YourHealthMatters

Picking Your Calcum Supplement

Our bodies needs calcium for everything from maintaining strong bones and teeth, to regulating heart rhythm and nerve impulses. Muscle function is very dependent on adequate calcium and magnesium.

We store about 99% of our calcium in our bones and teeth and thus only a small amount is present in blood. The brain will remove calcium from bony stores to maintain blood calcium within a narrow range. For this reason you can not really know your bone calcium stores by measuring a blood calcium level. With the exception of dairy products and canned salmon, there really is not a lot of well absorbed calcium present in our diets. With the move away from dairy use, we must all consider taking daily calcium supplements. Here is some information to help you choose the best calcium source in supplements.

Calcium absorbs best in the stomach in an acidic environment. There are two types of calcium supplements, ones that are alkaline like calcium carbonate and ones that are acidic like calcium citrate, calcium lactate, and calcium gluconate. The cheapest and most available calcium supplements are based on calcium carbonate, which is also the basis for oyster shell calcium,  and coral calcium. Calcium carbonate would not be a good choice for anyone using acid blockers like ranitidine, Aciphex©, Pepcid©, Prilosec©, Nexium©, Protonix© or Prevacid©. Calcium carbonate must be taken with food to enhance absorption. And remember caffeine increases calcium loss through the kidneys, as do carbonated drinks. OsCal©, a common form of calcium carbonate, typically contains 500 mg of calcium per tablet.

Calcium citrate will often be better absorbed because it is an acidic form of calcium compared to the alkaline calcium carbonate. However it takes more pills of calcium citrate to get the same amount of elemental calcium compared to taking calcium carbonate. CitracCl©, one of the better known brands of calcium citrate contains 200 or 250 mg calcium per tablet depending on which product you buy. It can be taken on any empty stomach and is absorbed even by people taking any of the many acid-blocking drugs mentioned above.

Calcium lactate and gluconate contain smaller amount of elemental calcium by capsule and so more capsules will be required. However, both absorb well. Calcium lactate typically contains 115 mg of calcium per capsule. Calcium gluconate contains only about 10% elemental calcium per mg of the gluconate salt and is not a good choice as your only calcium source.

The calcium in Coral Calcium is nothing but calcium carbonate and not any better absorbed than any other calcium carbonate product.

Suggested adult dosing of calcium is between 1000 and 1500 mg daily of elemental calcium from all sources. Dairy products such as milk or yogurt will readily supply 300 mg of elemental calcium per 8 ounce serving. These recommendations were made alongside an RDA recommendation of only 400 units of Vitamin D.

Has anyone looked at the effect of Vitamin D levels on calcium absorption? In April 2003 the Journal of the American College of Nutrition published a study comparing absorption of calcium carbonate with calcium citrate in postmenopausal women. Both supplements were given with breakfast, so that avoided the problem of adequate stomach acid. It seems that none of the women were on acid-blockers. In this situation, the calcium absorption was equal. This is not exactly a real-life situation for many. Most importantly this study looked at the impact of adequate Vitamin D supplementation and found that both calciums were best absorbed if the 25-OH Vitamin D blood levels were above 80 nmol/L. I have never seen this high a level in any postmenopausal woman, and frequently find their Vitamin D levels below 30. With three weeks of Vitamin D3 pre-treatment to get a blood level over 80 nmol/L the calcium absorption of either form of calcium was 65% better than without the Vitamin D. The RDA recommendation of 400 units of Vitamin D per day will not produce a blood level of anywhere near 80 nmol/ in any adult that I have ever tested.

This study was supported by Glaxo-Smith-Kline, maker of OsCa©l and thus they found the results favorable to their product. I would support this study result, as long as everyone realizes they need adequate Vitamin D3 for best calcium absorption. I regularly test blood levels of Vitamin D3 now in many adults. I recently found a patient in their 20's with a vitamin D3 level below even the so-called lower limit of lab test normal which is 25.

It's important to not get too high a blood calcium level with excess use of calcium supplements. Too high a level can lead to kidney stones and heart rhythm problems. If you have a history of calcium kidney stones, then you need medical advice about your calcium supplementation.

 

I think magnesium should also be taken daily by most adults alongside your calcium. Some products contain both. In a later installment, I'll discuss how to pick the best magnesium product.

drBob

Acupuncture - Ancient Wisdom for Modern Ailments

A recent article posted on CNN reminded me I have not written about acupuncture on this site. I first studied acupuncture in 1974 just two years after I began my medical practice in Ontario. Right from the beginning I was amazed at the way in which tiny needles carefully inserted into points on the body could change symptoms. Over the years I have studied a number of schools or models of acupuncture treatment. I primarily use acupuncture based on Western ideas of anatomy and physiology. There are other theories of acupuncture such as Traditional Chinese Medicine or TCM as used by the practitioner the author of the CNN article visited.

