Joey Wahler (Host):
Nowadays there are more choices than ever in vitamin supplements. So we're
discussing vitamins for health. Our guest, Debb Hallingstad, she's a Nurse
Practitioner with Cumberland Healthcare. This is Healthier You, a podcast from
Cumberland Healthcare. Thanks for listening. I'm Joey Wahler. Hi Debb. Thanks
for joining us.

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Hello, how are you?

Host: I'm good,
yourself?

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Pretty good.

Host: Did you take
your vitamins today? I have to ask.

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
I take my vitamins every day. I never do anything that I ask of my patients. I
do it myself also.

Host: That's a great
rule of thumb. To get us started so first, are vitamins really necessary for
everyone debb? Should everyone be taking some form of them?

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Vitamins are supplements that are used. And there is a recommended daily
allowance. If you eat a well-balanced diet and get all of the nutrients in your
food, then you really don't have to take a supplemental vitamins. But if you
don't get a well-balanced diet or you're going through a time of stress in your
body, then adding vitamin supplements to your regimen will help you either heal
faster, feel better, have a healthier lifestyle.

Host: Gotcha. So
hence the word supplement, right? They're meant to take the place of something
that you're not getting otherwise.

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Correct.

Host: Okay. So that
being said, I guess a regular checkup and blood work along with it can tell us
which vitamins we're deficient in right?

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
It can, especially the vitamins and the minerals. The minerals are potassium
and magnesium, phosphorus, calcium, whatever. If you do lab work with your
physician, they can tell you if you are low on them. We live in the northern
climate of Wisconsin, so we don't have a great amount of sunshine a lot, so we
do not get enough vitamin D3 via the sun as we really need. So taking a
supplement of vitamin D3 will help you with that.

Host: Ah,
interesting. So the vitamins you need could be at least in part, dependent on
where you live.

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Correct.

Host: So which
vitamins do people usually need the most?

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
You look at what you really need. The areas that I work at in the hospital and
clinic, I work with oncology or cancer patients and wound patients, so I tend
to look at the vitamins that will help them either recover faster from a
chemotherapy treatment or recover faster from a wound that isn't healing to
help it heal faster. So the vitamins that I really push are vitamin D3, vitamin
C, zinc, magnesium, and the B complex vitamins.

Host: So that's
interesting too that when you work with those patients, whether it be
recovering from a wound or a chemotherapy treatment, their bodies obviously are
in an altered state, if you will, when it comes to vitamin deficiency, right?

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Correct. It's not only vitamin deficiency, but if you're not in optimal health,
your body is actually stressed and that increased stress, some patients will
feel it by an upset stomach. So when you're under stress, your stomach produces
more gastric acid. Things go through your body faster and they don't have time
to absorb. So adding a supplemental vitamin or mineral, to your regular diet
will help you achieve optimal health faster.

Host: So when you say
that, what about quote unquote, regular stress in our everyday lives, might
that bring on the need for more of a certain supplement?

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Absolutely. That's why a great percentage of the population takes that little
purple pill called Prilosec.

Host: Okay. And, tell
us for those that don't know what that is.

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Prilosec is omeprazole. It is for gastric acid, gastric reflux. So if you have
any heartburn or any gastric reflux, then your doctor will tell you to either
take Prilosec or omeprazole or Tagamet. There's a couple other different drugs.
But because of that, your gastric acid is burning through your nutrients
faster, and so you may need to supplement even if you're taking a healthy diet.

Host: Gotcha. Now,
you mentioned a moment ago a few basic vitamins that many people commonly take.
Can you just quickly please go through a few of those and tell us what they're
for? How do they benefit us.

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Starting with vitamin A. Vitamin A is found in vegetables, eggs, milk, and
fruits. It's for your skin, bone health, it fights infection. It helps with
your vision and your heart, lung and kidney function. Vitamin A will be found
in a lot of like PreserVision for eye health that you see on the TV,that has a
high component of vitamin A in it.

Vitamin B complex. I put a lot of my cancer patients on a
vitamin B complex. It's a stress vitamin, so if you're under stress, you'll
burn through this faster. So you want to supplement with that. It also helps
with neuropathy, peripheral neuropathy, either from chemotherapies or from
diabetics, they lose the feeling in the tips of their fingers and the tips of
their toes, and that actually helps build those neurons back to keep that
feeling there. And that's usually found in breads and cereals and pasta, but
it's really good for brain metabolism. It helps to decrease your ldl, which is
your bad lipid profile test, also decreases heart disease and helps your cells
rebuild and function better.

Vitamin C of course, protects cells, makes collagen, reduces the
common cold, and takes skin, bone and teeth. Women who reach the age of
menopause, you don't produce enough estrogen or you, could be blocking your
estrogen if you have breast cancer. So we ask you to take vitamin C along with
calcium and vitamin D3 so that you get that bone health back. Otherwise, your
bones become very, very brittle. Again, calcium, muscle, skin and bones. So
make sure you get enough calcium. I tell patients at least 1200 milligrams of
calcium a day. So that's two tablets. Vitamin D, you find that in fish, fish
liver oils, fortified milk, and stuff. Take 2000 units a day and it has to be
vitamin D3. It influences your immune system, so it actually helps to keep you
healthy. Fights fatigue. You won't feel as tired if you take your Vitamin D
supplements and it helps with bone health again.

