Selenium and Vitamin E

Selenium is another mineral that you need - but in limited amounts. Vitamin E is necessary as well, although in small doses.

Vitamin E is universally known for its antioxidant capacities, and researchers have been examining development of numerous diseases to determine if vitamin E plays a role in certain aspects of human health.

Unpublished research shows that vitamin E when introduced to various prostate cancer cell lines, strongly inhibits growth and progression. Vitamin E appears to be highly synergistic with the trace mineral selenium. It is recommended by experts in prostate cancer nutrition to include a supplement of vitamin E at a dose between 400 – 800 I.U. Studies have shown that men who consume more dietary vitamin E have a lower risk of developing certain cancers. Since vitamin E is most easily found in fatty foods like nuts and oils, it is difficult to get close to the required dose of 400 – 800 I.U. every day through diet alone.

Selenium is a crucial antioxidant that appears to protect the body from many kinds of problems, including diseases of the prostate, lung and colon. 

In countries that have low levels of selenium in the soil (like Canada and parts of the United States), rates of disease are significantly increased.  We do not need a lot of selenium in our environment. However, when we're not getting enough selenium, there can be terrible consequences for our health.

It is a strong antioxidant that elevates levels of glutathione peroxidase, a specific component of our endogenous antioxidant defense system, and it is necessary for other protective systems to work properly.

And the form of selenium is vital. If you consume it in a cheap way that isn’t bioavailable, your body cannot use it. Silexin uses only the best ingredients. BioAdvantex Pharma’s philosophy in its founding charter is that people need to be able to get the right ingredients that work best in their bodies and at a dose that is convenient and that makes sense to the scientist and the home budget. And since nutrients don’t generally act like a magic bullet on their own, a broader spectrum of micronutrition support should be used.

Why Zinc and Copper?

Zinc and copper are important to have in your diet in modest amounts. And many scientists' view is that supplementation should be done in a balanced way between the two.

Your body needs small amounts of zinc and copper for many metabolic processes.

Zinc helps your skin stay healthy. Too little zinc can decrease your appetite and your sense of taste.

Many people know that zinc can be found in many cough and cold supplements, but they don't know that zinc is required every step of the way in regulating and remodeling bone. As we mature and get older, bone health is increasingly important. You can't build bone without zinc. And vitamin D must have zinc to get into bone cells.  

Copper is used for building blood vessels, keeping your heart strong and stabilizing collagen. We don't need much copper and it's quite common in our diet.   

This is why we wanted to make sure Silexin provides you with helpful amounts of zinc and copper in the context of a healthy, well-rounded diet. Foods highest in zinc include:

• Sesame seeds

• Cashews

• Pumpkin seeds

• Spinach

• Quinoa

• Lentils

• Peas

• Chick peas (garbanzo beans)

• Turkey

• Mushrooms

• Sunflower seeds

Many of the seeds and nuts in the list above contain copper as well, and other copper rich foods include:

• Walnuts

• Lima beans

High-dose supplements aren't necessarily better, and too much can be bad for you. Silexin contains important but very modest amounts of zinc and copper.

But if a proper diet is sufficient, why turn to supplementation? We don't have that much information about the exact quantities of these minerals in the particular foods we consume and we also know very little about how much zinc and copper survive food storage, preparation and cooking. Additionally, it's difficult to gauge if you are consuming a good base amount every single day. Therefore, the safe route is to turn to supplementation in small doses such as those found in Silexin.

Green Tea Goodness

Green tea is a popular drink consumed daily by millions of people. In some cultures, it’s been widely believed that green tea has medicinal efficacy for the prevention and treatment of many diseases. Modern scientific studies of biological and pharmacological properties were started only recently and much attention has been focused on its antioxidant potential, including cardiovascular protection, antimutagenic, antiviral and anticancer activities.

The main active compounds in green tea are naturally-occurring polyphenols. 

