YourHealthMatters

Armour Thyroid in Short Supply Again

For my thyroid patients on Armour thyroid: After a new formula with more cornstarch was released recently by Forest Labs, makers of brand name Armour thyroid, they suddenly have pulled all dosage strengths off the market except the 120 mg size. No reason given but perhaps they have had such negative feedback about how the new inert ingredients don't help the pill work they have to change the pill formula again.
So if you are having problems getting your Armour, at least one pharmacy in my area is now stocking NaturThroid, an excellent choice but not often seen around here. I am experienced using this tablet and will prescribe for my patients having problems getting Armour or who are having problems with Armour.

Mary Shomon wrote this up today on her excellent thyroid info site at this link.

I'd like to hear from any of my patients who think they are having problems with the new Armour Thyroid pills.

drBob

Swine Flu Vaccine - An Alternate View

I have never posted twice to this blog on one day before, but today I received an email on a very important subject. On Monday evenng July 27 at 8 pm CDT a noted but unconventional expert on vaccines is giving a very important FREE webinar on the upcoming swine flu vaccine and what it may be all about. Needless to say I recommend this webinar and its sponsor very much to you.
 Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, DO is an expert on vaccines and many other aspects of medicine. Here is the link to sign up for her webinar for free. This will be recorded and available later if you sign up and can't attend.

LINK to sign up by clicking here.

drBob

9 Pillars of Successful Weight Loss - #5

The brain's neurotransmitters play a key role in whether you feel hungry or satisfied. One key neurotransmitter in this is serotonin and there are a couple of more as well, known as catecholamines. Serotonin deficiency is associated with carbohydrate binging (sugars and  starches). When you eat carbohydrates the brain will release serotonin momentarily although carbs do not directly produce serotonin. This reaction to carb binging can lead to a very addictive dependence on more and more carbs just to feel good.
Serotonin is produced from 5HTP in the brain, which is produced from tryptophan, an essential amino acid found mainly in grass-fed beef. Who still eats grass-fed or range-fed beef in this country?? Grass contains lots of tryptophan, corn contains none.
As we build more unnecessary fat stores, this excess fat releases inflammatory chemicals which trigger the breakdown of tryptophan in our bodies. This of course reduces the amount of serotonin the brain has available. One of the my favorite diet books is called The Fat Resistance Diet. It lays out a way of eating that minimizes inflammation in the body caused by the wrong diet. This book is high on my list of recommended ways to eat and I have seen major weight loss in my patients closely following this approach.
Research shows that taking 5HTP or tryptophan supplements before meals can reduce carb binging and appetite. In my practice I use a supplement containing both 5HTP and the amino acids that raise catecholamines in the body to help reduce appetite. The natural supplement is taken before at least two meals each day as part of an overall approach to reducing appetite.

drBob

Swine Flu Update # 6

Today MSNBC has a rather chilling forecast of swine flu in the US in the next two years. CDC is predicting 20 to 40 million of us may get swine flu in that time. This article is full of dire predictions at a time when we are about to get the first doses of the swine flu vaccine released. At least it will be released if safety testing turns out ok. I read this article and thought it made for good propaganda to convince us all to take the vaccine. However there are some unknowns still. The virus may mutate before fall and that may make the vaccine useless. The dire prediction assumes that we will not take enough precautions to avoid the infection.

One vitamin may be key to reducing your chances of flu - vitamin D if at levels over 50 ng/ml may reduce your risk of getting flu according to studies over the past couple of years linking flu outbreaks to low vitamin D levels in the winter in the Northern hemisphere. Blood testing will show your level and provide a guide to how much vitamin D you need to take each day.

So far Tamilfu works very well if given early enough in the disease. I am still seeing a small number of cases almost each week in the Liberal area. The latest was a family this week where a teenager got sick and then other children in the family. When I saw the first child with symptoms, I gave the family enough prescriptions for Tamiflu for everyone in the family to use if needed. The early prompt use of this drug in two of the other children had them recovering very quickly. Testing for swine flu can be done but takes too long in reality for effective treatment. I maintain a high index of suspicion of anyone with the classic symptoms of flu and would rather give Tamiflu than wait for tests.

