Tag Archives: women

Study Finds Most Americans Take Vitamins and Dietary Supplements

According to Associated Press, about half of U.S. adults take vitamins and other dietary supplements, with percentages keeping steady for much of the past decade. A new government data shows that a booming number of older women are taking calcium. Federal officials released figures showing the use of dietary supplements has grown since the early 1990s, the usage levels leveled off in 2003 through 2008. About half of adults 20 and older take at least one dietary supplement a day. The biggest rise was seen in calcium. Two thirds of women 60 and older are taking calcium each day, up 28 percent since 1990. Baby boomers may be contributing to these figures, experts say. Many women have also been encouraged to take calcium to protect against female health issues during menopause including osteoporosis. Federal officials conducted surveys in 1988-1994 and 2003-2008 and asked participants to list what supplements they took….
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Study Finds Iron Benefits Not Significant for Some Pregnant Women

According to MSNBC, a recent study found that taking iron supplements does not have as significant benefit for pregnant women who don’t already have iron-poor blood. The study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that anemic pregnant women boosted their iron levels by taking supplements but the women who had higher levels to begin with did not see any extra boost. Iron is essential to making hemoglobin, the component of red blood cells that carries oxygen throughout the body. A pregnant woman’s iron needs rise as her body produces greater volumes of blood for her and the fetus. A professor of human nutrition at Cornell University said that the gut senses when the body needs iron, and through gut responses the body absorbs iron better. According to the World Health Organization, fewer than one in five pregnant women in the U.S. were anemic in 2005. In other countries,…
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