My most common use for acupuncture is for painful problems, such as headache whether muscle tension or migraine, muscle spasm problems such as whiplash or low back pain, painful periods, arthritic pain and certain kinds of neuropathy such as reflex sympathetic dystrophy. It can be very useful to speed healing from injuries such as sprains and strains to joints and muscles from sports.

There are many other problems that can be treated with acupuncture. The World Health Organization has identified over 40 different conditions that will respond to acupuncture in their search of the world research literature on acupuncture. There are countless other problems that acupuncture has helped.

I use points on the body and also do ear acupuncture in which tiny needles are used in the ear to stimulate change throughout the body.

Acupuncture needles are much finer than the usual needle you might get for an injection. They are sharpened to a conical tip and as a result can be almost painless when inserted. Needles are used once and discarded.

To view the CNN article - click here. 

My daughter Carrie, a graduate of a 4 yr university-level course in TCM, has her own website about acupuncture. Read more about acupuncture at her site  www.carrieanderson.ca

drBob

Do You Want One Size Fits All Medicine?

As I wrote recently, Senators Kennedy, Roberts and Burr are pushing ahead with legislation that could effectively make it impossible for compounding prescriptions to be available in this country. Here is additional info on this legislation published by the AAHF.

Go to the AAHF website for further info. http://www.healthfreedom.net/

They have produced a brochure for distribution which highlights the problems. I have uploaded the brochure here for you to download. Download OneSizeFitsAll.pdf

If you have not written anything to these Senators in protest of their actions, please do so now and help spread the word to your friends. The Bill is called Safe Compounding Act of 2007 and in my opinion really means that in the eyes of these Senators and the lobbyists who are pushing this legislation, the only safe compounding is none at all.

Giving the FDA control over compounded prescriptions is just what Big Pharma wants, and is certainly not in our best interests.
 

drBob

Traumeel - A different cream for your injuries

Do you bruise or swell often after an injury? Do you strain joints such as your ankle? Do you have muscle sprain problems? What do you do to treat these common injuries?

For years I have recommended a homeopathic cream called Traumeel©. It contains a number of natural ingredients, which together remove bruises quickly, decrease swelling in joints, muscles or soft tissue and reduce pain from common injuries.

For example recently a patient of mine fell and injured the ligaments and soft tissue in her groin. Now this is an area that can be very painful when trying to walk and indeed she had great difficulty getting up after the injury. Conventional physiotherapy and pain medication was not enough. When she started applying Traumeel© three or four times a day to the injured groin area, the pain relief was obvious and she resumed her walking quicker.

After surgery to joints there can be extensive bruising. Traumeel© may remove the bruises quicker than Mother Nature. Similarly sprained swollen ankles, wrists, knees, etc may heal quicker with this cream.

While using heat and ice do help sprained joints and muscles also and can still be used, the addition of Traumeel© can be a simple,safe and inexpensive way to speed your healing.

drBob

Diabetes Costs Us Billions

Two new reports this week should serve as wake-up calls to all of us about our health. These reports point to growing upward pressure on the cost of our illness care and that will translate into higher health insurance premiums for all of us.

In the first report,  diabetes groups calculated the annual costs of treating diabetes. Type II adult diabetes costs $37 Billion Dollars yearly to treat and if poorly treated the complications add another $20 Billion yearly.

Over 20 million American adults now have diabetes. There are countless more that have what is called "pre-diabetes", meaning their blood sugars are rising close to the diabetic range. It is more important than ever that we find these pre-diabetics and reverse their progress to diabetes.

Anyone with a fasting blood sugar of 100 -124 is in the "pre-diabetes" range and should start taking action to improve their blood sugar control. This is a special interest of mine as the improvement in longevity and quality of life if this is reversed is obvious. Not to mention every person who avoids diabetes helps keep all our health insurance premiums lower.

Read this report at Diabetes Costs Us Billions

In the second study researchers reported that the fastest group of obese people are those more than 100 pounds over their healthy weight, the so-called morbidly obese. Three percent of Americans are now in this category and the number has increased by 50 percent in 5 years. Thirty percent of us have a BMI between 25 and 29 which is considered overweight and another thirty percent of us have a BMI over 30 which is considered obese. So the majority of American adults are now at increased risk of becoming diabetic. This is a very dangerous trend.

Do I have to ask what the cause of all this waist expansion is. Clearly we are eating too much of the wrong foods and not exercising enough to maintain our metabolic rate.

