Getting Value from your Nutritional Supplements

One would hope that Natural Health Products, especially common ones like multivitamins, provide health benefit to the consumer, and certainly not harm.  A recent article by GreenMedInfo called, Is Your Multivitamin Toxic, shows that this isn’t always true.  Ingredients known to the Environmental Protection Agency to be toxic at low dosages are found in some of the most common multivitamin products, including Centrum and Materna.

Some examples of toxicity this article brings to light include the dosage of a certain form of selenium called sodium selenate commonly used in lower quality multivitamins, the high and unnecessary dose of tin, and the unnecessary addition of nickel.

Looking at the natural health products industry as a whole, the past ten or fifteen years have brought enormous growth.  With this growth we have seen numerous new products offered and numerous new companies producing them.  Unfortunately, many of these products don’t live up to the standard we all expect.

Some reported examples include:

 
1.       Fish oils that are contaminated with levels of mercury and PCBs, way above acceptable standards.

 2.       Probiotics that contain little if any live bacteria, or different bacteria than listed on the label.

 3.       Protein supplements contaminated with bacteria, yeast and fungal species.

 4.       Herbal products prepared from the wrong species of plant.

We can be sure that there is more going on behind the scenes of some producers that we will never know. 

Health professionals who are “in the know”, choose to use only products that meet certain standards.  The following points will help you understand why we choose the products we do!

1.       Science Based Supplements – A good quality product is developed to reflect the latest in nutritional research. 

2.       Pure and Safe Ingredients – Each ingredient of every product must be evaluated for quality and purity before and after production.  A good quality manufacturer will do this, and furthermore, they will make these reports available to healthcare providers. 

3.       Form of Ingredients – Oftentimes manufacturers will use a form of an ingredient that is poorly absorbed, has not been proven effective, or is downright harmful.  This is done only to save money, and unfortunately the ultimate cost is paid by the consumer.

4.       For Your Health! – Quality supplements improve the health of our patients!

Vive Integrative Health Group uses only products that can deliver on all of the above requirements.  Trust your Naturopathic Doctor to know which products are safe and effective.  A good quality product will sometimes cost more, but remember that the most expensive product is the one that doesn’t work!

-Dr. Colin

Commentary: Medical "best practice" often no more than opinion

Is Evidence Based Medicine enough?

There is a lot of very good research guiding the practice of medicine – both conventional and naturopathic – and this research gives doctors a basis on which to recommend certain treatments for our patients.

But is medicine really as evidence based as we think it is?

An article published last week reveals that only about one in seven recommendations made by doctors are actually based on high quality evidence.

Additionally, more than half of recommendations rely solely on expert opinion or anecdotal evidence.

So it turns out that not all recommendations and treatments commonly used in medicine have been well studied – contrary to what most of us believe. 

But this does not mean that six out of every seven recommendations are bad ones!

High Quality Evidence Is Nice, But Not Always Necessary

Do you need to see a double blinded, randomized controlled study to know if you should wear a parachute when skydiving?  No.  From observation, we know falling from high places will hurt us, so we wear parachutes. 

Sometimes a study is not necessary to know what to do.  Experience answers our questions.  The same is true in medicine. 

Although doctors often have plenty of evidence to guide them in their care of patients, at times they rely on clinical experience, the experience of experts, and even anecdotal evidence. 

This is still good medicine!  This is how medicine has always been practiced, across all disciplines.

Why is the evidence so often limited?

There is a limit to how many things can be fully and exhaustively researched.  Priority has always gone to treatments that can be made profitable (in order to recover the money invested in the research). 

The problem is that many good treatments are not all that profitable, and therefore are not studied.

Now, if we were to adhere to an evidence-based-medicine-only stance, doctors would find themselves in the uncomfortable position of withholding effective and safe treatments from their patients.   

Fortunately most doctors recognize the importance of an open mind, because this is how we learn new things and advance medicine.

- written by Dr. Colin Race, ND.  (Email)

Link to original Reuters article: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70A06J20110111