By Trevor Shewfelt, Pharmacist at the Dauphin Clinic Pharmacy
We now have this and most other articles published in the Parkland Shopper on our Website. Please visit us at www.dcp.ca
The information in this article is intended as a helpful guide only. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional advice. If you have any questions about your medications and what is right for you see your doctor, pharmacist or other health care professional.
At some time your child is probably going to have to take medicine to school. Whether it is a short term antibiotic for an ear infection, or a long term medication for diabetes it is important to do some planning ahead of time.
So, you go to the doctor with your child and get a prescription medication. Now should you do? First talk to your pharmacist. Maybe the medication doesn’t have to go to school at all. It may be possible to arrange the doses of the medication so the child doesn't have to take it at school. If dosing the medication during school time is unavoidable, ask your pharmacist to provide two bottles for the medication. One bottle should stay at home with most of the medication in it. The other can be sent to school with the child. The bottle that goes to school should have only enough medication in it to cover the doses that will be taken at school. That way, if the school bottle is lost, you still have most of the medication at home. You can also have the pharmacist write extra instructions on the school bottle like "Take at lunch with food".
Different schools and day cares have differnet policies which they would like you to follow when sending medicine with your child. Communication is very important so check with the teacher, principal or daycare worker before sending medication to school. If the medicine is for a short term illness such as a sore throat or an ear infection, make sure the teacher or daycare worker is aware your child will need medicine at school or daycare for the next few days. They should know when the medicine is to be taken, what the dose is and if there are any special storage requirements, such as many liquid antibiotics need to stay in the fridge. Again make sure these instructions are spelled out clearly on the label by the pharmacist, and ask the pharmacist to change the instructions if they are not clear.
When a child has a chronic illness that requires medication at school on a regular basis, it is a good idea to have a meeting with the teacher at the beginning of the school year.
Asthma is one such chronic illness. Communicate with the teacher or day care worker so they understand about your child's asthma, what brings it on and what to do if your child has an attack. Although some schools insist that the teacher keeps the child's medication, I strongly recommend that all but the youngest children keep their own asthma medications with them. The child will know first if he or she is having trouble breathing, and getting to the right teacher who has the medication may be difficult when the child is having trouble breathing. If the teacher feels that they should have a puffer with them in case the child loses it, talk to your pharmacist. He or she should be able to arrange with your doctor about getting another puffer to the teacher. In some asthma cases the child will have to take both a "preventer" and a "reliever" puffer to school. Make sure both the child and the teacher know which is which, and when to use each one.
Diabetes is another common condition which will require medicine to be sent to school. Make sure the teacher understands about diabetes, and the signs of high and low blood sugar, and what to do if they occur. It will also be important that the teacher or daycare worker understand your child's nutrition requirements such as snacks and treats.
Another resource to parents and teachers is the URIS nurse. After the parent fills out the appropriate form at the school, the URIS nurse can help you and the school staff prepare a care plan for your child. The URIS nurse can help educate the teachers about your child’s condition. A care plan by the URIS nurse is for chronic conditions like asthma and diabetes, not for short term medications like an antibiotic for an ear infection.
As always if you have any questions or concerns about these or other products, ask your pharmacist.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
HEAD LICE
By Trevor Shewfelt, Pharmacist at the Dauphin Clinic Pharmacy
We now have this and most other articles published in the Parkland Shopper on our Website. Please visit us at www.dcp.ca
The information in this article is intended as a helpful guide only. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional advice. If you have any questions about your medications and what is right for you see your doctor, pharmacist or other health care professional.
Within the last couple of weeks my daughter scored her first goal in hockey. She was very excited. Then she had school cancelled for the first time due to bad weather. She was very upset. Even school children have ups and downs in their lives. One of the downs that hits the lives of many school children is head lice. We usually start getting lice questions at the pharmacy in September and October. Head lice doesn’t just happen at the beginning of the school year, though. It can happen at any time.
