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......................

Read the full story here

Burnout drives many women out of medicine

Across all health care occupations, from nurses to pharmacists to dental technicians, roughly 80 percent of the workforce is female, according to Statistics Canada.

It's becoming increasingly common as more and more women pursue medical careers, and it's the latest twist on what may be the country's most critical health care issue: the doctor shortage.

But the physician population has always been male-dominated, and this influx of women will add fuel to the doctor crisis in Canada.
Female doctors commit fewer hours and fewer years to the medical system than males, and family duties are at least one reason why.

Despite their demanding careers, women are still given the bigger proportion of child care, housekeeping and elder care, but this pressure comes with a price.

"Burnout"drives many women out of medicine altogether, and with five million Canadians currently without a family doctor, things are only getting worse.

A 2005 survey found that just 23 percent of Canadians were able to see a physician the same day they needed one, placing this country last among the six studied, including the U.S., Britain and Australia.

Canada's doctor-patient ratio is among the worst of any industrialized nation: with just 2.2 physicians per thousand people, it ranks 24th out of 28 OECD countries, which iswell below the average of three.
Among the G8 countries, Canada even ranks dead last when it comes to physician supply.

Source: CNW Group

Editor's opinion:
"A conclusion could be that husbands of women that pursue medical careers, are not contributing to the household and child care sufficiently."

Health claims endorsed by physicians debunked

In an article published in the year-end edition of the British Medical Journal last weekend, the Indianapolis-based team of Rachel Vreeman and Aaron Carroll identified seven widely held health beliefs in need of critical review.

They included the notion that people should drink at least eight glasses of water a day, that we only use 10 percent of our brains, and that turkey causes fatigue.

"These medical myths are a light-hearted reminder that we can be wrong and need to question what other falsehoods we unwittingly propagate as we practice medicine," the authors say in the article.

The researchers used Google and Medline, an archive of medical literature, to find evidence to support or debunk health claims endorsed by physicians and the general public.

The following myths are busted or just have meager medical evidence:

• People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day
  
• We use only 10% of our brains
  
• Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death
  
• Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker, or coarser
  
• Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight
  
• Eating turkey makes people especially drowsy
  
• Mobile phones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals.

Source: British Medical Journal

Editor:
"Enjoy reading the report, it's rather amusing!"

Drug industry used too much as source for Doctors' prescription

Following my earlier article of today about drug use among seniors:

Dr. John Haggie, a Canadian Medical Association board member who chairs its ad hoc working group on pharmaceutical issues, said government warnings often get lost in the stack of documents physicians routinely receive.

Haggie warns that there is a lack of impartial information available to doctors.

"Most of the information the physician would receive in the general course of a week on medication by and large tends to come from material from drug companies," he said.

Drug companies have a very active sales and marketing team, he said, and they follow Health Canada warnings by issuing their own.

Health Canada warnings are sent out to physicians by fax, e-mail and mail, but are often one among many documents received.

Haggie said the CMA is trying to work with the academic community to provide doctors with unbiased education material to replace documents received from drug companies.

The association is also trying to get tools on its website so doctors can quickly access the latest peer-reviewed information on what drugs are safe and which need to be used with caution.

Source: CBC

Related article:

Dangerous drugs still prescribed to seniors

editor's opinion:

"Just as I thought...............the power of marketing"

New program to help seniors taking medication in a safer way

In Newfoundland and Labrador, a new program designed to ensure senior citizens are safely taking their medications will be introduced to the Corner Brook area early in the new year.

The program will be led by Elaine Fost and Bernice Buckle, who both recently participated in a facilitators' course called Safe Medicine for Seniors.

The course, designed by Health Canada, was offered at the Victorian Order of Nurses national headquarters in Halifax.

Fost and Buckle plan to deliver presentations to seniors and caregivers, teaching them tips on mixing combinations of prescribed and over-the-counter medications, safely storing and discarding medications and preparing for visits with doctors and pharmacies.

The Western Star

Ontario reactor shutdown forces cancellation of cancer tests worldwide

CBC News - Thousands of patients in Canada, the U.S. and other countries are having their medical tests postponed because an Ontario nuclear reactor that produces radio isotopes for nuclear medicine was shut down for repairs.

The government-run Chalk River reactor supplies more than two-thirds of the world's demand for medical radio isotopes, which are used to diagnose cancer and cardiovascular diseases.

Once injected into patients, the radioisotopes allow nuclear imaging equipment to produce detailed scans of the body.

But the Chalk River reactor was closed for scheduled repairs two weeks ago, causing a cross-country shortage of radioisotopes. During the maintenance check, regulators found more problems to repair than expected.

Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., which owns the reactor, said it won't be operating at full capacity for another 10 days.

About 150 seriously ill Nova Scotians had their medical tests canceled this week in Halifax and Sydney. Halifax nuclear medicine specialist Dr. Andrew Ross said he has already canceled tests for 100 patients and expects to cancel 100 more next week.

"It's an absolutely devastating turn of events for us," said Ross, of Halifax's Capital Health.

Without the radioactive injections, the department's scanning machines can't be used.

"This is the first full-scale interruption that I have experienced in my 20 years of practice," he said.

Nuclear medicine doctors say the biggest frustration is that there was no contingency plan in place before the reactor shut down. Radioisotopes can't be stockpiled because they have a short shelf life and there are only a few suppliers in the world.

Replacement reactors on hold

"Seeing as this shortage is going on for longer than expected, there's definitely going to be issues," said Dawn Marie King of Toronto's University Health Network.

"We are held hostage by it, to be frank."

A federal plan to build two replacement reactors has been on hold for 10 years.

"The plans are all done. It's just a matter of getting the regulatory approvals and the things built and once that happens, this kind of disaster should be far far less likely to happen to us," Ross said.

"Another one of those cases where everyone involved could have realized that repairing something might take longer than you think. That's why plan B-s have been invented!

The problem with maintenance (due) is that you never know what you're going to find. It's an unwritten law in any kind of field, i.e. plumbing, automotive, HVAC etc. to expect and plan for the worst. That's no rocket-science!

Also, 10 years to build a backup plan........ isn't that waiting for trouble to happen?!"