One very important polyphenol found in green tea is called epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG). This polyphenol has potent antioxidant abilities and seems to help many health problems.  Research suggests that EGCG is among the most helpful polyphenols that can be found. Green tea if your gateway to EGCG.

We can give our bodies the best chance to defend ourselves by giving ourselves the micronutrition we need to live long and well.

About Vitamin D

Vitamin D refers to a group of lipid-soluble nutrients responsible for enhancing intestinal absorption of calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphate and zinc.

In humans, the most important compounds in this group are vitamin D3 and vitamin D2. They can be ingested from the diet and from supplements. Few foods contain vitamin D; synthesis of vitamin D (specifically cholecalciferol) in the skin is the major natural source of the vitamin. Dermal synthesis of vitamin D from cholesterol is dependent on sun exposure.

Dietary Reference Intake for vitamin D assumes no synthesis occurs and all of a person's vitamin D is from food intake, although that will rarely occur in practice. But the DRI is so low because it was developed to prevent rickets, a disease we don’t see too often in modern, developed economies, not to optimize health.

Vitamin D has a significant role in calcium homeostasis and metabolism. There is growing evidence that vitamin D may reduce the risk of a variety of health concerns.

Vitamin D is very important for bone health. It helps build stronger bones, partly by increasing the absorption of calcium. Vitamin D also improves the function of muscles, which in turn improves balance and decreases the likelihood of falling. 

Healthy adults between 19-50 years old, including pregnant or breast-feeding women, require a minimum of 400 IU daily. And it used to be thought that taking more than that would make the body retain too much calcium, a condition called hypercalcemia. According to the Vitamin D Council, “Although most people take vitamin D supplements without any problems, it’s possible to take too much. This is called vitamin D toxicity. Vitamin D toxicity, where vitamin D can be harmful, usually happens if you take 40,000 IU per day for a couple of months or longer, or take a very large one-time dose.”

In the last several years, there has been a flood of health news about studies linking relatively low vitamin D with neoplasms, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, metabolic disorders, depression, infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, mortality and even autism.

A search on PubMed for vitamin D finds many hundreds of academic papers.

John J. Cannell, MD, Founder and Executive Director of the Vitamin D Council, says, “Many people are turned off by these claims and say it’s impossible that one thing is involved in so many different disease processes, but they are unaware of the mechanism of vitamin D. It is actually a steroid hormone that turns genes on and off. There are at least a thousand genes that are directly regulated by vitamin D.”

Studies for Vitamin D

Cholesterol

Vitamin D may improve cholesterol numbers. A study analyzed data from 576 postmenopausal women who were part of the National Institute of Health’s Women’s Health Initiative trial. Women who took 400 IU of vitamin D plus 1,000 mg of calcium daily showed a significantly higher blood level of vitamin D after two years, compared to the control group who took a placebo. Interestingly, those who had higher blood levels of vitamin D also had better lipid profiles, showing increased high-density (“good”) cholesterol), decreased low-density (“bad”) cholesterol and lower triglycerides. The researchers acknowledge that their findings are not conclusive about how vitamin D affects cardiovascular health over the long term. It is clear that longer studies are needed. However, given that these results were from blood work for women followed for several years, there is a relationship here that merits further research. The study was published in the March 2014 issue of Menopause.

A meta-analysis combined data from more than 4,500 breast cancer patients from 5 observational studies to see if higher vitamin D levels at the time of breast cancer diagnosis were associated with longer patient survival times. Over a 9-year period, patients in the group with the highest blood level of vitamin D had about half the fatality rate compared to those in the group with the lowest level. In the paper, researchers reported that other lab studies have shown that vitamin D has anticancer effects, arresting tumor growth in 3 critical phases of development. While these results are encouraging, the researchers caution that a causal conclusion is not possible and that a randomized controlled trial is needed to shed further light on the findings.