What are lice? Head lice are parasites that live in humans’ hair. The scientific name for them is Pediculus Humanus capitis, and they are wingless insects with six legs and range in color from white to brown to dark grey. They don’t fly and they don’t jump. A young louse matures in 10-12 days and the adult is 2-4mm long. They multiply very quickly. Females lay 7 to 10 oval and whitish eggs called nits every day. Seven to ten days later, the nits hatch and are called nymphs. So the whole life-cycle is about 20-30 days. Adults can only survive 1-2 days without a blood meal. Lice are transmitted two main ways. Lice can be transmitted directly by close contact from one infested scalp to another (i.e. touching heads together). They can also be transmitted indirectly by sharing personal articles that come in contact with the head (ie. brushes, hats, etc). Children from 3 to 10 years old are the most affected age group. However, anyone can get lice, regardless of sex, race, age, hair length or socio-economic status.
What are the symptoms of having lice? The most common symptom is itching, especially around the ears and back of the scalp. There can be small sores, or small scabs on the person’s scalp or neck. If these sores get infected, there can be pus. How do you recognize head lice? First you should see nits (the eggs) attached to the base of the hair shafts on the warmer parts of the scalp (the back and sides). The egg or nit is oval and glued to the hair. Nits are laid close to the scalp for warmth, usually around the ears and the nape of the neck. Live nits are brownish in color, and dead ones are whitish. Nits found more than 1.0 cm from the scalp have grown out with the hair and have either hatched or are dead.
The main product used to treat head lice is permethrin (one of the brand names is Nix). It sticks around for up to ten days after use to kill any more lice that hatch. It is generally the product of first choice because is very good at killing the lice, it has low toxicity and it sticks around for about 10 days. Although it is not absolutely necessary to do a repeat application, it is often recommended that one uses the permethrin again in 7 to 10 days. There is a similar product to permethrin on the market and it contains natural pyrethrins (one of the brand names is R&C Shampoo). It is not as good as permethrin at killing the lice. It doesn’t hang around after application. It must be reapplied in 7 to 10 days for it to be effective. Both permethrin and pyrthrins can cause allergic reactions in ragweed or chrysanthemum sensitive individuals. There are older products on the market that contain lindane. Lindane is not as good as permethrin at killing lice. It doesn’t stick around so you must do a second application in 7-10 days for it to be effective. About 10% of the lindane actually goes into the rest of your body and it can accumulate with repeated exposure. It can cause seizures and other neurologic disorders so lindane is not my favorite product.
The newest product on the market for lice is called Resultz. It contains isopropyl myristate. This is different that the Nix like products. The permethrin in Nix attacks the nervous system of the louse. Isopropyl myristate is more like a soap. It dissolves the waxy outer coating on the louse and the louse dehydrates. The claim is that Resultz kills the louse within ten minutes. The down side to Resultz is it does not kill the nits or eggs in the hair. So you absolutely need to do the second treatment in one week. On the positive side, there is no documented resistance to Resultz. Back in the 1980’s permethrin like products killed 100% of lice. I have seen estimates now that in some places in the world it now only kills 28% of the lice. It can be hard to tell if these treatment failures are due to poor application technique, but resistance to permetherin is probably real. There were small studies where Resultz killed more lice than permetherin. One of these small trials was even done in Winnipeg, MB! I don’t know if I am ready to say it is definitely better than permetherin yet, but it is nice to have another tool against lice.
The Dauphin Clinic Pharmacy has developed an all natural oil lice treatment. It coats the hair and suffocates the lice. We call it Nice ‘N Natural lice treatment. It can be used as an alternative to the commercially available products.
Some non-medication measures should be taken when a family member gets lice. Combs and brushes should be soaked in alcohol or Lysol for one hour; or they can be soaked in water 65oC or hotter for 10 minutes. Bedding, towels, and clothing should be washed in hot water and dried in a dryer for 20 minutes to an hour. It is actually the heat from the dryer that kills the lice. Items that can’t be put in the dryer may be dry-cleaned or stored in a sealed plastic bag for 2 weeks. Lice can’t live away from human contact for very long, so the two weeks allows the eggs to hatch and the new lice to die. Some people have even stored these plastic bags full of teddy-bears etc. in the freezer. Vacuuming of carpets and furniture is also a good idea.
