors, including diet, can change the way our genes express themselves. We discussed the importance of certain vitamins for positive gene expression, but we didn’t get into much detail.
So, that’s what we’re going to do today. You didn’t think I was going to leave you hanging, did you? ?
Today, we’re going to flex our intentional living muscles and gain an awareness of three nutrients in particular — sulforaphane, vitamin D, and B vitamins. We’ll discuss:
- The benefits each provides,
- Where each can be found, and
- Suggested daily intakes.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a biologist, nutritionist, nor a medical professional. I have limited knowledge of this subject. My goal is to help you embrace an intentional living lifestyle, and I believe that taking care of your body is an important aspect of that lifestyle. To that end, I’m here to pique your interest in the hopes that you will Stay Curious! and perform some research of your own. I’ve included links to all of my sources at the end of this post.
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Let’s Not Skip the Basics
Before we get ahead of ourselves too much, let’s take a step back and make sure we have a basic understanding of vitamins — what they do and how they’re absorbed into our bodies.
First, it’s important to understand that our bodies cannot produce vitamins on their own. Yet, our bodies depend on vitamins for many vital functions, including:
- Building muscles and bones and healing wounds
- Fighting infections
- Preventing cell damage
- Making use of nutrients
- Capturing and using energy
Which is why it’s important to be intentional with our diets and make sure we’re getting the nutrients that will support our mental and physical health.
Not All Vitamins Are Created Equal
Next, it’s helpful to know that not all vitamins are created equal. They are transported, absorbed, and excreted by our bodies in different ways. Which leads us to discussing the terms water-soluble and fat-soluble. You’ve probably heard these terms before, but do you know what they mean?
Water-soluble vitamins are found in the watery parts of fruits, vegetables, and grains. When these vitamins are digested, they can pass directly into our bloodstream because our blood is water based. Our blood then transports the vitamins around our bodies, and they are easily released through our kidneys. For this reason, water-soluble vitamins need to be replenished daily.
Vitamin C and B vitamins are water-soluble.
Fat-soluble vitamins are a bit more finicky. Since they need fat to dissolve, they cannot pass directly into our bloodstream. They have to attach to a protein first, and the protein drives the vitamins through our bloodstream like little Ubers. The vitamins make it part of the way through our digestive systems and are absorbed through our intestinal walls.
Then they pack themselves away in our livers and fat cells. From there, our bodies ration the fat-soluble vitamins as needed. That’s why we don’t need to replenish them as often as their water-soluble counterparts.
A Quick Rundown
Generally speaking, this is what each vitamin is responsible for:
- Vitamin A: produces white blood cells (our immune system), improves vision, and helps shape bones
- B complex vitamins (there are 8): help release energy from food and help us use that energy
- Vitamin C: helps fight infection and makes collagen, which provides structural support to connective tissues, muscles, bones, and skin
- Vitamin D: gathers calcium and phosphorus to make bones
- Vitamin E: is an antioxidant that helps protect, or slow damage to, cells
- Vitamin K: makes proteins that cause our blood to clot
Back to the 3 Nutrients We’re Going to Focus on Today
We’re going to hone in on sulforaphane, vitamin D, and B vitamins because they are the nutrients that popped up in my gene expression (epigenetics) research.
Sulforaphane
Sulforaphane is one of the most potent compounds you’ve never heard of (at least I hadn’t). It activates Nrf2 more effectively than any other compound. So? What the heck is Nrf2?
Nrf2 (NF-E2–related factor 2, pronounced Nerf 2) controls over 200 genes. Many of these genes are meant to be switched on, and Nrf2 is the one to do it. More specifically, Nrf2 targets genes that play a role in managing inflammation.
Inflammation can lead to oxidative stress, which can lead to pretty much any disease you can think of. So basically, sulforaphane and Nrf2 are the best protectors and defenders you could hope for. Here are a few things that Nrf2 does:
- Activates anti-inflammatory genes
- Deactivates inflammatory genes
- Detoxifies harmful compounds like carcinogens
- Lowers oxidative stress
Where can we find the sulforaphane needed to fire up our Nrf2? In cruciferous vegetables — broccoli, cauliflower, kale, brussel sprouts, cabbage, garden cress, bok choy, and similar green leaf vegetables. But, the very best source, according to biomedical scientist Rhonda Patrick, PhD, is broccoli sprouts (3-5 day old broccoli plants). The sprouts contain up to 100x more sulforaphane than mature broccoli.
Patrick suggests that you grow your own sprouts because the ones on store shelves are prone to bacterial infection, and they’re expensive. You can find a link to a medically reviewed post from Wellness Mama that walks you through the steps to grow sprouts at the end of this post.
What can you do with the broccoli sprouts? Patrick puts hers in smoothies or sprinkles them on her salads.
Another tip from Patrick — you don’t receive as much sulforaphane from vegetables if they have been cooked. But, a colleague of hers found that sprinkling mustard seed powder on heated vegetables produces sulforaphane. So that’s an option if you don’t like to eat raw vegetables. Just make sure the mustard seed powder is fresh — it needs to have a bite to it.
