This Nutrient Is Essential For Optimal Health
What is nutrition?
Nutrition is the science that interprets the nutrients and other substances in food in relation to maintenance, growth, reproduction, health and disease of an organism. Nutrients are substances required by the body to perform its basic functions. Many bodily functions, like digestion, use nutrients for energy, growth, and cell repair. Nutrients are used to produce energy, detect and respond to environmental surroundings, move, excrete wastes, breathe, grow, and reproduce.
Why is nutrition important?
Nutrition is about eating a healthy and balanced diet. Food and drink provide the energy and nutrients you need to be healthy, and understanding nutrition may make it easier for you to make better food choices. There are six classes of nutrients required for the body to function and maintain overall health; carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, water, vitamins, and minerals.
While there are a multitude of reasons why nutrients are important, here are the 3 main reasons:
Carbohydrates, fats, and proteins provide the energy your body needs to carry out all the biochemical reactions that occur throughout the day and night.
Fats, proteins, and minerals are used as raw materials to build and maintain tissues, organs and other structures such as bones and teeth.
All six classes are involved in regulating various body functions such as sweating, temperature, metabolism, blood pressure, thyroid function, along with many others.
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How does nutrition impact mental health?
Eating a nutritious diet helps you keep a healthy body weight and a healthy heart. It also helps reduce your risk of developing some chronic diseases. However, your food choices also affect your mood and mental health, and there is one nutrient that is essential for both.
What is choline?
Choline is a nutrient that is found in many foods, and it also supports various bodily functions, including cellular growth and metabolism. It is needed to produce acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter for memory, mood, muscle control, and other brain and nervous system functions. The body makes some choline, but the majority comes from dietary sources. It is an essential nutrient for your body and overall health, and plays a much bigger role in nutrition than most know.
Benefits of choline
Choline supports several vital bodily functions and may offer a wide range of other health benefits. Some of these benefits include:
Improving memory and cognition
Protecting heart health
Boosting metabolism
While the benefits of this nutrient might seem very appealing, it is important to remember that even nutrients have to be eaten in moderation. The daily recommended intake for choline varies depending on your biological sex, age and genetics. However it is typically recommended that adult men get about 550mg of choline daily while women should get about 425mg daily.
Too much vs too little
Most people do not receive the proper amount of daily choline. This could be due to a variety of factors from not knowing what choline even is to not liking the foods that contain choline. And with any nutrient, a deficiency of choline could contribute to a range of health conditions including:
Cardiovascular disease
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease
Muscle damage
Neural tube irregularities
While these health conditions might scare most into seeking an abundantly rich choline diet, it’s important to remember that moderation is key. Because while too little of something can be harmful to your body and overall health, too much of something can often be just as harmful. Some of the health problems that too much choline can cause are as followed:
Hypotension
Sweating
Vomiting
Liver toxicity
Although your body makes some choline, it’s not nearly enough to give you the daily recommended amount you need. This is why it is essential to incorporate choline-rich foods into your diet in order to get enough of it, and not experience a choline deficiency.
What are the best food sources for choline?
The recommended daily intake amount of choline for men is about 550mg, while women only need about 425mg. However most men an average consume 415mg of choline per day, while females consume around 300mg. While most may think it would be challenging to start buying new foods that contain choline in order to integrate the nutrient into their diet, choline can actually be found in a lot of foods that many already eat.
Animal proteins
Animal proteins such as chicken breast, beef and pork loins are are great source for choline. Just about 3oz of one of these proteins is guaranteed to give you between 96 to 115mg of choline. If you were to have an animal protein twice a day, you would already be half way to your daily recommended choline intake. This could be chicken on a salad at lunch time and pork loins as your meat protein for dinner.
Eggs
Eggs probably have the most amount of choline in the smallest source. Just in one egg alone you can get about 147mg of choline. However it’s important to note that 90% of the choline found in eggs does come from the yolk. So those who rely strictly on egg whites are only getting about 15mg of choline from their egg. There are a variety of ways to eat eggs, from a breakfast meal to a salad topping to a hard boiled snack.