Finally, nit picking (actually combing the live and dead nits out of the hair) is very tedious, but very important.
As always if you have any questions or concerns about these products, ask your pharmacist.
We now have this and most other articles published in the Parkland Shopper on our Website. Please visit us at www.dcp.ca
The information in this article is intended as a helpful guide only. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional advice. If you have any questions about your medications and what is right for you see your doctor, pharmacist or other health care professional.
Within the last couple of weeks my daughter scored her first goal in hockey. She was very excited. Then she had school cancelled for the first time due to bad weather. She was very upset. Even school children have ups and downs in their lives. One of the downs that hits the lives of many school children is head lice. We usually start getting lice questions at the pharmacy in September and October. Head lice doesn’t just happen at the beginning of the school year, though. It can happen at any time.
What are lice? Head lice are parasites that live in humans’ hair. The scientific name for them is Pediculus Humanus capitis, and they are wingless insects with six legs and range in color from white to brown to dark grey. They don’t fly and they don’t jump. A young louse matures in 10-12 days and the adult is 2-4mm long. They multiply very quickly. Females lay 7 to 10 oval and whitish eggs called nits every day. Seven to ten days later, the nits hatch and are called nymphs. So the whole life-cycle is about 20-30 days. Adults can only survive 1-2 days without a blood meal. Lice are transmitted two main ways. Lice can be transmitted directly by close contact from one infested scalp to another (i.e. touching heads together). They can also be transmitted indirectly by sharing personal articles that come in contact with the head (ie. brushes, hats, etc). Children from 3 to 10 years old are the most affected age group. However, anyone can get lice, regardless of sex, race, age, hair length or socio-economic status.
What are the symptoms of having lice? The most common symptom is itching, especially around the ears and back of the scalp. There can be small sores, or small scabs on the person’s scalp or neck. If these sores get infected, there can be pus. How do you recognize head lice? First you should see nits (the eggs) attached to the base of the hair shafts on the warmer parts of the scalp (the back and sides). The egg or nit is oval and glued to the hair. Nits are laid close to the scalp for warmth, usually around the ears and the nape of the neck. Live nits are brownish in color, and dead ones are whitish. Nits found more than 1.0 cm from the scalp have grown out with the hair and have either hatched or are dead.
The main product used to treat head lice is permethrin (one of the brand names is Nix). It sticks around for up to ten days after use to kill any more lice that hatch. It is generally the product of first choice because is very good at killing the lice, it has low toxicity and it sticks around for about 10 days. Although it is not absolutely necessary to do a repeat application, it is often recommended that one uses the permethrin again in 7 to 10 days. There is a similar product to permethrin on the market and it contains natural pyrethrins (one of the brand names is R&C Shampoo). It is not as good as permethrin at killing the lice. It doesn’t hang around after application. It must be reapplied in 7 to 10 days for it to be effective. Both permethrin and pyrthrins can cause allergic reactions in ragweed or chrysanthemum sensitive individuals. There are older products on the market that contain lindane. Lindane is not as good as permethrin at killing lice. It doesn’t stick around so you must do a second application in 7-10 days for it to be effective. About 10% of the lindane actually goes into the rest of your body and it can accumulate with repeated exposure. It can cause seizures and other neurologic disorders so lindane is not my favorite product.
The newest product on the market for lice is called Resultz. It contains isopropyl myristate. This is different that the Nix like products. The permethrin in Nix attacks the nervous system of the louse. Isopropyl myristate is more like a soap. It dissolves the waxy outer coating on the louse and the louse dehydrates. The claim is that Resultz kills the louse within ten minutes. The down side to Resultz is it does not kill the nits or eggs in the hair. So you absolutely need to do the second treatment in one week. On the positive side, there is no documented resistance to Resultz. Back in the 1980’s permethrin like products killed 100% of lice. I have seen estimates now that in some places in the world it now only kills 28% of the lice. It can be hard to tell if these treatment failures are due to poor application technique, but resistance to permetherin is probably real. There were small studies where Resultz killed more lice than permetherin. One of these small trials was even done in Winnipeg, MB! I don’t know if I am ready to say it is definitely better than permetherin yet, but it is nice to have another tool against lice.
