almost all cases, this should not take much time. For example, if you
have asthma symptoms and want to see if the nutrient choline is
needed by your body to help improve your asthma, taking choline for
a month or two will almost always either help, or do nothing. If it
helps, you may want to continue taking choline but also find the
foods high in choline so your diet may provide more of it (in this case
the best food source is egg yolks).
Another way to determine the need for a dietary supplement is to
analyze your diet. This is a common tool used by health-care profes-
sionals, researchers and even individuals to evaluate nutrient intakes.
This makes use of a computerized program and provides your level
of nutrients compared to the recommended daily allowance (RDA) or
other standard reference (such as the USDA’s Dietary Reference
Intakes or DRIs). Large national surveys are also taken the same way,
and these continue to show seriously low intakes of many nutrients.
For example, a Department of Agriculture survey showed that 80 per-
cent of American women did not achieve RDA levels of folic acid,
iron, zinc, vitamin B-6, magnesium and calcium.
I used various computerized diet analysis programs during my
years in practice, and tested almost all patients. Just as other surveys
have shown, most people had serious nutritional imbalances. Today
there are many computerized diet analysis programs available, and
the USDA website (www.usda.gov) provides a simple online pro-
gram that is free.
If specific nutrients are found to be below a minimum level, then
first you are in need of dietary improvement to include or increase
foods containing these nutrients. Second, you may need additional
nutrients from a dietary supplement.
Another approach that can help determine the potential need for
a dietary supplement, and one used throughout this book, is the use of
health surveys. This approach is based not on nutrient levels in the
body or in food but on how your body uses its nutrients. These sur-
veys utilize certain signs and symptoms associated with too much or
too little of specific nutrients. They may offer clues that point to a spe-
cific nutrient, or a condition that may be associated with a nutrient. For
example, sleepiness after meals, a larger waist size and frequent
hunger and craving for sweets may indicate an excess intake of carbo-
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