Read this report at Fastest Growing

drBob

Picking the Best Supplements

I hope many of my readers already know this but I want to emphasize something which is very common in the supplement and vitamin industry. These comments are about common brands sold in many stores or by MLM agents and do not apply to brands that I recommend or formulas prepared by my favorite experts such as Dr. Dean Raffelock, Dr. Jonathan Wright or Dr. Alan Gaby.

When you are selecting a supplement or vitamin, it's essential to know what the ingredients are AND also the concentration. All manufacturers know that people recognize names of common vitamins, minerals and herbal ingredients and likely don't know what the true therapeutic doses are.

You will commonly see many products sold over the counter (OTC) or by multi-level marketing firms (MLM) that use what I call the "kitchen sink" method of product development. Throw every name ingredient in so the public will think it's a good product, and don't worry if the concentrations are below therapeutic levels. Often there are so many ingredients used that it would be impossible to get actual therapeutic amounts into one or two capsules.

Another very common practice is to produce what is labeled as a "proprietary blend" of multiple ingredients and give only the total concentration of the whole group. This is used as a method to hide the individual ingredient concentrations from competitors, since the formulas usually are not patentable. My suggestion is to buy only OTC products that do not use this trick to hide the concentrations.

Vitamins are usually labelled with something called %RDA which means what percentage of the FDA mandated Recommended Daily Allowance does this product contain. RDA values are almost meaningless today because they were established to prevent the worst scourges of previous generations, namely scurvy, beriberi and pellagra. RDA values should never be considered as therapeutic for any of the common diseases we now face. We need a new set of values for what I would call % Effective Therapeutic Dosage but that change will not likely occur in my lifetime.

Other issues include which form of a given supplement, especially minerals, are best absorbed and what is the concentration of the actual active ingredient extracted from an herb.  I will write more about this later.

I recommend everyone have access to resources which discuss the therapeutic doses of supplements and hopefully have a health-care provider to offer guidance on selection and dosing.

drBob

60 Minutes Shows the Power of Big Pharma

Every adult in this country needs to look at this 60 Minutes report on how Big Pharma is controlling our government to protect their profits.

Here is the transcript of the segment recently aired - http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/29/60minutes/main2625305.shtml

Please read the comments posted below the transcript of the show also.

Here is the link to the video of the 60 minutes segment -
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?channel=60Sunday

(Be aware you will have to watch a commercial for 30 seconds ahead of the main event.)

The obvious ways in which politicians are paid off by leaving government to work for Big Pharma jobs is well documented. Does anyone remember what the term "pork-barreling" meant in politics?

Then wonder what are we going to do to stop this uncontrolled influence that will help bankrupt the health care system of this fine country. One of more sickening facts - there are more than 2 Big Pharma lobbyists for each elected member of government in Washington. Isn't that a little much?

I know this lobbying all too well. I am being visited by up to 5 different sales reps for each big drug and I'm getting sick of it. I'm ready to tell the reps that I am limiting each drug to having just one rep come to my office. The enormous cost of all these sales people to our drug costs is going unchecked and Congress will never control any of this unless the electorate starts to do a lot of screaming.

I'd welcome your comments posted here to all of this and a big round of applause to 60 Minutes for this excellent production. I hope they continue to expose this lobbying. It's this same lobbying which is being used to get rid of compounded pharmaceuticals which I have recently written about here.

drBob

Zelnorm© Pulled From Market

A popular drug for the treatment of IBS, Zelnorm©, has been pulled from the market because of research showing its use was linked to a higher risk of heart attack, stroke and worsening chest pain. In a series of studies 13 of 11,614 patients given Zelnorm© had serious and life-threatening cardiac events. On the placebo side of the studies, only one of 7,031 patients given a placebo had a similar event. Using the popular statistical interpretation the media uses, this is a 787% increase in risk of cardiovascular problems with Zelnorm©. Ouch! That's a tad worse than the 30% increase in breast cancer risk the media loudly proclaimed after the Womens" Health Initiative Study into Premarin© and Prempro© was halted.

I'm glad to see this drug pulled as it only treats a symptom of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), not the underlying causes. I have rarely ever used this drug because when the real issues with IBS are addressed directly, most patients respond very well. Some of the common problems associated with IBS are gluten sensitivity, other food allergies, inadequate dietary fiber, imbalances in the normal bowel bacterial population, and lack of digestive enzymes.

drBob

Closing for Easter

Lynda and I are leaving at noon this Thursday April 5 for the Easter weekend and will be back in the office on Monday, April 9 at 8 a.m. The staff is also off for this time period. drBob