The Dauphin Clinic Pharmacy has developed an all natural oil lice treatment. It coats the hair and suffocates the lice. We call it Nice ‘N Natural lice treatment. It can be used as an alternative to the commercially available products.
Some non-medication measures should be taken when a family member gets lice. Combs and brushes should be soaked in alcohol or Lysol for one hour; or they can be soaked in water 65oC or hotter for 10 minutes. Bedding, towels, and clothing should be washed in hot water and dried in a dryer for 20 minutes to an hour. It is actually the heat from the dryer that kills the lice. Items that can’t be put in the dryer may be dry-cleaned or stored in a sealed plastic bag for 2 weeks. Lice can’t live away from human contact for very long, so the two weeks allows the eggs to hatch and the new lice to die. Some people have even stored these plastic bags full of teddy-bears etc. in the freezer. Vacuuming of carpets and furniture is also a good idea.
Finally, nit picking (actually combing the live and dead nits out of the hair) is very tedious, but very important.
As always if you have any questions or concerns about these products, ask your pharmacist.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Plavix and PPI’s
By Trevor Shewfelt, Pharmacist at the Dauphin Clinic Pharmacy
We now have this and most other articles published in the Parkland Shopper on our Website. Please visit us at www.dcp.ca
The information in this article is intended as a helpful guide only. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional advice. If you have any questions about your medications and what is right for you see your doctor, pharmacist or other health care professional.
People in the Parkland are very well informed. Within hours of a news report that the blood thinner Plavix or clopidogrel interacted with medications for stomach acid called proton pump inhibitors or PPI's, people were coming to the pharmacy and wanting to turn in their blood thinners and stomach medications. I can sympathize with these people being scared by the news reports, but please, please don't stop taking your medications. I am always afraid when these news reports come out that for every one person who comes to the pharmacy to talk to me, there are 10 who just stop taking their medications without telling anyone. Again, please, please don't stop your medications on your own. Let's talk about the good things these medications are doing for you.
Plavix is a blood thinner. It is used for a variety of conditions, but most often to prevent blood clots that might lead to heart attacks and strokes. It can be added to ASA in some patients who are at extra risk of heart attack and stroke to get extra blood thinning. So, if you stop taking your plavix, you increase your chance of having a heart attack or stroke.
Proton pump inhibitors or PPI's reduce the amount of acid the stomach produces. They can be used to treat everything from heart burn to hiatus hernia to ulcers. They are especially good at preventing ulcers caused by ASA or NSAIDs. This is important because let's say we put a patient on ASA to thin their blood and prevent heart attacks or stroke, we don't want to now cause stomach ulcers and bleeding in the stomach. Also, may people with heart conditions that need blood thinners also have arthritis and other painful conditions that need to be treated with NSAID drugs. Again PPI's are a good choice to prevent bleeding stomach ulcers. So, if you stop taking your PPI’s you may increase your chance of bleeding stomach ulcers.
Hopefully I've convinced you not to stop taking your pills. Now let's talk about the study that made it into the news. First we'll talk about the theory behind the trial. Plavix is called a pro-drug. This means that it is not active when it goes into the body. It must be converted by the liver into its active form. Some PPI's like omeprazole, esomeprazole, lansoprazole and rabeprazole inhibit the enzyme CYP 2C19 which converts plavix to its active form. The PPI pantoprazole does not inhibit this enzyme. So one of the things this trial was looking at was if pantoprazole is safer when mixed with plavix than the other PPI's.
