The Birth of Our Universe

 By Michio Kaku

Up until just a few hundred years ago most people thought that the Universe was a stable, static place that had been here forever and would continue forever. Today we know that nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, we know that the Universe is a violent and continually changing place that was born in a mere nanosecond of time in the spectacular event we call the Big Bang. You may have heard the Big Bang referred to as the mother of all explosions but it wasn’t an explosion so much as an expansion. From a space that was infinitely small, the entire Universe expanded and continues even to this day -13.7 billion years later.

Lots of people wonder how we even arrived at that number and how we originally calculated the age of the Universe in the first place. It started with some educated guesswork and later got refined through some sophisticated technologies. A remarkable astronomer, Edwin Hubble was really one of the very first to make a reliable calculation of the age of the Universe. When Hubble was at Mount Wilson in the 1920’s, astronomers still believed that the Universe was static and not moving. But when Hubble looked at the very distant galaxies through a large new telescope, he began to notice that light was a bit distorted. The yellow galaxies appeared to be slightly redish and he wondered if the color change might be due to something called the Doppler effect. According to Wikipedia, the Doppler effect is commonly heard when a vehicle sound a siren or horn approaches, passes and then recedes from an observer. The same Doppler effect happens with starlight which becomes distorted and changes color. Hubble was then able to estimate the distance to certain stars and soon realized that they were receding and moving away from us. This meant that the Universe wasn’t static at all and was in fact actually expanding and had been for billions of years. Hubble’s work was a monumental discovery and changed everyone’s view on the way they looked at the Universe.

As hard as this is to fathom, at the very beginning, just at the instant of the Big Bang, the entire universe was infinitely smaller than an atom and we call this infinitely tiny point a singularity. This also raises the question of what was going on before the Big Bang. The problem we have is that standard mathematics just don’t apply before the Big Bang. There are of course beautiful animations of what we think may have happened during this bang but the fact is that the explosion took place in a time that is so short that it simply cannot be comprehended. The Universe expanded not into space but as space. In other words, matter did not simply explode but space expanded. It grew from a dot infinitely smaller than an atom to an area billions of light years across in a mere fraction of a second.

The Big Bang expanded as it cooled and as it cooled different kinds of matter began to condense out. For example, atoms began to condense about 300,000 years after the Big Bang. We still have lots of questions and there is still lots to learn but machines like the Large Hadron Collider are bringing us closer than ever before. With every successful experiment - we are closer to understanding the birth of our Universe.  

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Do We Really Need Nutritional Supplements?

There is no simple answer to this question. The common belief is that people who are healthy, exercise regularly, eat nutritious food, do not smoke or abuse alcohol, do not need any supplementation. It is believed that their daily nutritional needs are met and there is no need for additional supplementation. Another line of thought, however, advocates the need of supplementation independently of the lifestyle and nutritional preferences. Some of the writers and researches, especially in the field of gerontology and aging, as well as the specialists in orthomolecular medicine* take nutritional supplementation one step further. They suggest that so called aggressive supplementation combined with healthy diet is the only way to deliver optimal amounts of nutrients. The doses of nutrients often exceed the generally accepted daily allowances and supplementation goes beyond the regular multivitamin and mineral formulas.

Are we malnourished?

In order to function optimally we need nutrients that constitute the building blocks of our bodies and sustain all the processes that keep us alive. A well balanced diet consisting of nutritious foods is the most important way to deliver all the nutrients that we require to stay healthy and fit. Unfortunately, many people do not receive the minimum dietary requirement with the foods they consume on daily basis. They become malnourished. Long-term nutritional deficiencies have adverse consequences on their health and may be the cause of serious chronic ailments.

There are many reasons why the food we consume daily may not provide us with all the nutrients we need to stay healthy and energetic. An average person does not receive the suggested RDA amount of nutrients from food. Nutritional value of fruit and vegetable depends on the soil on which they grow. Due to commercial farming practices the soil is often depleted of its mineral content. Harvest, transportation, and food processing may be responsible for some loss of nutrients as well. Very often the produce is harvested in an unripe state and transported over long distances. Such practices are responsible for the diminished nutrient content in our produce. Nutritional value of commercially raised animals, commercially produced eggs and dairy differs from the values that were measured only fifty years ago, but our nutritional needs may have increased over the years due to pollution and the stressful lifestyles we are leading.

What are nutritional supplements?

