Scurvy

A patch a day? Why the vitamin skin patches spruiked on social media might not be for you

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
Social media, Adhesive, Ibuprofen, Vitamin D deficiency, TGA, Excipient, Caffeine, Nicotine, Scurvy, Vitamin, COVID, Sleep, Skin, Ginger, Risk, B3, Safety, Menopause, Nutrient, Water, Therapeutic Goods Administration, Patient, Medicine, Oil, Immunity, Tablet, Malnutrition, Taurine, Dietary supplement

Vitamin patches are trending on social media and advertised in posts and podcasts.

Key Points: 
  • Vitamin patches are trending on social media and advertised in posts and podcasts.
  • With patches marketed for sleep, detox, immunity and hangovers, they are being talked up as near magical fix-all stickers.

What are vitamin patches?

  • Vitamin patches are adhesives designed to deliver vitamins or nutrients to your bloodstream directly through the skin.
  • Patches promising an energy boost offer caffeine, taurine, gluconolactone, green tea extract and vitamins B3, B5 and B6.

Do they work and are they safe?

  • Vitamins are generally approved as listed medicines, meaning the ingredients have been assessed for safety but not for efficacy (whether they do what they promise).
  • However, there are no items listed as vitamin patches on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods.
  • Ordinarily, to be absorbed through the skin a chemical needs to be lipophilic, meaning it likes fats and oils more than water.
  • So, the form in which the vitamins have been produced and supplied will dictate whether they will get into the skin.
  • The health condition called scurvy is thought to occur when daily vitamin C intake drops lower than 7 milligrams per day.
  • The recommended daily intake of vitamin C is around 45 milligrams per day – more if a woman is breastfeeding.


Read more:
Is TikTok right – will eating three carrots a day really give me a natural tan?

Why not just take a tablet?

  • One selling point used by the marketers is that patches are a “cleaner” form of vitamins.
  • A vitamin in tablet or gummy form will contain inactive ingredients called excipients.
  • But many patches don’t list all their ingredients – just the active vitamins – so this claim can not be tested.

Should you buy them?


As there are no vitamin patches approved by the TGA in Australia, you should not buy them. If at some point in the future they become listed medicines, it will be important to remember that they may not have been assessed for efficacy. If you remain curious about vitamin patches, you should discuss them with your doctor or local pharmacist.

  • He is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, a member of the Australasian Pharmaceutical Science Association, and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
  • Nial regularly consults to industry on issues to do with medicine risk assessments, manufacturing, design, and testing.

Cranberry Marketing Committee Announces 2023 U.S. Cranberry Crop Estimate

Retrieved on: 
Monday, September 11, 2023
Exercise, UTI, Cranberry, Infection, CMC, Cardiovascular disease, Clinical trial, Cancer, Urinary tract infection, Woman, Research, Dentistry, Indigenous, Marketing, Helicobacter pylori, Proanthocyanidin, Peptic ulcer disease, Risk, Gastritis, Bacteria, FDA, Scurvy, System, Dietary supplement

WAREHAM, Mass., Sept. 11, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Cranberry Marketing Committee Announces 2023 U.S. Cranberry Crop Estimate Wareham, Mass., September 8, 2023 – At its annual summer meeting August 14, 2023, the Cranberry Marketing Committee (CMC) completed its biannual exercise of estimating the next U.S. cranberry crop production with the 2023 crop expected to be 8,165,000 100-lb barrel equivalents representing a 3.6 percent increase from 2022.

Key Points: 
  • The Cranberry Marketing Committee (CMC) completed its biannual exercise of estimating the next U.S. cranberry crop production with the 2023 crop expected to be 8,165,000 100-lb barrel equivalents representing a 3.6 percent increase from 2022.
  • WAREHAM, Mass., Sept. 11, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Cranberry Marketing Committee Announces 2023 U.S. Cranberry Crop Estimate Wareham, Mass., September 8, 2023 – At its annual summer meeting August 14, 2023, the Cranberry Marketing Committee (CMC) completed its biannual exercise of estimating the next U.S. cranberry crop production with the 2023 crop expected to be 8,165,000 100-lb barrel equivalents representing a 3.6 percent increase from 2022.
  • CMC represents more than 1,200 US Cranberry Growers in the growing regions of Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Washington and Oregon.
  • US cranberry growers harvest cranberries annually in the fall from more than 40,000 acres of bogs and marshes.