The trial had its problems, though. The first problem is it was not a randomized double blind placebo controlled trial. It was an observational study, which is a weaker kind of study. The reseachers looked back through some computerized hospital and pharmacy records to find people who were 66 years old or older and got a prescription for plavix when they left the hospital after a heart attack. They then looked at people who died or were re-admitted to the hospital with a heart attack within 90 days of the first heart attack. These were the cases. The researchers then used some statistical procedures to try to find other people who were like the first group. These were the controls. The first thing I noticed when I looked at the two groups is that the case group were sicker than the controls. The cases had more kidney disease, heart failure, and diabetes than the controls. All of these conditions make the cases more likely to have heart attacks. The cases were also on more medications. The cases were on more ACE inhibitors, calcium channel blockers, statins and diuretics than the controls. To me this says the doctors of the case patients thought these people were more likely to have bad things like heart attacks happen to them, so these patients were put on more medications. Again the cases were sicker people.
Here is the part that made the news. If a case patient was on a PPI and plavix at the same time 90 days after his/her first heart attack, he/she was more likely to have a second heart attack. A case patient was also more likely to have a heart attack after 1 year. So that's when people started coming into our pharmacy and handing in their medications. But, remember the case patients were sicker than the control patients. They were more likely to have heart attacks anyway. The part that didn't make the news is that the case patients didn't die any more often than the control patients. So being on a PPI and plavix did not increase the chance of death. Why is that important? Well first if I had to pick between having a heart attack and dying, I'd pick having a heart attack. More importantly, the case patients were sicker than the control patients. They should have died more often. They didn't. Does this mean the PPI-plavix interaction isn't real? I don't know.
I am not saying this isn't a good and interesting study. It just shouldn't have been front page news scaring people away from their medications. The researchers who ran it are very smart people who know lots more than me. In fact I have found other studies that suggest the some PPI's interact with plavix. But none of them are conclusive. There was a really good trial underway called the COGENT 1 trial. It was looking at 4000 patients on a combination pill of plavix and omeprazole, but the trial got cancelled. The company running the trial says it ran out of money and is now filing for bankruptcy.
So what is the take home message at the end of all this confusion? Don't stop taking your plavix or your PPI. The evidence isn't strong enough. The next time you see your doctor, you could ask if you really need to be on that PPI. If you don't, maybe your doctor could switch you to a cheaper, less strong stomach medication like ranitidine for your heart burn. Ranitidine is not suspected of interacting with plavix. If you do need a PPI, pantoprazole is the one PPI that doesn't seem to interact with plavix. There is a problem with pantoprazole, though. In Manitoba, it is much harder to get Pharmacare coverage for pantoprazole than for the other PPI's. That means you might have to pay for pantoprazole but not the other PPI's. So, given that you might have to pay for pantoprazole, and the evidence that pantoprazole is a safer PPI is weak, you and your doctor could reasonably say, "Let's not change your medications at all."
As always if you have any questions or concerns about these or other products, ask your pharmacist.
We now have this and most other articles published in the Parkland Shopper on our Website. Please visit us at www.dcp.ca
The information in this article is intended as a helpful guide only. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional advice. If you have any questions about your medications and what is right for you see your doctor, pharmacist or other health care professional.
People in the Parkland are very well informed. Within hours of a news report that the blood thinner Plavix or clopidogrel interacted with medications for stomach acid called proton pump inhibitors or PPI's, people were coming to the pharmacy and wanting to turn in their blood thinners and stomach medications. I can sympathize with these people being scared by the news reports, but please, please don't stop taking your medications. I am always afraid when these news reports come out that for every one person who comes to the pharmacy to talk to me, there are 10 who just stop taking their medications without telling anyone. Again, please, please don't stop your medications on your own. Let's talk about the good things these medications are doing for you.
Plavix is a blood thinner. It is used for a variety of conditions, but most often to prevent blood clots that might lead to heart attacks and strokes. It can be added to ASA in some patients who are at extra risk of heart attack and stroke to get extra blood thinning. So, if you stop taking your plavix, you increase your chance of having a heart attack or stroke.
