I Hope I've Been Missed!

5th July: I lay all afternoon alternately shivering and getting hot. Eventually I rang 111 and they advised an ambulance.  It was gone midnight before a doctor decided to give me a urine test and the problem became immediately apparant. My pee was as cloudy as the rough cider of my mispent youth!
     I was provided with an upholstered chair in a 'holding pen' with a load of other people and dozed fitfully until breakfast at 7.  Then they took me to a ward and kept under obsrvation for the day, while they puumped me full of antibiotics.
     10th July: Had been coughing for a couple of days and thought I'd better take a Covid test. Having not had it before - ever - it showed positive!!  Right in the middle of preparations for the Book Launch on 25th July!  (It'll be alright on the night.)
     One advantage has been that it's enabled me to catch up on my reading.  In the current edition of The Week I read a short piece about the inefficiency of taking multivitamins. Taken from three studies involving almost 400,000 healthy adults in the US, participants were tracked for more than 20 years. Having taken many factors into account, researchers found "no evidence that taking multivitamin supplements prolonged life; instead the bills were linked to a 4% higher risk of death in the initial years of follow-up." A nutritional researcher said that supplements can be beneficial in specific cases - just not multi-vits I presume.  However, I note that it was not said they didn't do any good at all.
     I'd seen such reports before but never on such up a scale. So I thought it was time that I reviewed what supplements I was taking and why I was taking them. This has changed over time and I've experimented with different ways of taking them: leaving them out and keeping them in, taking them in small groups up at different times of day.
      I seem to have settled into a routine that works. However, it's important not to follow my path blindly. We have to find our own way here. Each of our bodies is unique. Each of our bodies has different requirements: different supplements, different quantities, different reasons for taking them. 

Here's what I'm taking currently with brief information taken from the excellent the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre: https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs.  You can find much more information on most of these supplements on the website.

Reishi mushroom:

• Boost the immune system
• Increase strength and stamina
• Lower cholesterol

Treat lower urinary tract symptoms They contain Betaglucons,which are of interest to scientists in the treatment of cancer.

Cordyceps Mushroom:

• Boost the immune system
• Help the kidneys work better (Important for me with only one.)
  
• Boost strength and stamina

Sulforaphone (Extract of Broccoli sprouts)

• Cancer prevention (Breast and Urinary tract)
• Helicobacter pylori infection (An infectrion of the stomach).
  
• Stomach ulcers

Vitamin D3

• Osteoporosis  (Important since a tumour was found in my humerus)
  
• Seasonal affective disorder
• To prevent cancer

Various studies show that nutrients including B6 obtained through diet have cancer-preventive effects, but this does not mean these same effects occur with supplements.

Magnesium

• To reduce cancer risk
• To prevent heart disease.
  

Studies on whether magnesium intake reduces cancer risk are mixed. However adequate magnesium intake, especially through diet when possible, is important.

 Saw Palmeto

• To reduce an enlarged prostate.

Pre-biotic

• Organic wheat bran
• Feeds the existing gut flora to support the immune system.

Pro-biotic

• For use while taking antibiotics to replenish live cultures in the stomach flora.
  

PLEASE REMEMBER: Do your own research so you know what will help, in what quantities and what frequency.  Also take advice from your doctor about any supplements you propose taking in relation to any medicaton your doctors prescribe.  Your dotor may want to play safe and keep you away from anything they don't know about. You may need to get help from other sources.  With supplements you can stop at any time if you think they're advrsely affecting you.  Research, listen, sense-feel.