Nutritional supplements are preparations intended to deliver nutrients such as vitamins and minerals. They can come in form of tablets, capsules, powder, or in a liquid form and are to be ingested. They are meant to replenish what is missing in one's diet and are either considered to be foods or drugs depending on the regulations of a particular country. The dosage of nutrients vary from preparation to preparation and while some offer a minimum necessary for the overall well being, other offer mega-doses that exceed the daily RDA allowance. There are also supplements containing nutrients for which there is no established daily dose.

What is RDA?

RDA or Recommended Dietary Allowance is the amount of certain nutrients that a healthy individual should consume daily in order to maintain good health and decrease the risk of developing chronic disease. There are allowances for vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and fiber. The individual need for nutrients may vary greatly depending on age, gender, personal disease history, and lifestyle factors such as veganism, medication, alcoholism, drug abuse, or smoking.

How to choose the right nutritional supplement?

Choosing a nutritional supplement may be very difficult unless we know what our needs and deficiencies are. Most of the commonly available and inexpensive nutritional supplements contain synthetically manufactured nutrients. They contain fillers and artificial coloring and may be full of allergens. The more expensive, state of the art nutritional supplements are made of extracts derived from plants and provide nutrients in higher concentrations. Nutrients that come together with their co-factors are more bio-available and effective. Such supplements are formulated for maximum absorption and use the pharmaceutical grade active nutritional ingredients. They do not contain allergens such as lactose, soy, yeast, or gluten, and are free of toxic contaminants.

The most commonly used caking agents, fillers, or flow agents such as magnesium stearate often interfere with the nutrient absorption making the low-dose supplements inefficient if not completely useless. Magnesium stearate, for instance, not only decreases absorption of nutrients, it may also be toxic and is suspected of suppressing the immune system. However, finding nutritional supplements that are free of magnesium stearate is not very easy as even the best ones on the market contain this agent which is made from hydrogenated cottonseed oil and commonly used as a flow agent to facilitate the manufacturing process.

If you decide to use a nutritional supplements, it is often best to consult a certified health care professional. If you have an existing medical condition or a medical history, it may be necessary to perform blood tests in order to find out your deficiencies or contra-indications. Take particular care when purchasing your supplement that you know and understand any added ingredient and its toxicity or allergenic potential. You do not want to take anything that may cause adverse reactions. Moreover, it is important to know whether your supplement interacts with any medication you are currently taking.

Conclusion

Supplements are very useful and necessary to alleviate any nutritional deficiencies, but they should never be taken in place of proper nutrition. Active lifestyle and healthy eating habits are absolutely necessary for optimal health. But unless we grow, harvest, and prepare our food ourselves, we must be aware that our nutritional needs may not be met on daily basis. High quality supplements may have be taken additionally to enhance our well being and deliver what is missing on our plates. The natural aging process is also responsible for some nutrient deficiencies. As we age, we may not be able to metabolize and absorb all the nutrients that we need. Supplementation can help us maintain the equilibrium and slow down the degenerative processes. As Dr. Linus Pauling postulated in 1960, "Optimum nutrition and correct nutritional supplementation is the medicine of tomorrow." Today this statement is more relevant than ever.

By Dominique Allmon

*Orthomolecular medicine is a complementary therapy form that seeks to prevent or treat diseases with high doses of nutrients that are either taken as dietary supplements or in form of food. The phrase was coined by Dr. Linus Pauling 

*This information is for educational purposes only and is not meant to diagnose, treat or cure a disease. Please, consult your health care provider before commencing any supplementation as herbs and vitamins may interfere with prescription drugs.

Do We Really Need Nutritional Supplements? by Dominique Allmon is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Saint-Ex, 29 June 1900—31 July 1944

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a French writer and aviator. He is best remembered for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince), and for his books about aviation adventures, including Night Flight and Wind, Sand and Stars. He was a successful commercial pilot before World War II, joining the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force) on the outbreak of war, flying reconnaissance missions until the armistice with Germany. Following a spell of writing in the United States, he joined the Free French Forces. He disappeared on a reconnaissance flight over the Mediterranean in July 1944. 

“The friend within the man is that part of him which belongs to you and opens to you a door which never, perhaps, is opened to another. Such a friend is true, and all he says is true; and he loves you even if he hates you in other mansions of his heart.” -  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry from "The Wisdom of the Sands" translated from French by Stuart Gilbert