Where The Holistic Rubber Meets The Scientific Road

Hey, Nutrition Helps Healing (They Just Discovered!)

I mean, duh!

Still, I found it interesting reading. The old dodos at least admitted they didn’t know much. But that’s because they haven’t been listening to doctors like me! For almost 40 years I’ve been pointing out that omega-3s reduce inflammation and zinc speeds up wound healing. Only last week I wrote a report that choline is practically the #1 brain nutrient.

What did they find in this study from the Institute of Medicine? Omega-3s reduce inflammation, zinc speeds up wound healing and choline is great for the brain!

The report was commissioned by the US Department of Defense and looked at using intense IV nutrition as early as possible, for brain injuries. Within the U.S. military as a whole, there have been more than 200,000 cases of traumatic brain injury diagnosed since 2000, according to the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center; 2,124 of those cases were classified as severe.

John Erdman, PhD, professor emeritus of food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois and a bunch of colleagues, including a mix of food and nutrition specialists, neurologists, and other experts, reviewed scientific literature linking nutrition to brain injury outcomes.

What they found was that infusions of calories and protein begun within the first 24 hours of injury and continued for the following two weeks significantly reduce inflammation in the brain and aid recovery. The long-term impact of nutrition was not studied.

The report also identifies several nutrients that have shown preliminary promise as aids in treating traumatic brain injury, in particular choline, creatine, omega-3 fatty acids, and zinc. The panel has marked these as priorities for future research, noting as well that there are many ongoing studies that are already showing promise.

The panel wisely suggested that the military should investigate whether nutrition can help reduce traumatic brain injury by making service members healthier and more resilient. “Does the antioxidant status of a soldier prior to injury have impact on the extent of that injury?” says Erdman. Good question! “We don’t know the answer to that.”

Now they have begun to wake up to this, maybe the knowledge will soon filter down to regular MDs and benefit civilians injured in road traffic accidents and sports events?

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