The Message from all this - know the symptoms and act fast. Don't hesitate to see your doctor and ask about Tamiflu. The complete article on MSNBC is available here and everyone should read it carefully.

drBob

Acetaminophen and Pain Pills - #2

The FDA has decided to leave acetaminophen on the shelves and in pills with some changes. The maximum dose per pill will be reduced and the maximum daily dose that is considered safe will be reduced to 3250 mg, down from 4000 mg. More warnings on all products with acetaminophen will be required. Also more warnings about mixing alcohol with acetaminophen will be required. The percentage of cases of liver failure is higher in people using alcohol with acetaminophen. What's missing perhaps is changing the adult maximum dose to one based on the person's weight.
So we can all breathe a little easier about this issue. I am relieved. For once the FDA has opted for more public education about the dangers of acetaminophen and reducing the doses in the medications.

drBob

Acetaminophen, Pain Pills & The FDA

An FDA panel is recommending acetaminophen be more closely controlled by removing it from oral pain pills and reducing the doses sold also in Tylenol and generic acetaminophen. Tylenol can cause liver failure when used daily at doses over 4000 mg and the FDA is now recommending no one take above 3000 mg/d. Mixing with alcohol worsens the impact on the liver at lower doses.

This change, if approved by the FDA, could see all combination pills with narcotics and acetaminophen banned. This has very big implications for the treatment of chronic pain, both cancer-related and non-cancer-related. Many of my patients take hydrocodone or oxycodone in combination with acetaminophen for acute injury pain, dental pain, or chronic pain. What choices will be left I wonder?

Bringing back aspirin to replace acetaminophen in these products would increase the risk of GI upset, bleeding or ulcers. Using ibuprofen as in Vicoprofen, might work but again there are risks to high dose use. If we have only pure narcotics to use for acute or chronic pain this could increase the addiction problems we have in this country. We have all seen too many celebrities revealing their addiction to narcotic pain pills recently. Current legislation also only permits narcotic only pain pills to be used if each prescription is written out with no refills.

Worst of all in the short-term, all pain drugs that are reformulated to eliminate the acetaminophen, will re-emerge as high priced brand name drugs, instead of the current inexpensive generics. A boon for the companies making them for sure but very bad in a recession for the rest of us.

Read the MSNBC article here for further information.

drBob

Pillar # 4 - Effective Exercise

Most overweight people starting to lose weight suffer from fatigue and can't exercise. I explain to them that a calorie has two places to go in the body. You want your calories to supply energy to your cells and get into the cells through the action of insulin. But, if you are eating too many carbs and have resistance to the insulin (Pillar #1), then too many carb calories are shunted to triglycerides and stored as fat. This leaves you tired chronically, chronically hungry and overeating. When you begin to reduce your intake of carbs, and get your insulin working again to move the calories into the cells, then your energy will actually rise despite eating less carbohydrates. Then exercise is possible. People will often say to me they can't understand why eating less and losing weight actually happens this way. I hope understand this now.

Exercise will burn fat to make more muscle and will also make your muscles  more sensitive to insulin, helping you use carbohydrates properly. Regular exercise also will increase testosterone levels and can improve endorphin levels in the brain. This neurotransmitter helps you cope with stress and pain and increase your good feelings.

But what exercise? Aerobics does not burn fat fast enough for the time invested in my experience. I recommend Dr. Sear's PACE system as one of the few proven methods of burning fat with exercise using only 20 minutes or less per day. His eBook on the PACE system is available for purchase and download here. He also now has a DVD showing the system on this page
.
I often find people having problems scheduling their exercise into their daily routine.  One suggestion I have is to look at your day's routine and find a time when you are always doing the same things in a row, be that on arising in the morning or after work or whenever. If you have a set routine that you follow at the same time every day, this may be the easiest time to insert one more step, namely exercise. With Dr. Sears' PACE taking only 15-20 minutes, it should be easier to follow his program daily than going for a walk for an hour.

drBob

Pillar # 3 - Control Carbohydrate Absorption

We often eat too many carbs and usually they are absorbed too quickly. This spike in blood sugar level causes a surge in insulin output and can cause fat to be laid down just where you don't want it. Continual use of too many carbs can be very detrimental to weight loss. However it is possible to slow down the absorption of sugar by using fiber in your diet. Numerous studies confirm this connection between fiber and slower uptake of sugar and health benefits. Beta-glucan is a fiber that markedly slows carbohydrate absorption and also gives you a feeling of fullness as it swells in your stomach. Taking 5 grams of beta-glucan fiber before each meal will level out the spikes in blood sugar and therefore keep insulin levels lower. Another fiber to consider is glucomannan, which if taken before each meal can also blunt the glucose-insulin spikes that occur with too many carbs in your meal.