Vitamin E protects the cells, maintains your muscle mass. It is
thought that it could increase your immune system to help fight cancer, so it
decreases the incidence of cancer, helps in heart regulation, and it also
decreases the effect of Alzheimer's. So that's a good vitamin to take. Vitamin
K is found in green leafy vegetables, blueberries, figs, cheese, eggs, and some
meats, that helps your blood to clot. It also helps in bone formulation and
helps wounds heal. The rest of them are basically minerals. We use minerals and
vitamins together because they kind of are like best friends on the playground.
You hold your hand and you go along and you have a good time. So it's really
important that you do that also.

Host: Nice analogy.
By the way. I didn't even know there was a vitamin K.

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Oh, vitamin K. Some people will have trouble. We call them bleeders. I was a
bleeder as a child. I would bleed spontaneously and it was because my iron
levels were low and my vitamin K levels were low, so I had to grow up eating a
lot of chicken liver.

Host: That must have
been fun for you.

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
No, it wasn't. I outgrew it, so it must have worked.

Host: Excellent. So
let me just follow up real quick on what you mentioned about the vitamin D3. I
know people who swear by it, who say that by taking the right amount daily,
they haven't been sick for years. No cold, no flu, no anything.

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Correct. Again, it's used to help boost your immune system and make you feel
good. Vitamin D3 was one of the supplements that was recommended during COVID
to help boost that immune system and help you actually fight a virus on your
own.

Host: Right, now,
what about taking Debb a multivitamin in order to get all the things you
mentioned or most of them, and are all of them kind of the same or not?

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Your body doesn't really know the difference between Walmart and Shackley or
whatever, so it really doesn't matter. You get it from a reputable source. So,
Nature Made is a good vitamin, Centrum is a good vitamin. The multivitamin is
your basic recommended allowances. Some of those vitamins that I talked about,
those are the ones that we would want you to take above and beyond because you
want to make sure that you get adequate amounts to make your health the best it
it can be.

Host: Right. So you
take the multi to get a little bit of everything and then perhaps a supplement
or two on top of that if you need those in particular. Right. Okay. Couple of
other things, we just touched on it with the vitamin D3. Part of what you're
saying here is that vitamins can really literally help prevent illness, right?

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Correct.

Host: What other
things besides just say the common cold or virus, can they help ward off?

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Cancer is caused from a cell disruption in your body. Something has affected
the cells of whatever the cancer arises in your body. Your body was made to
fight off anything that attacks it. So you should be able to maybe fight it as
long as you can. But a lot of times, cancer will reoccur because a patient gets
rundown or fatigued, their health isn't optimal, and that allows the cancer to
regrow, come back. So does it prevent cancer totally? Well, no, because we also
immerse ourselves in things in our nature that can cause cancers.

Host: So it sounds
kind of like what you're saying to, to some extent, is that vitamins serve
almost as an oil would in your car that we needed basically to help our bodies
run as efficiently as they can. Right?

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Correct.

Host: What's the best
time of day to take vitamins? My mom would always say, you got to take them in
the morning and take them on a full stomach after breakfast. Is that true or
no?

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
That is true. You shouldn't take them like if you're on thyroid medications,
make sure that you check if on your medications to see if you can take it with
the vitamins. The ones that I tell people to take at night are zinc and
magnesium. If you take those, they will actually help you sleep.

You want to take the B vitamins, the super B complex in the
morning because if you take it at night, it might keep you up. That gives you
energy, it makes you feel good, so take that in the morning. It's you feel good
vitamin for the whole day.

Host: Gotcha. And
finally here, Debb, in summary, what would you say to those listening if
they're thinking, hmm, I haven't been taking any vitamins, or perhaps I'm not
taking all that I should, but I don't know what I need. Remind us again,
please. What's the first step to find out?

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Talk it over with your physician to make sure that there's no drugs that you're
taking, none of your medications or your health preclude you from taking
vitamins. And then you might need to do, a level. If your vitamin D level is
very low, they may need to give you more than the supplemental dose. You may
get a larger dose, say once a week, so that will be needed. Magnesium and
potassium, you want to make sure that those levels are within your normals
because that's what makes your heart beat healthy. So they will tell you
exactly if you need to take extra than just over the counter potassium, you
might need to take some prescribed potassium with it. So check with your doctor
first, and then if you need to, call and I can answer questions.

Host: Excellent. So
folks, we trust you're now more familiar with Vitamins for Health, Debb
Hallingstad, thanks so much again.

Debb Hallingstad, APNP:
Thank you thank you very much.

Host: And for more
information, please do visit cumberlandhealthcare.com/services/healing-setter/.
You just heard Debb mention you can contact her directly.

And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your
social media. And thanks again for listening to Healthier You, a podcast from
Cumberland Healthcare. Hoping your health is good health. I'm Joey Wahler.