Proton pump inhibitors or PPI's reduce the amount of acid the stomach produces. They can be used to treat everything from heart burn to hiatus hernia to ulcers. They are especially good at preventing ulcers caused by ASA or NSAIDs. This is important because let's say we put a patient on ASA to thin their blood and prevent heart attacks or stroke, we don't want to now cause stomach ulcers and bleeding in the stomach. Also, may people with heart conditions that need blood thinners also have arthritis and other painful conditions that need to be treated with NSAID drugs. Again PPI's are a good choice to prevent bleeding stomach ulcers. So, if you stop taking your PPI’s you may increase your chance of bleeding stomach ulcers.
Hopefully I've convinced you not to stop taking your pills. Now let's talk about the study that made it into the news. First we'll talk about the theory behind the trial. Plavix is called a pro-drug. This means that it is not active when it goes into the body. It must be converted by the liver into its active form. Some PPI's like omeprazole, esomeprazole, lansoprazole and rabeprazole inhibit the enzyme CYP 2C19 which converts plavix to its active form. The PPI pantoprazole does not inhibit this enzyme. So one of the things this trial was looking at was if pantoprazole is safer when mixed with plavix than the other PPI's.
The trial had its problems, though. The first problem is it was not a randomized double blind placebo controlled trial. It was an observational study, which is a weaker kind of study. The reseachers looked back through some computerized hospital and pharmacy records to find people who were 66 years old or older and got a prescription for plavix when they left the hospital after a heart attack. They then looked at people who died or were re-admitted to the hospital with a heart attack within 90 days of the first heart attack. These were the cases. The researchers then used some statistical procedures to try to find other people who were like the first group. These were the controls. The first thing I noticed when I looked at the two groups is that the case group were sicker than the controls. The cases had more kidney disease, heart failure, and diabetes than the controls. All of these conditions make the cases more likely to have heart attacks. The cases were also on more medications. The cases were on more ACE inhibitors, calcium channel blockers, statins and diuretics than the controls. To me this says the doctors of the case patients thought these people were more likely to have bad things like heart attacks happen to them, so these patients were put on more medications. Again the cases were sicker people.
Here is the part that made the news. If a case patient was on a PPI and plavix at the same time 90 days after his/her first heart attack, he/she was more likely to have a second heart attack. A case patient was also more likely to have a heart attack after 1 year. So that's when people started coming into our pharmacy and handing in their medications. But, remember the case patients were sicker than the control patients. They were more likely to have heart attacks anyway. The part that didn't make the news is that the case patients didn't die any more often than the control patients. So being on a PPI and plavix did not increase the chance of death. Why is that important? Well first if I had to pick between having a heart attack and dying, I'd pick having a heart attack. More importantly, the case patients were sicker than the control patients. They should have died more often. They didn't. Does this mean the PPI-plavix interaction isn't real? I don't know.
I am not saying this isn't a good and interesting study. It just shouldn't have been front page news scaring people away from their medications. The researchers who ran it are very smart people who know lots more than me. In fact I have found other studies that suggest the some PPI's interact with plavix. But none of them are conclusive. There was a really good trial underway called the COGENT 1 trial. It was looking at 4000 patients on a combination pill of plavix and omeprazole, but the trial got cancelled. The company running the trial says it ran out of money and is now filing for bankruptcy.
So what is the take home message at the end of all this confusion? Don't stop taking your plavix or your PPI. The evidence isn't strong enough. The next time you see your doctor, you could ask if you really need to be on that PPI. If you don't, maybe your doctor could switch you to a cheaper, less strong stomach medication like ranitidine for your heart burn. Ranitidine is not suspected of interacting with plavix. If you do need a PPI, pantoprazole is the one PPI that doesn't seem to interact with plavix. There is a problem with pantoprazole, though. In Manitoba, it is much harder to get Pharmacare coverage for pantoprazole than for the other PPI's. That means you might have to pay for pantoprazole but not the other PPI's. So, given that you might have to pay for pantoprazole, and the evidence that pantoprazole is a safer PPI is weak, you and your doctor could reasonably say, "Let's not change your medications at all."