Risk of Mortality

Low vitamin D levels carry a greater risk of death. In a large systematic review and meta-analysis published in the British Medical Journal, researchers looked at the link between vitamin D and chronic diseases to assess mortality risk. They combined data from several large databases of studies, including Medline, Embase and the Cochrane Library. Low blood levels of vitamin D were associated with a greater risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease, cancer and other causes. Calculations showed that each decline of vitamin D of the kind measure in blood tests was associated with a 16% greater risk of mortality and that supplementation with vitamin D3 reduced mortality risk by 11%.

Vitamin D may help lower blood pressure, decrease the risk of diabetes, and lower the chances of heart attacks, rheumatoid arthritis, or multiple sclerosis.

About Lycopene

Lycopene is a natural pigment that gives watermelon, strawberries, and tomatoes their red color. It has been increasingly studied over the last 20 years or so. This article introduces you to some of the things we now know about lycopene as it relates to human health.

For many people, the amount of lycopene that’s beneficial for maintaining their health is equivalent to very large quantities of fruit. And since consuming the necessary amounts isn’t feasible, it makes sense to turn to alternative sources such as supplementation.

There is an important fact you should know about lycopene supplements. Lycopene is made in gels or powders with low concentrations of actual, elemental lycopene. The supplement manufacturer has the choice of using an ingredient that is 15% lycopene, or even 10% or 5% lycopene. That isn't a problem as long as enough of the material is put in the formula. 

Unfortunately, some manufacturers put the amount of lycopene "product" on their label, not the amount of elemental lycopene. You might think that there is 20 mg per capsule of lycopene in a product, even a high-priced one, but it may only be a 10% lycopene ingredient, meaning you're receiving a lot less lycopene per capsule than you want. 

Additionally, it's important to consider the manufacturer - are they supported by leading clinicians? Was the formula developed by an informed team of urologists.

                                                              Benefits of Lycopene

Cardiovascular Health:

As Dr. Yoav Blat, chief technical officer at LycoRed, notes, “The scientific community is beginning to connect the dots -through rigorous clinical trials and epidemiological studies- that link the antioxidant lycopene to the fight against inflammation, lipoprotein oxidation and pro-thrombotic factors that could lead to heart disease.” Studies have uncovered compelling associations between a person's cunsumption of lycopene and cardiovascular disease risk factors.

“But where the story gets interesting is when you look at what lycopene is actually doing to improve people’s heart-health profile.” And that’s what researchers from Yonsei University in South Korea did in their trial, the results of which appeared in 2010 in the journal Atherosclerosis.

 The researchers assigned subjects (126 healthy men averaging 34 years in age) to an eight-week daily regimen of daily supplementation. The high-dose group received 15 mg of lycopene, the second group received 6 mg and the last group received a placebo. Following the study, the researchers measured activity of the subjects’ superoxide dismutase, an antioxidant enzyme, as well as DNA damage, C-reactive protein (CRP) levels and endothelial function. The results showed that superoxide dismutase activity rose by 2.37 units per milliliter in the high-dose group and 1.73 units per milliliter in those taking the 6-mg lycopene supplement. In the placebo group, superoxide dismutase activity did not increase at all. Further, the high-dose group experienced reduced DNA damage, improved endothelial function and a 57% drop in CRP levels compared to the other two groups.

A daily dose of the antioxidant lycopene may help to prevent heart disease, according to a study published in PLOS ONE. To gauge its effectiveness, researchers measured forearm blood flow in volunteers with heart disease.

This can give clues about future heart disease because narrowed blood vessels may trigger a heart attack or stroke. Sure enough, those taking the “tomato pill” for two months had significantly improved forearm blood flow compared to those who did not.

Several studies have suggested that lycopene may be helpful for people with atherosclerosis or high cholesterol. A recent study had healthy humans ingest lycopene in the form of tomato juice, tomato sauce and soft gel capsules for one week. Those patients had significantly lower levels of LDL than the control patients. 

The Prostate:

Human studies of lycopene and the prostate are encouraging. Lycopene intake is correlated in some research with less prostate cancer development and with slower progression if it does develop.