As far as supplements go, there’s only one that Patrick was aware of, called Prostaphane, that contains the amount of sulforaphane that it claims to.
Vitamin D
Yes, vitamin D is important for strong bones and teeth. But, as we learned in my post, One Surprising Way Daily Habits Can Sabotage Personal Growth, vitamin D also:
- Regulates the expression of over 900 genes, equivalent to 1/24 of our DNA.
- Turns the genes that lead to serotonin production on.
- Increases anti-inflammatory genes.
The best way to get vitamin D is from sunlight. About 10 minutes a day of unprotected sun exposure, especially between 10:00 am and 3:00 pm, is all you need. And you still want to protect your face, so limit the exposure to your arms, legs, abdomen, and back.
The next best way to get vitamin D is through your diet. Vitamin D is found naturally in some foods — egg yolks, salmon and other fatty fish, and mushrooms if they have been treated with UV light (which should be noted on the packaging). And then there are foods that are fortified with vitamin D, meaning vitamin D is added to these foods — milk, yogurt, cheese, and fortified cereals.
It’s become a bit easier to calculate how much vitamin D you are receiving in your diet because food producers are now required to include vitamin D information on their nutrition facts labels. Prior to 2020, this information was optional.
The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for adults is 600 – 1,000 IUs. It can be difficult to obtain this level through diet alone, especially if you live in an area that doesn’t receive sunlight consistently. You may want to consider taking a supplement, but you should definitely check with your doctor first. Having too much vitamin D in your system can lead to health problems.
I put a link to an interactive table of “Recommended Daily Intakes and Upper Limits for Vitamins and Minerals” published by Consumer Lab at the end of this post.
B Vitamins
B vitamins help us convert food to energy. Plus, they help us create and maintain cells. And, last week we discovered that B vitamins can create epigenetic tags that turn cancer genes off, thereby preventing the formation of cancer cells.
There are eight B vitamins — B6, B12, Biotin, Thiamin, Niacin, Riboflavin, Pantothenic Acid, and Folate. (Folic acid is the synthetic form of Folate.) According to Tod Cooperman, M.D., most people can meet their B vitamin needs through diet and will not need to take supplements to receive their RDA.
B vitamins can be found in almost all foods — meats, fish, milk, yogurt, nuts, seeds, and whole grains, to name a few. Folate can be found in: dark green leafy vegetables, beef liver, avocado, papaya, orange juice, eggs, beans, and nuts.
I put a link to a comprehensive article about B vitamins, published by Medical News Today, at the end of this post. It includes all of the foods that contain B vitamins and the RDAs for each.
Now What?
Now, I hope that you can see why proper nutrition is a vital part of your intentional living goals. I hope you’ll take the information that I’ve shared with you and learn more about your nutritional needs on your own. And, at the very least, I hope that you’ll implement one change in your daily habits to support your nutritional needs so that you can fuel your personal growth.
Of course I put a worksheet together for you that summarizes this post and will help you go from inspiration to action, so be sure to check that out.
Click here for more posts with a “healthy habits” theme.
If you’re ready to Stop Settling & Start Living! check out our home page to learn more about what The Expectation Gaps has to offer.
And until next time . . . STAY CURIOUS!
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Links
How To Grow Broccoli Sprouts:
How to Grow Broccoli Sprouts (& Why We All Should), written by Katie Wells, reviewed by Dr. Scott Soerries, MD, updated 7.31.19, Wellness Mama
Table of Recommended Daily Intakes
Consumer Labs’ table of “Recommended Daily Intakes and Upper Limits for Vitamin and Minerals”
Complete Guide to B Vitamins
A complete guide to B vitamins, written by Jennifer Berry, reviewed by Alan Carter, PharmD on 5.28.19, Medical News Today
Other Links Not Referred to In the Post
Joe Rogan & Dr Rhonda Patrick on the amazing benefits of Sulforaphane & Broccoli Sprouts posted to YouTube by Podcast Highlight on 9.01.17
Broccoli – the DNA whisperer | Tom Malterre | TEDxBellingham posted to YouTube by TEDx Talks on 11.23.13
How much Vitamin D do you need in one day posted to YouTube by AkronChildrens on 1.08.20
Vitamin D: Mayo Clinic Radio posted to YouTube by Mayo Clinic on 10.06.17
How Much Time in the Sun Do You Need for Vitamin D?, Lisa Esposito and Deborah Kotz, U.S. News and World Report, 7.18.18
B Vitamins – Dr. Cooperman Explains What You Need to Know, posted to YouTube by ConsumerLab.com on 6.21.19
How do vitamins work? – Ginnie Trinh Nguyen posted to YouTube by TED-Ed on 10.06.14
How does oxidative stress affect the body?, written by Jamie Eske, reviewed by Stacy Sampson, D.O. on 4.03.19, Medical News Today
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