As always if you have any questions or concerns about these or other products, ask your pharmacist.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Inositol
By Trevor Shewfelt, Pharmacist at the Dauphin Clinic Pharmacy
We now have this and most other articles published in the Parkland Shopper on our Website. Please visit us at www.dcp.ca
The information in this article is intended as a helpful guide only. It is not intended to be used as a substitute for professional advice. If you have any questions about your medications and what is right for you see your doctor, pharmacist or other health care professional.
My sister is a physiotherapist in Langley, BC. Physiotherapists give great advice that weak willed people like me have trouble following. You have tennis elbow? Do these exercises and it will go away and the muscles will get strong enough that it won’t come back. Sore back? Work on building up your core abdominal muscles and improve your posture. The problem is that I am lazy. I’d rather not do the exercises. I’d rather take a pill, kill the pain and go play Rec Hockey. The next day I wonder why my elbow and back are sore again. Maybe I should have done the exercises.
As much as I am obviously for “taking a pill” to solve medical problems, I was wondering about my sister the physiotherapist and taking the easy way out when talking about inositol. Inositol in a B vitamin. We can get it by eating whole grains and nuts. We have been told for years that we should eat more whole foods and less highly processed stuff. That means eating things like pumpernickel bread instead of white bread or freshly caught fish instead of fish sticks. One of the reasons to eat whole foods is that you get more vitamins like inositol that way. Lately, thought, we starting getting a run on inositol capsules in the pharmacy.
The reason inositol has been so popular is that there have been news reports that it might treat cancer. Inositol might treat anxiety, depression and “calm the thoughts”. Inositol might also treat diabetes and protect the skin from UVB radiation. Remember I said, “Might”. Although inositol is showing promise, it is probably too early to start recommending it to treat things. There have been many promising treatments in the past that didn’t turn out to work. Let’s start by discussing the cancer trial.
Dr. Stephen Lam of the B.C. Cancer Agency gave smokers with at least one bronchial dysplagia in their lungs a bunch of inositol. Adysplagia is a pre-cancerous area. He gave them up to 30 g of inositol a day but found most of them only tolerated 18 g per day. So they gave a new bunch of smokers with pre-cancerous lesions 18 g per day of inositol (the maximum tolerated dose) for 3 months. The smokers who got the 18 g of inositol had more of their pre-cancerous lesions go back to non-cancerous areas than the placebo group. The inositol group also had their blood pressure drop compared to the placebo group.
This is very interesting research. Does a B vitamin treat cancer? Does a B vitamin treat blood pressure? These are good questions for further research. Unfortunately, they are not good reasons to run to the pharmacy and self treat your lung cancer. Does inositol make actual lung cancer tumors grow faster or slower? We don’t know. Does inositol cause pre-lung cancer cells to go back to normal but cause liver pre-cancer cell to grow? We don’t know. And so on. The other problem is this was a preliminary trial. There were not enough subjects enrolled in the trial for us to be confident about the results. The more subjects in a trial, the stronger the results.
The same goes for inositol treating diabetes. Inositol seems to help diabetic rats. Very interesting but rats aren’t people. Inositol when mixed with another antioxidant called IP6 and put on the skin of mice seems to protect the mice from UBV radiation. Again interesting, but mice aren’t people. What about inositol and depression? Well I found a Cochrane Review of 4 trials of inositol and depression which covered 141 patients. The results were inconclusive, and again 141 is not enough subjects.
But inositol is only a vitamin. It won’t hurt me, and there is a chance it will help. Why not take it? I do have a hard time arguing with that. As far as we know inositol is safe in most people, most of the time. We don’t know if it will help cancer, blood pressure, anxiety, diabetes, etc. If you want to spend you money on inositol supplements, that is your choice. However, you may also want to wait until the scientists figure out if inositol really does help cancer, blood pressure, anxiety, diabetes, etc, because there have been many false hopes in the past.
Which brings me back to the easy way out. Maybe most of us shouldn’t be looking for that one magic supplement distilled from food. Maybe we should just eat whole, healthly foods like grains, nuts, mushrooms, veggies and fish. If they contain one magic ingredient like inositol, I wonder how many more they contain that we haven’t discovered yet? And maybe I should do my exercises.