Organ meats
Animal organ meats are the most rich in choline, and can even provide you with the daily recommended amount in just one meal. Beef and chicken liver have about 290 to 425mg of choline in them, and even though organ meats are often an acquired taste, there are ways of integrating them into your diet. If you are not used to organ meats, you may want to start integrating them into your diet by mixing in a small amount with the regular meat you eat. Then go from there.
Plant-based eaters
If you are a plant-based eater and are worried you won’t get your daily amount of choline because you don’t eat meat, there are actually quite a bit of plant-based options out there for you. In fact, some of the foods with the highest choline content include soybeans, potatoes, and mushrooms. Along with those, certain nuts and seeds happen to be rich in choline too.
2 tablespoons of peanut butter has about 30mg
1 ounce of peanuts has about 16-20mg
1/2 cup of roasted soybeans has about 117mg
1 cup of cooked quinoa has about 43mg
1/2 cup of shiitake mushrooms has about 27mg
While eating a nutritious choline rich diet should be enough to provide you with the daily amount of choline needed, there are those who are more susceptible to becoming choline deficient.
Lifestyles more susceptible to choline deficiency
While choline deficiency is rare, anyone can be susceptible to choline deficiency. Even so, there are certain lifestyles that are more likely to attract such a rare deficiency. Once you recognize that you fall within one of these lifestyles, you will be one step closer to recognizing where your deficiency could stem from and providing your body with the nutrients it needs.
Low-FODMAP diets
Those who are on the Low-FOPMAP diet might find themselves more susceptible to experiencing a choline deficiency. The Low-FODMAP diet is specially tailored for those who suffer from IBS or other digestive related issues. And even though the ‘good’ foods list may seem long, it may be hard to find foods on that list that have the right amount of nutrients in them.
What can be done
The following foods are Low-FODMAP friendly and contain a decent amount of choline:
Cabbage has about 15mg
Quinoa has about 43 mg
Non-fat yogurt has about 38mg
Tangerines have about 10mg
Endurance Athletes
Those who are highly athletic and incorporate high amounts of endurance into their workouts are more likely to experience a choline deficiency. Your body’s choline levels fall during long endurance exercises, such as marathons. So keeping a normal level of choline might prove to be difficult for such athletes, even if they are stocking up their diet with choline rich foods.
what can be done
Though it might seem challenging to stay on top of a choline rich diet while managing an endurance athlete diet, there are a few tips that could help your choline levels. Try to incorporate more eggs into your diet, seeing has they have high levels of choline in them. If you are on a strict diet for an upcoming marathon, try incorporating more choline rich fruits, vegetables and nuts into your smoothies or meals.
Pregnant women
Women who are pregnant are more likely to experience a choline deficiency both during their pregnancy and even sometimes when they are lactating. Approximately 90 to 95% of pregnant women consume less than the recommended amount of choline. This is partially due to the fact that prenatal dietary supplements typically contain little if any choline in them, and some women eat less animal cut meats during their pregnancy.
what can be done
While limiting your meat protein intake may be your choice, you can still find choline in fruits and vegetables. One large baked potato has about 57mg of choline in it, and 1/2 cup of boiled broccoli or brussels sprouts has about 30mg of choline. In addition, if you can eat them, try to incorporate more eggs into your diet seeing as they have a high amount of choline in them.
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Choline is an essential nutrient that is required for optimal health. It may play a key role in healthy brain function, heart health, liver and other key bodily functions. Moreover while actual choline deficiency is rare, many people are not meeting the recommended intake. This is why it is important to have a well rounded, nutrient rich diet.
Extra tips for providing your body with essential nutrients
Remember the six classes of nutrients; carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, water, vitamins, and minerals. Many of the nutrients within these classes contain other essential nutrients in addition to choline.
Include vitamins and minerals, like vitamins C, E, and selenium, into your diet. Many foods, like Salmon, have vitamins C and E, selenium, and choline in them. So often times you can knock out multiple essential nutrients with one food.
Dietary fats help your body to absorb the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, and even support your muscles, brain, bones and skin.
Soy lecithin is a widely used food additive that contains choline. So if you still find that your diet lacks choline, try this additive.
