Energy To Go!

Better Nutrition, Dec, 1998 by Stephen Langer

The energy of color

The beneficial, energy-conveying influence of colors has been documented throughout history, from the ancient Egyptians to Isaac Newton, Goethe, and Rudolf Steiner. Whether we energize our lives with colors by bathing in special stimulating colors (like red), or eating certain foods with energizing colors, or even by painting our living spaces in energy-boosting hues, we can enrich our understanding of ourselves -- and of energy by learning more about how colors are both part of us and our world.

[Source: Colour Energy by Inger Naess, 1996.]

Webster's defines energy as "internal or inherent power; potential forces; capacity for vigorous action." Stedman's Medical Dictionary, though, defines energy more in terms of active, or released, power: "activity; the exertion of power; dynamic force; [and] the capacity to do work."

In a classic nutrition text, Nutrition in Health and Disease (1976), Helen Mitchell, Ph.D., Sc.D., looked at energy this way: "Like inanimate matter, humans and other living things obey the fundamental law of conservation of energy -- they can neither create nor destroy it but only transform it from one form to another."

An example of this would be the multi-colored light energy of the sun (see "The energy of color" sidebar, p. 32) being received by growing things -- those little storehouses of solar power (through photosynthesis) -- the energy of which is conveyed to us when we consume growing things.

By any definition, energy is used whenever work is performed by the body for any task, or reason. The action can be voluntary, such as walking, sitting, and working. It can also be involuntary, such as breathing, digestion, circulating the blood, maintaining muscle tone, transmitting nerve impulses, protecting our cells -- and our bodies -- from toxins and free-radical onslaught, or transporting nutrients across cell membranes.

How do you define energy?

That's the real question. Do you define it in terms of achieving your daily physical goals? In terms of how you feel after you run up the stairs to grab the phone? Or how you feel after racing to catch that bus? How about in terms of how you feel at work? After a long day at the office, or with the children? After cleaning the oven? After playing with your puppy?

These are examples of what energy is to most of us -- energy applied to our hour-to-hour activities and our day-to-day lives. Now, while exercising responsibly, and regularly, is crucial in helping us have more energy, without optimal nutrition, the marathon runner will crash-and-burn along with the "couch potato."

One way to approach nutritional delivery for maximal energy availability is through supplementation.

Some key energy supplements

Carnitine.

Recent books recommend taking carnitine for generating greater energy -- particularly Robert Crayhon's The Carnitine Miracle (1998).

According to Crayhon, "Carnitine is, without a doubt, the most important nutrient for increasing energy levels, naturally." L-carnitine, or 3-hydroxy-4-N-trimethyl-amino butyric acid, is related to choline and is a kissing cousin of the amino acids.

Initially, L-carnitine was given B-vitamin status because it contains nitrogen and is very soluble in water -- two tip-offs that something could be a "B." Like choline, taurine, and inositol, carnitine truly belongs to a group of food factors best described as "vitamin-like nutrients."

The primary function of carnitine in the body is to facilitate the burning of fats for energy. In addition to helping the heart, carnitine is popular with people who exercise -- even those who only exercise once a week. It enhances aerobic capacity and endurance (allowing us to exercise longer, and harder, with less fatigue).

L-carnitine also helps those who are trying to lose weight, those who are on low-carbohydrate diets, those who are strict vegans, those who are "always tired," those with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and those with AIDS who are taking the drug AZT (idovudine) -- since AZT depletes carnitine levels, causing an energy crisis at the cellular level.

Many other supplements -- vitamins, minerals, and food sources -- can rev up a person's energy: CoQ10, NADH, alpha-lipoic acid and other antioxidants, B-complex vitamins, royal jelly, wheat germ, brewer's yeast, iron, magnesium, potassium, and malic acid.

CoQ10.

An essential part of mitochondria (the energy-producing units in cells), coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is another "vitamin-like" compound which, in activity, resembles that of vitamin E.

According to James F. Balch, M.D., and Phyllis A. Balch, C.N.C., in their 1997 book, Prescription for Nutritional Healing, CoQ10 "plays a critical role in the production of energy in every cell in the body. It boosts up the immune system, aids circulation, and increases the levels of oxygen in body tissues."

NADH.

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide H (high-energy hydrogen), or NADH, was first discovered in 1905, in yeast, and was originally called "cozymase" and, later, coenzyme 1.

In his 1998 book, NADH: The Energizing Coenzyme, Georg Birkmayer, M.D., Ph.D., explains that, when NADH reacts with oxygen in the body, a cascade of reactions yields water and energy. The energy is stored in the form of the chemical structure, adenosine triphosphate, or ATP.