As always if you have any questions or concerns about these or other products, ask your pharmacist.
We now have this and most other articles published in the Parkland Shopper on our Website. Please visit us at www.dcp.ca
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My sister is a physiotherapist in Langley, BC. Physiotherapists give great advice that weak willed people like me have trouble following. You have tennis elbow? Do these exercises and it will go away and the muscles will get strong enough that it won’t come back. Sore back? Work on building up your core abdominal muscles and improve your posture. The problem is that I am lazy. I’d rather not do the exercises. I’d rather take a pill, kill the pain and go play Rec Hockey. The next day I wonder why my elbow and back are sore again. Maybe I should have done the exercises.
As much as I am obviously for “taking a pill” to solve medical problems, I was wondering about my sister the physiotherapist and taking the easy way out when talking about inositol. Inositol in a B vitamin. We can get it by eating whole grains and nuts. We have been told for years that we should eat more whole foods and less highly processed stuff. That means eating things like pumpernickel bread instead of white bread or freshly caught fish instead of fish sticks. One of the reasons to eat whole foods is that you get more vitamins like inositol that way. Lately, thought, we starting getting a run on inositol capsules in the pharmacy.
The reason inositol has been so popular is that there have been news reports that it might treat cancer. Inositol might treat anxiety, depression and “calm the thoughts”. Inositol might also treat diabetes and protect the skin from UVB radiation. Remember I said, “Might”. Although inositol is showing promise, it is probably too early to start recommending it to treat things. There have been many promising treatments in the past that didn’t turn out to work. Let’s start by discussing the cancer trial.
Dr. Stephen Lam of the B.C. Cancer Agency gave smokers with at least one bronchial dysplagia in their lungs a bunch of inositol. Adysplagia is a pre-cancerous area. He gave them up to 30 g of inositol a day but found most of them only tolerated 18 g per day. So they gave a new bunch of smokers with pre-cancerous lesions 18 g per day of inositol (the maximum tolerated dose) for 3 months. The smokers who got the 18 g of inositol had more of their pre-cancerous lesions go back to non-cancerous areas than the placebo group. The inositol group also had their blood pressure drop compared to the placebo group.
This is very interesting research. Does a B vitamin treat cancer? Does a B vitamin treat blood pressure? These are good questions for further research. Unfortunately, they are not good reasons to run to the pharmacy and self treat your lung cancer. Does inositol make actual lung cancer tumors grow faster or slower? We don’t know. Does inositol cause pre-lung cancer cells to go back to normal but cause liver pre-cancer cell to grow? We don’t know. And so on. The other problem is this was a preliminary trial. There were not enough subjects enrolled in the trial for us to be confident about the results. The more subjects in a trial, the stronger the results.
The same goes for inositol treating diabetes. Inositol seems to help diabetic rats. Very interesting but rats aren’t people. Inositol when mixed with another antioxidant called IP6 and put on the skin of mice seems to protect the mice from UBV radiation. Again interesting, but mice aren’t people. What about inositol and depression? Well I found a Cochrane Review of 4 trials of inositol and depression which covered 141 patients. The results were inconclusive, and again 141 is not enough subjects.
But inositol is only a vitamin. It won’t hurt me, and there is a chance it will help. Why not take it? I do have a hard time arguing with that. As far as we know inositol is safe in most people, most of the time. We don’t know if it will help cancer, blood pressure, anxiety, diabetes, etc. If you want to spend you money on inositol supplements, that is your choice. However, you may also want to wait until the scientists figure out if inositol really does help cancer, blood pressure, anxiety, diabetes, etc, because there have been many false hopes in the past.
Which brings me back to the easy way out. Maybe most of us shouldn’t be looking for that one magic supplement distilled from food. Maybe we should just eat whole, healthly foods like grains, nuts, mushrooms, veggies and fish. If they contain one magic ingredient like inositol, I wonder how many more they contain that we haven’t discovered yet? And maybe I should do my exercises.
As always if you have any questions or concerns about these or other products, ask your pharmacist.
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