Then there are ways to reduce carbohydrate breakdown and absorption in your gut. Simple carbohydrate sugars are broken down using an enzyme called alpha-glucosidase. This can be blocked by a drug called acarbose taken before each meal. Complex carbohydrates such as starches are broken down with an enzyme called alpha-amylase. This enzyme is found in an extract of white kidney bean.

It is very important to know how many carbs you eat so I often have patients record their carb foods and calculate the total grams of carbs they eat each day. The numbers can be much higher than you would think.  Excess carb intake will increase your fat. Last year a major study compared low carb dieting with calorie restriction with the Mediterranean diet for effective weight loss. Do I have to tell you which diet won hands-down? Finally the late Dr. Atkins was vindicated.

Both beta-glucan and white bean extract are in the new product for weight control that I am leading up to announcing in this series. Stay tuned.....

drBob

Vitamin D Testing to Become Uninsured

If you read my recent post about all the benefits from VitaminD3, it won't surprise you that Medicare is proposing to stop paying for screening tests for Vitamin D. That figures doesn't it - stop supporting a simple safe, cheap non-drug solution to improving health. Obviously the bureaucrats at Medicare are not in touch with what works, except for what their lobbyists tell them. I include here the message I got from the VitaminD Council website about this. I recommend we all send angry letters to the person in the letter. I know many of my patients have seen positive benefits from taking high doses of vitamin D after appropriate testing.
And if you don't think people have power in politics, we do. Government does listen to people who make enough noise. I have had some experience personally with this and wish all people desiring the best health, support the need for vitamin D screening with Medicare and the insurance companies. I could be harsher in my words for these two groups but will restrain myself.

From the vitamindcouncil.com website:

Proposed Restrictions on Vitamin D Testing
Soon, Medicare's newly proposed guidelines for restrictions on vitamin D testing will be adopted by every major insurance company in the country.
The restrictions would forbid screening, the most important use of the test. This means that although vitamin D deficiency treatment is still covered, your doctor will not be able to order the test to find out if you suffer from low vitamin D in the first place!
We encourage people to send their comments to Medicare by filling out this form on their website. When filling out the form, the proposal's LCD number is DL30273. The name of the proposal is "Vitamin D Assay Testing."
If you would rather send a letter, which is more effective, sent it to:
    •    Ms. Anna Gene Risoldi
    •    Senior Research Analyst
    •    Highmark Medicare Services
    •    1800 Center Street, 1AL3
    •    Camp Hill, PA 17089
Comments may also be sent to Dr. Daniel B. Kimball, Jr. at drdankimball@gmail.com. He is on the AMA board that is reviewing this policy.

drBob

Vitamin D3 Benefits

As many of my regular readers know I consider vitamin D3 the most important vitamin supplement we can take for its many benefits. It has usually been thought  of as responsible only for calcium absorption in the gut but research keeps turning up more benefits. I would like to review recent discoveries.
1. Anti-cancer benefits. A large study about a year ago showed that people who kept their vitamin D3 levels above 55 ng/ml would have a 50% reduction in their risk of stomach, lung,colon, breast and prostate cancer. No side effects and a very cost-effective way to reduce cancer risk.
2. Immune modulation - I routinely find very low levels of this vitamin in patients with lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. Clinical improvement can occur when the level is restored to normal.
3. Regulate hormones - women with polycystic ovary syndrome who are not menstruating usually get a return to normal period cycling and become fertile when I include Vitamin D in my treatment approach.
4. Insulin effects - studies with Vitamin D and calcium have shown these two can reduce your risk of diabetes.
5. Asthma - children supplemented with adequate Vitamin D show improvements in their asthma, presumably because of it's immune effects.
6. Arthritic & fibromyalgia pain - research supports the testing of vitamin D and use in high enough doses to reduce the pain of arthritis and fibromyalgia up to 50%.
7. Flu - it has been known for years that flu outbreaks are highest in countries with least winter sunshine. Research into the ability of Vitamin D to improve your resistance to H1N1 (swine) flu is going on now.

These are just some of the many benefits already established for Vitamin D3. Find more by going to www.vitamindcouncil.com. They have a free newsletter you can subscribe to and I recommend you do this. Get your level tested soon. Stay tuned for an important update to the government's attitude to this testing. What do you think Medicare thinks of this vitamin??

drBob