• Lower right side back and hip pain is gone. It disappeared shortly after I started taking these supplements.
• My sleep problems seem to have vanished. Read my sleep problem posts to see what I am talking about here.  No stiffness in the mornings. No early morning aches or pains to wake me. No problems sleeping on my shoulder.
• Little or no back pains of any type. And I have done some sort of foolish things (for a 51 year old) in the last 6 months, like play full-court basketball with 16-year old kids for 2+ hours or move a tree weighing hundreds of pounds by myself. We will see if this holds up over the summer.

Interestingly enough, I recently read an article in Reader’s Digest titled 5 Vitamin Truths and Lies where the only vitamin they suggest has any merit as a supplement is vitamin D. I disagree with their conclusion that Vitamin C has no value in preventing colds as Vitamin C continues to help me avoid colds that every other member of my family of 7 gets. It is almost 3 years now that I have observed a greatly reduced frequency of colds coinciding with my taking Vitamin C in both natural and supplemental form. I would agree with the article’s conclusion that taking mega-doses of Vitamin C after one already has a cold is fairly useless since I had tried this myself with no success years back in my “sick days”.

My recommendations: Take a Calcium and Vitamin D supplement daily. Also, exercise daily, eat healthy, take a multivitamin, and keep swigging down the orange juice.

Calcium - Get It!

As a precaution, I have been taking calcium supplements along with my multi-vitamins. And in fact, I read at www.calciuminfo.com that after age 75 one half of all osteoporosis cases are among men! I chose to take the generic supplement, as I believe it is probably as good as its pricier name-brand counterpart.

Since I have been taking this supplement, I have noticed that the lower right side back pain I had all summer and into the fall has virtually disappeared! This may be coincidental since I have been doing less of the kinds of work around the house (like digging and gardening) that seemed to set off this pain. Or, perhaps the calcium supplement is preventing my body from robbing calcium from my bones, as suggested at the calciuminfo.com site mentioned and that was somehow connected. The site states “When men don’t get adequate amounts of dietary calcium, their bodies meet their calcium needs by stealing the mineral from their bones.” So maybe the calcium supplement is helping with the lower right back pain, maybe not. But at any rate, I will keep taking it for other very good reasons.

Vaccines are not the answer. Mostly because vaccines for H1N1 Swine Flue are not even widely available yet. And a vaccine won’t do you much good after the flu season is almost over, will it? Also, there is some speculation as to the risk of the vaccine itself.

Vitamin C to Protect Against Swine Flue

The best thing you can do is keep your immune system in tip top shape. People that are dying from Swine Flu are suffering from both the H1N1 virus and a secondary infection like pneumonia or a bacterial infection. The combination of the virus and infection sometimes proves to be too much, even for an otherwise healthy and young person. Get plenty of Vitamin C from natural sources if possible and eat a balanced diet. Then supplement with a daily vitamin, just to be on the safe side. In our house I have appointed myself as Chief Vitamin Police – my kids get asked daily if they have been drinking their juice and taking their multivitamin.

Since I have religiously obtained a minimum of 200% of my daily requirement of Vitamin C via juice and a multivitamin (started almost two years ago), my colds are few and far between and only last a few days as opposed to a week or more. Also, I have suffered ZERO sinus or respiratory infections. And preventing those infections while being struck with H1N1 Swine Flu can be the difference between life and death!

In another month or so, I plan on taking a Gingko Biloba supplement in addition to the Centrums and do some additional memory tests. The Centrum Silver vitamins do not contain Gingko Biloba.

It is interesting to note, this CNN Article  recommends that you stick with mainstream vitamins and they mention Centrum Silver as a good brand. Also, I have read that a Consumerlab.com study found that Centrum Silver was one of ten out of 21 brands tested that met quality standards and satisfied claims.

The Short Term Memory Test
Before starting on my One-a-Day Vitamins containing Ginko Biloba, I did a series of memory tests where I studied lists of random 2 digit sequences ranging in value from 11 to 99 for 1 minute and then took the lists away and tried to remember as many of the numbers as possible in any order. The lists were generated using the random sequence generation tool at random.org. I did this for 5 different lists before starting on the Gingko Biloba, and then repeated the test three weeks later with 4 new lists and a repeat of one of my first lists. In the three week period, I did not miss a single day without my Ginkgo Biloba.

Results of Short Term Memory Test
There was no difference in the before and after. None! In 5 tests conducted before and after, I remembered an average of 5.8 numbers per list on both! In fact, for the second set of trials, on the list repeated from the first trial I remembered the exact same number of sequences.

Typical List of 2-Digit Numbers

With respect to the “placebo effect”, I was actually hoping there would be improvement since I would very much like to be able to help combat memory loss. In spite of my hopes for some improvement, none was to be found.

Conclusions and Recommendations
My conclusion is that Ginkgo Biloba was not helpful in enhancing my short term memory, at least not in a 3-week time period of use. I will repeat these tests after a 3-month period of time to see if longer use of Gingko Biloba has any effect on short term memory loss.

It would be interesting to test long-term memory, however devising such a test might be a bit more challenging. The act of recollecting events that occurred long ago would affect the results.

Another test that might be interesting would be to see how memory of sequences or names a day after studying them is affected by the use of Ginkgo Biloba. This would duplicate the experience of forgetting a phone number or name the day after learning it. Such a “mid-range” memory test would be fairly simple to devise.

Other Memory Tests Done
Comprehensive Ginko Biloba memory tests done on 85+ year old test subjects,  documented at Science Daily, show mixed results. There was a slight improvement in memory, but not statistically significant. Also, Ginkgo Biloba seemed to slightly increase the chance of a mini-stroke. You can read about the Ginkgo Biloba Memory Loss Tests here.

Each day about an hour or two after breakfast, I swig down about a 8-12 ounce glass of orange juice or other vitamin C-fortified fruit juice. To prevent too much acidity, I have one or two pieces of toast with the juice. Also, at this time, I will pop down my multivitamin for the day. Currently, I am taking Centrum Silver.

If I drink the juice first thing in the morning, I will sometimes get of an upset stomach. Waiting an hour or two after breakfast seems to help.

As I have mentioned before on my site SciaticaBackPainRelief.com, the reason I can drink juice at all now is because I no longer am popping the almost daily ibuprofen pills. Instead, I only take them for bad headaches – maybe 4-6 200 mg pills per week at the most. The decompression device I used was helpful in achieving this.  And now, I very rarely have any sciatica back pain, so I have not even been using this device for quite some time now.

Besides helping to prevent colds, Vitamin C

• Is an antioxidant needed for many bodily functions
• Is needed for repair of wounds
• Is needed for healthy gums
• Protects against infection and helps your immune system
• More benefits, as listed at HealthVitaminsGuide.com

So what is in these beans? According to whfoods.com, green beans have Vitamin K, Vitamin C, Manganese, and Vitamin A in fairly large quantities, as well as a whole host of other nutrients. Furthermore, whfoods.com states that these vitamins are at optimum levels in beans that are uncooked.

Vitamin K, at least at this source, may possibly be linked to sleeping better. At any rate, fresh green beans provide an ample supply of a good variety of natural vitamins while resulting in very few calories added to your diet.

So grow some beans in your back yard or patio! Pole beans can be grown in a very small area with several hills providing enough fresh beans for all your needs. All you need to do is get a bag or two of compost from your home store that you mix into the ground or very large planters, sow about 6-12 pole bean seeds in each hill, water, and provide climbing poles or a trellis as the beans get larger.