Substantial research seems to indicate that people taking consistent, moderate doses of high quality lycopene live longer. And since it has no toxicity, many health care practitioners advise including consistent lycopene supplementation as part of a long-term health strategy.

The construction of lycopene makes it highly reactive toward quenching excessive and destructive oxygen free radicals. Scientists at the University of Illinois think this anti-oxidant activity may contribute to its usefulness as a nutrient. Epidemiological studies have indicated an inverse relationship between lycopene intake and prostate cancer risk. 

Other experiments have indicated that lycopene can induce cancer cell death, it can have anti-metastatic activity, and contribute to up-regulation of protective enzymes. But large, long term clinical studies in people are necessary to know for sure. Phase I and II studies have established the safety of lycopene supplementation.

Laboratory research and animal studies have been done to find out if lycopene may be useful in preventing or treating prostate cancer.

Treating prostate cancer cells with lycopene may change the way androgen (male hormone) is taken up and used in the cells, affecting growth of the aberrant cells. 

Irregular Cells (in General):

There have been a few experimental studies on the role of lycopene in preventing or treating dysplasia of various cell types. Some evidence suggests that cancers could be decreased with increased lycopene intake.

Population studies have shown that the risk for some types of cancer is lower in people who have diets high in cooked tomato products or who have higher levels of lycopene in their blood. Some suggest that lycopene is protective against lung, stomach and prostate cancers. Still other evidence says it may also help to protect against cancer of the cervix, breast, mouth, pancreas, esophagus and colon and rectum. Results have been mixed regarding lycopene's potential protection from prostate cancer. One study gave men at high risk for prostate cancer an ordinary multivitamin either with or without a lycopene supplement and found no difference in PSA levels (prostate-specific antigens) between the two groups. But PSA can mean a lot of different things, and it can somethings mean nothing. More interestingly, another controlled study in a small group of men with prostate cancer found that lycopene supplements appeared to reduce the rapid growth of prostate cancer cells. If we can slow prostate cancer’s progress enough, it amounts to beating the disease. Obviously, more research is needed but many researchers are optimistic.

Male infertility:

Lycopene is a natural, plant-derived pigment that provides the red color of tomatoes, strawberries, watermelon, and other fruits. It has powerful antioxidant characteristics and is involved in a variety of other cellular activities as well.

Low intake of lycopene in the diet is associated with poor semen quality and male factor infertility. However, supplementing with lycopene has been shown to reverse some or all of that problem.

In one study, men with impaired fertility were given lycopene twice daily. The results were impressive: 66% had improved sperm concentration, 53% had improved motility, and 46% showed improved numbers of normal sperm shape (called morphology). Twenty-three percent of men in this study achieved fatherhood.

Another way lycopene enhances sperm quality is by reducing the impact of advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs), the dangerous sugar/protein structures that form over a lifetime of exposure to blood glucose. In one study, supplementing with 20 mg of lycopene daily resulted in decreased presence of sRAGE, a marker of AGE activity in semen.

The patients suffered from either a deficiency of sperm in semen, abnormal sperm shape, impaired sperm mobility and activity - some had all three sperm defects.

 After taking lycopene for three months the doctors found that 67% of the patients had an improvement in the condition of their sperm.

Sperm mobility and activity were improved in 73% of patients and 63% showed an improvement in the sperm structure.

Eye Diseases, Prevention of Age Related Macular Degeneration:

Reported in the Archives of Ophthalmology, a 1995 case controlled study concluded that persons who had the lowest serum levels of lycopene were twice as likely to have age related macular degeneration (AMD) when compared to those with the highest levels.

Cataracts are a multifactorial disease. Osmotic stress, together with weakened antioxidant defense mechanisms, is attributed to the changes observed in human diabetic cataract. Epidemiological studies provide evidence that nutritional antioxidants slow down the progression of cataracts and age-related macular degeneration.