Does an apple a day really keep the doctor away? A nutritionist explains the science behind 'functional' foods

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, August 10, 2023
Functional, Conditional sentence, Mineral, Food, Obesity, Drink, Diabetes, Fats, Vitamin D deficiency, Digestion, Cardiovascular disease, Functional food, Health, Weight loss, Eating, Refrigeration, Nutrient, NHS special health authority, Woman, Vitamin A, Medicine, Research, Vegetable, Fruit, Carotenoid, Weight gain, Tuna, Government, Vitamin, Salmon, Protein, Polyphenol, Blood, Superfood, Risk, Cancer, Logic, Overweight, Apple, Growth, Lutein, Scurvy, Rickets, Anthocyanin, Color, Antioxidant, Food preservation, Dietary supplement, Seaweed, Convenience food, Tobacco, Nursing

We’ve all heard that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but how true is that?

Key Points: 
  • We’ve all heard that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but how true is that?
  • Apples are not high in vitamin A, nor are they beneficial for vision like carrots.
  • However, apples contain various bioactive substances – natural chemicals that occur in small amounts in foods and that have biological effects in the body.

Functional foods defined

    • Functional foods are not the same as superfoods.
    • The problem is that most of those claims are not based on scientific research, like the criteria for functional foods are.
    • In addition to the nutrients that our bodies need for growth and development, functional foods contain a variety of bioactive substances, each with a unique function in the body.
    • Research suggests that the carotenoids from foods and the other categories of bioactive substances may help prevent certain cancers and improve heart health.

History of the functional food movement

    • From the early 1900s to the 1970s, nutrition research focused on vitamin deficiencies.
    • In 1980, the U.S. government published the first dietary guidelines that encouraged people to avoid fat, sugar and salt.
    • Public health messaging encouraged people to replace fatty foods with starchy foods such as breads and pasta.

Japan’s focus on foods for health

    • To correct this problem, Japan became the first country to introduce the concept of functional foods in the 1980s.
    • Today, Japan uses the phrase “Food for Specialized Health Uses” for products that can be scientifically shown to promote health.
    • Japan has more than 1,000 foods and beverages approved as food for specialized health uses, such as hypoallergenic rice.

The bioactive components in apples

    • An apple’s natural dietary fibers are one of the bioactive components that lead to its being classified as a functional food.
    • Pectin functions to reduce the amount of sugar and fat that is absorbed into the body.
    • In addition, apples contain high amounts of natural chemicals known as polyphenols that have vital roles in promoting health and reducing chronic disease.
    • Because they are mainly in the peel, whole apples are better sources of polyphenols than juice or applesauce.

Revisiting the original question

    • One U.S. team analyzed the apple-eating patterns and number of doctor visits among more than 8,000 adults.
    • Once adjusted for demographic and health-related factors, the researchers found that the daily apple eaters used marginally fewer prescription medications than the non-apple eaters.
    • A group of European researchers found that eating two apples a day improved heart health in 40 adults.
    • And Brazilian investigators found that eating three apples daily improved weight loss and blood glucose levels in 40 overweight women.

David Grann's The Wager: a drama of murder, insurrection, escape and an empire at sea

Retrieved on: 
Monday, July 31, 2023
Survivor, Extremis, Food, Admiralty, The Unknown Shore, Interview, Starvation, Life, Public opinion, Politics, The New Yorker, Brooklyn, Typhus, Record, Drama, Negotiation, Guayaneco Archipelago, Empire, History, Person, New Yorker, Ship, Literacy, Man, Haze, Simon & Schuster, Diving, Brooklyn Bridge, Water, Atlantic Ocean, Terror, Knowledge, Endeavour, Weather, Golfo, Health, Scurvy, Death, Environment, Chono, Hunger, Shipbuilding, Canal, Entertainment, Nightclub, Wager

But even before the mission got underway, its prospects of success appeared dubious.

