Category: Health news

Chelation for Reducing Heart Attack Risk

Posted on | by The StoneTree Team | Leave a Comment on Chelation for Reducing Heart Attack Risk

For years, naturopathic doctors have touted the benefits of chelation for a wide range of conditions including coronary artery disease, diabetes, kidney disease, heart disease, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and neurological disorders like Parkinson’s.

Most of those years have been an uphill battle, with the treatment, which has been in use for decades, being marginalized and dismissed.

Recently, a 10-year, $31-million clinical trial found that chelation therapy does indeed help heart attack patients slightly reduce their risk of serious heart problems, possibly on par or better than statin drugs like Lipitor. Good news!

Statin/Cholesterol Resources:
http://chriskresser.com/the-truth-about-statin-drugs
http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2008-01-16/do-cholesterol-drugs-do-any-good

Chelation Study Coverage:
http://healthland.time.com/2012/11/05/chelation-for-heart-disease-study-shows-promise-but-experts-are-divided/

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New Cervical Screening Guidelines: What Should You Do?

Posted on | by Tara Gignac, ND | Leave a Comment on New Cervical Screening Guidelines: What Should You Do?

A panel of Canadian specialists has looked at the data and determined new screening guidelines for cervical cancer.

The new recommendations include:

  • No routine screening for women under age 25, including sexually active women, as opposed to starting at age 18 especially in sexually active women.
  • A strong recommendation for screening women aged 30 to 69 every three years as opposed to every year.
  • Ending screening for women aged 70 and over who’ve had three successive negative Pap test results.

Is It Enough?

A Pap test is never a fun way to spend your time, and for the majority of women, the guidelines above are probably a safe bet. But what about the small minority of individuals where it isn’t?

If you read comments on this CBC article, you’ll see feedback from many women who would have been missed had they been following the new guidelines.

Does that mean the guidelines are wrong? No. In a publicly funded health care system there is only so much money to go around. As a result, decisions get made based on greatest impact to an entire population, not on greatest impact for the individual.  The result, though, is that people fall through the cracks.

No right answer here, but the good news is at you do have choice. You can read more about how and why we began our Collingwood Well-Woman Visit Days here. Next one is January 28, 2013.

Isn’t it time someone cared about your health like you do?

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Short Term Gain, Long Term Pain: Advil and Heart Attacks

Posted on | by Tara Gignac, ND | Leave a Comment on Short Term Gain, Long Term Pain: Advil and Heart Attacks

An article in the health news yesterday reported on a study that patients taking NSAIDS (anti-inflammatories like Advil) after their first heart attack were significantly more likely to die within five years then those who don’t. If it’s true, it’s important news. There are a lot of people who have had heart attacks who use Advil regularly.

Researchers don’t know why, but here’s one possibility that makes sense to me.

Pain, for the most part, is a normal body response. It’s our body saying, “Stop what you’re doing. I’m trying to fix something here.” The problem is that this very convenient messaging system is very inconvenient in our culture. We’re not accustomed to pain, and don’t have the time or tolerance for it.

Instead, we take a pain-killer. But for the heart attack patient who’s done damage to his heart, the pain-killer takes away the signal that the body is sending to sit still and heal. The result? He can now get up, move around, maybe even go to the mall or mow the lawn before his body is actually ready to. This, of course, does more damage instead of facilitating healing, and eventually he winds up with another heart attack because the heart muscle hasn’t healed properly.

There’s no denying painkillers are impressive. As a very occasional user of these medicines, I’m always amazed at how fully and completely an Advil will take away an ache or a pain. I understand the draw to want to use it all the time–as a 41 year old I have my share of aches and pains.:)

But the moral of the story is this: use them sparingly. Use them to make your recovery more bearable, but don’t let them get in the way of your healing process.

Isn’t it time someone cared about your health like you do?

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More Truths About Statins

Posted on | by Tara Gignac, ND | Leave a Comment on More Truths About Statins

The FDA is adding safety labeling to statin drugs in the US, including Lipitor, one of the top selling prescription drugs in the world.

Statins are used to reduce LDL or “bad” cholesterol, in order to reduce or prevent atherosclerosis, and in turn decrease heart attack and stroke.

The new warnings include that statin drugs can cause hyperglycemia (too much sugar in the blood) and increase the risk of developing Type II diabetes.

That’s great. Except for the fact that everyone with type 2 diabetes is already prescribed a statin drug to help manage, “heart risk”.

If you’re asking yourself why it’s standard procedure to prescribe something to every diabetic that can increase blood sugar, you’re not alone. And while that standard may change, it’s not the only confusing thing about statins.

The Truth About Statins

Beyond side-effects, here are three things you should know about statins, taken from Chris Kresser. His writing an excellent resource for laypersons wishing to understand the issue:

  1. Statin drugs do not reduce the risk of death in 95% of the population, including healthy men with no pre-existing heart disease, women of any age, and the elderly.
  2. Statin drugs do reduce mortality for young and middle-aged men with pre-existing heart disease, but the benefit is small and not without significant adverse effects, risks and costs.
  3. Aspirin works just as well as statins do for preventing heart disease, and is 20 times more cost effective.

 Source: http://chriskresser.com/the-truth-about-statin-drugs

But that, still is only part of the story. Why, even for the tiny slice of the population for which statins have a small benefit, do we use them at all, when we know that heart disease is a lifestyle problem?

