Tailor-made food supplements disputed by Science

From A to zinc, the choice is endless.
Should you choose single vitamins or a multivitamin? Or how about a special formula for stress, fitness, women, men or seniors?

Wouldn't it be great to know exactly which supplements are right for you?
That's what laboratories that specialize in 'body chemistry balancing' promise.
For several hundred dollars, they claim to identify vitamin and mineral deficiencies from a simple blood and urine test.

For David and Cheryl Solomon of Dollard des Ormeaux, nutritional testing takes the guesswork out of the perennial question of whether they're getting the proper vitamins.

Six months ago, the couple and their three sons, age 6 to 11, underwent testing by NutriChem, an Ottawa company founded by pharmacist Kent MacLeod that sells personalized nutritional supplements.

"The beauty of it is he'll customize the vitamin for the individual," said David Solomon, 38, who takes 20 capsules a day, containing vitamins, minerals, fish oils and amino acids.

Cheryl and the boys each take between seven and 10 capsules a day of custom-made supplements.

"This is not a jack-of-all-vitamins," said Solomon, an advertising manager for the Suburban newspaper.
"Until you get tested, you don't know what's right and what's wrong."

The family spends $1,000 a month on supplements. The initial test cost $600 per person.

"In the last few months I've been taking it, I feel fabulous," said Solomon, who used to suffer from chronic indigestion.

"Several doctors said, 'You're getting older. Your body is changing.' "

Solomon, who also takes prescription medication for his digestive problems, said the nutritional supplements have helped him digest food better and boosted his energy.

MacLeod provides personalized care that is sorely lacking in the health care system, according to Solomon, who regards the cost of the vitamins as a long-term investment in his health.

"It's about get in, get out as fast as possible," he said of mainstream medicine. "We wait until we break down before we take care of something."

"This is the future," said pharmacist MacLeod, who founded NutriChem in 1981 and now provides nutritional testing and supplements to 20,000 families around the world.
The company mails out kits for blood and urine samples, which customers return to Ottawa for testing.

Many people are vitamin-deficient because of poor diet or problems absorbing nutrients from food, said MacLeod, whose customers range from middle-aged women with depression to professional hockey players.

They hear about NutriChem from the Internet, referrals by alternative health practitioners and word of mouth.

"Ninety percent of the Canadian population is not getting one or more essential micronutrients," he said.
"There are people running around with no gas in the tank."

MacLeod got into the nutritional-supplement business 27 years ago by creating vitamin cocktails for children with Down syndrome.
He later expanded his practice to include children and adults with conditions from autism to depression, high-performance athletes and people simply seeking optimum health.

But experts dispute the claims of companies that perform nutritional testing......................

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The Ottawa Hospital starts testing overnight patients for superbugs

The Ottawa Hospital will begin testing overnight patients for two virulent strains of bacteria beginning in January to help combat infections and deaths.

Overnight patients will be screened for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE), two strains of bacteria that, along with other hospital-acquired superbugs, kill thousands of Canadians annually.

The mandatory screening follows a pilot project the hospital conducted in the summer, which found that certain members of the patient population should but weren't screened for the drug-resistant bacteria, hospital spokeswoman Allison Neill said.

The Ottawa Hospital will be the second hospital to adopt universal screening for these two superbugs. Toronto's University Health Network initiated testing for these two bacteria in the fall.

If patients test positive for either bug, they will be isolated in private hospital rooms, the hospital said.

In the six months ended September 30th, there were 82 cases of hospital-acquired MRSA at the Ottawa Hospital.

In the same period, there were 18 cases of hospital-acquired VRE at the hospital.

Source: CBC

Victory Nurses over Government in Human Rights Lawsuit

The federal government has been discriminating against a group of federal nurses on the basis of their gender for more than three decades, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal has ruled.

The ruling could potentially expose the government to hundreds of millions of dollars of liability for back wages and compensation, according to the lawyer for most of the nurses.

"And the principles it endorses could apply to other employee groups as well," said Philippe Dufresne, senior counsel for the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

The human rights tribunal found that the nurses, who determine the eligibility of applicants for CPP disability benefits, perform essentially the same core functions as government doctors who are paid about twice as much.

The group of nurses, called medical adjudicators, is 95 percent female, while the doctors' group, known as medical advisers, is 80 percent male.

Under the Canadian Human Rights Act, it is illegal to treat a female-dominated group differently from a male-dominated group when both perform the same or substantially similar work.

In its ruling, the tribunal ordered the government to cease the discriminatory practice. It also said the nurses are entitled to compensation for lost wages and pain and suffering. But rather than make an award, the tribunal gave the parties three months to negotiate a settlement. If they fail to do so, the tribunal will impose a remedy.

Though the disparity between CPP nurses and doctors has existed since 1972, the ruling applies only to the period since 1978, the year the Canadian Human Rights Act came into force.

The ruling is binding on the government, though the government has 30 days to decide whether to apply for a judicial review that could, if successful, overturn it.

The decision is a personal triumph for Ruth Walden, a 50-year-old Ottawa nurse who has worked as a CPP medical adjudicator since 1993.

It was Ms. Walden who filed the first human rights complaint in 2004.
Before long, 430 of her colleagues from across Canada followed suit, representing virtually all the federal nurses who determine disability pension eligibility.

Read the full story here

Ottawa mayor maybe right to be against crack pipe program

Research that found traces of the hepatitis C virus on a used crack pipe has not changed Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien's opposition to the city's former crack pipe program.

The study released this week by Dr. Benedikt Fischer of the University of Victoria showed it may be possible to pass hepatitis C from one crack smoker to another.

That was one situation that the Ottawa program tried to prevent by providing clean, rubber-tipped crack pipes to addicts until it was canceled by city council in July

O'Brien said Friday he is "very open-minded in terms of scientific evidence," but would have to see data that suggest the city program caused addicts to avoid sharing crack pipes before he would change his mind.

"Based on what I've seen, based on what the police have told me, based on what I've been told by the crack addicts themselves, it isn't even in their mindset," he said while at a staff Christmas party at city hall.

However, he added there's no question in his mind that sharing crack pipes is dangerous.

Incidents of crack pipe sharing did fall after the Ottawa program began, according to a study by University of Ottawa researcher Lynne Leonard that was available online as a corrected proof in the International Journal of Drug Policy in May.

However, the Mayor and some councilors dispute the findings of the study.

He has expressed his opposition to the program since he started running for office in the 2006 election campaign, saying that addicts need help, not supplies.

When council canceled the program, at least one councilor argued there's no evidence the program did reduce the spread of disease and the program sent mixed messages, since people could be arrested for possessing crack.
CBC

Editor's opinion:

"I wonder what's worse: the results from smoking crack or the results from getting hepatitis C! Sharing crack pipes is dangerous?? What about the use of crack itself?!"

This is information about hepatitis C and the use of illegal drugs that I have found:"

Drug use by nasal inhalation (Drugs which are "snorted"):

Researchers have suggested that the transmission of HCV may be possible through the nasal inhalation (insuffulation) of illegal drugs such as cocaine and crystal methamphetamine when straws (containing even trace amounts of mucus and blood) are shared among users.

"i.e. it's not a 100% proven theory so it seems like the Mayor is not necessarily wrong to decide otherwise. He is a 100% right about one thing though: These people need help!"