Key Points: 
  • But even before the mission got underway, its prospects of success appeared dubious.
  • A sizeable proportion of the roughly 2,000 sailors and non-seamen under Anson’s command lacked suitable experience.
  • Worse still was the fact that so many of them took up their posts already in a parlous state of health.
  • After several weeks plying those waters in severe weather, the Wager lost contact with Anson’s flagship and the rest of the fleet.

The work of seagoing

    • (In a recent interview, Grann cited David McCullough’s history of the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge as a model of engaging technical prose.)
    • Throughout, Grann’s book registers profound respect for the work of seagoing – work Anson’s crews carried out amidst a wartime atmosphere of “constant stress.” As the Wager wrecked, its men embarked upon a new – and yet harsher – enterprise: to remain united and alive in a situation their knowledge and experience seemed helpless to comprehend.
    • It was wintertime on a small, mountainous island – itself called Wager, nowadays – at close to 48 degrees southern latitude.
    • Between Portsmouth and Patagonia, more than one third of the ship’s complement of 250 men had been buried at sea.

Legal burlesque

    • Meanwhile, the British Admiralty came to require its officers to maintain detailed records of nautical incidents.
    • Among the strangest and most effective passages in this book are episodes of legal burlesque, wherein little bands of shipwrecked sailors, clad in rags and emaciated from hunger, draw up quasi-formal documents purporting to attest to some version of their experience.
    • Understanding this wreck impinges directly upon our sense of the British Empire and the civilisation it claimed to convey.
    • At Wager Island, Grann observes, some “supposed apostles of the Enlightenment” were reduced to “a Hobbesian state of depravity”.
    • He sees them negotiating the lands and waters they inhabit with a degree of know-how the British strain even to imagine.

Contemporary Pediatrics® Announces Winners of Resident Writers Award Program

Retrieved on: 
Thursday, January 6, 2022
Male, Eschar, Program, Mentorship, Rash, Children's Hospital, Patient, Scurvy, Hospital, Fever, Thomas Jefferson University, EST, Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital, CEO, Practice management, Abdominal pain, Female, Nemours Children's Hospital, Medical college, Multimedia, Medicine, Pediatrics, MD

CRANBURY, N.J., Jan. 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Contemporary Pediatrics , a trusted multimedia platform featuring clinical articles, case studies, and practice management tips for pediatricians and other health care professionals who specialize in the care of infants, children, and adolescents, is delighted to announce the winners of its inaugural Resident Writers Award Program.

Key Points: 
  • CRANBURY, N.J., Jan. 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Contemporary Pediatrics , a trusted multimedia platform featuring clinical articles, case studies, and practice management tips for pediatricians and other health care professionals who specialize in the care of infants, children, and adolescents, is delighted to announce the winners of its inaugural Resident Writers Award Program.
  • The Resident Writers Award Program is designed to provide the next generation of pediatric health care professionals with experience in writing clinically relevant case studies, to introduce them to Contemporary Pediatrics, and to allow readers across the country to learn from compelling case studies.
  • "It is an honor to recognize the winners of the first-ever Contemporary Pediatrics Resident Writers Award Program," said Mike Hennessy Jr., president and CEO of MJH Life Sciences, parent company of Contemporary Pediatrics.
  • To view the 2022 Resident Writers Award Program ceremony, click here .

Getting Scurvy or Potentially Starting an Eating Disorder Are Just a Few of the Side Effects of Extreme Diets, Says FEBC

Retrieved on: 
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Diets, Nutrition, Health, Healthy diet, Fad diet, Scurvy, Low-carbohydrate diet, Weight management

A dramatic change in lifestyle doesn't suit most peopleand so they might wind up trying the latest fad diet instead.

Key Points: 
  • A dramatic change in lifestyle doesn't suit most peopleand so they might wind up trying the latest fad diet instead.
  • Diets that focus on only one food group are completely ignoring the human body's need for a balanced diet.
  • Any diet that recommends a strict regime of only meat completely ignores the body's need for fruits and vegetables.
  • There are modern-day people being diagnosed with scurvy because of extreme diets that insist eating only meat is not only healthy but also has amazing health benefits.