Over 90% of heart disease is preventable by diet and lifestyle change. (source) Taking statins, unfortunately, is not a lifestyle change.

That high cholesterol you’re worried about is a sign that something in your body is out of balance.  Imbalanced hormones, imbalanced diet and exercise, or smoking that caused heavy metal toxicity. This is the problem to deal with. Balance your hormones, change your lifestyle, stop smoking and detox heavy metals from your body through chelation.

Lifestyle change doesn’t need much of a warning label. It just works.

Isn’t it time someone cared about your health like you do?

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Ending the War on Salt

Posted on | by Tara Gignac, ND | Leave a Comment on Ending the War on Salt

For years, salt has been an “enemy” in our diet. As naturopaths, we hold a somewhat different view of sodium (see below) and it’s one that’s beginning to gain more and more traction in the media.

Scientific American published a piece last month, “It’s Time to End the War on Salt” that suggests that there’s little evidence that reducing the salt in our diet has much long-term benefit.

From the article:

“This week a meta-analysis of seven studies involving a total of 6,250 subjects in the American Journal of Hypertension found no strong evidence that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks, strokes or death in people with normal or high blood pressure. In May European researchers publishing in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that the less sodium that study subjects excreted in their urine—an excellent measure of prior consumption—the greater their risk was of dying from heart disease. These findings call into question the common wisdom that excess salt is bad for you, but the evidence linking salt to heart disease has always been tenuous.”

For a naturopathic perspective on just why salt isn’t the big hairy deal that we’ve been making it out to be for years, I’ve included an article that appeared in The Collingwood Enterprise Bulletin last summer. Enjoy! – Tara

***

Making Sense of Sodium
by Tara Gignac, ND

A look at the daily news tells us sodium is implicated in such high profile health concerns as high blood pressure and heart disease. And to be fair, it’s true: sodium is a problem. But the reality is that it’s only half the problem.

Sodium does a lot of good in our body.  It helps our nerves and muscles work properly, and maintains our pH and water balance. Without sufficient sodium, we’d die.

But here in North America we’re not in any danger of dying of a sodium deficiency. We’re putting back a whopping 3200 mg on average – more than triple our cavemen ancestors.

But there’s more to the story. It’s not just sodium, but the ratio of sodium to another mineral, potassium, that’s important for our health. Potassium is sodium’s soulmate  – the two complement each other in the body, and while our high sodium intake does throw off the ratio, we’re also consuming about a quarter of the potassium that our ancient ancestors did. That makes the imbalance even worse.

It also means, though, that we can tackle the sodium problem from both ends: by reducing our sodium intake and increasing our potassium intake. The simple formula? Decrease your processed foods (high sodium) and increase your consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, which tend to be higher in potassium, to a minimum of 10 servings a day.

Tara Gignac, ND practices at StoneTree Clinic in Collingwood, ON. You can learn more about your sodium levels by booking a complimentary visit with a naturopathic doctor at 444-5331, or www.StoneTreeClinic.com

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A Different Perspective on Weight Gain

Posted on | by Tara Gignac, ND | Leave a Comment on A Different Perspective on Weight Gain

I read about an interesting study recently.

In the 1970’s, researchers removed the ovaries of healthy, normal weighted rats who had unlimited access to food. After the surgery the rats became ravenous, ate far more food then was necessary and became obese.

At first glance, this seems logical – eat more then you need, you get fat. Not that interesting.

It’s the follow-up study, though, that really makes for an interesting story.  The researchers again removed the ovaries of healthy, normal weighted rats, but this time put them on a calorie restricted diet. According to conventional wisdom, this should have solved the weight gain problem. It didn’t. In fact, the rats still became obese.  The difference was they also became completely sedentary. They only moved to eat.

It seems as if the rat’s new physiology (resulting from having the ovaries taken away) changed the amount of fat the body “wanted” to store – it changed the fat regulation. To reach the new fat “set point”, the rats compensated by eating more, or if that wasn’t an option, moving less.

The physiology, in other words, created the behaviour, the behaviours did not create the physiology. They ate more or moved less because they were storing fat…not the other way around.

Isn’t it time someone cared about your health like you do?

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Vitamin D Testing: Is It Worth It?

Posted on | by Tara Gignac, ND | Leave a Comment on Vitamin D Testing: Is It Worth It?

The last decade has delivered countless observational studies linking low vitamin D to ailments like heart disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and even cancer.

Effective Dec 1 2010, however, OHIP stopped paying for the test. OHIP will now only cover the cost of vitamin D testing for patients with the following medical conditions:

  • Osteoporosis and Osteopenia
  • Rickets
  • Malabsorption Syndromes
  • Renal Disease
  • Patients on medications that affect vitamin D metabolism

You can still get the test done – we offer it for about $50, and you can pay your MD, too. But patients at the clinic are asking two questions that I thought I could answer here: Why isn’t it covered? And Is it worth it to pay for it?

Why OHIP No Longer Covers Vitamin D Testing

The Ontario Health Technology Advisory Committee believes there is not enough evidence to support that measuring D levels helps enough people. When health care resources are limited, we have to make decisions about what gets funded and what doesn’t. Of course, it might be far cheaper to prevent conditions than to treat them, but for now that’s the situation.

It’s a reality of a publicly-funded health care system: you don’t always get what is important to you, you get what the system is willing and able to fund. That system can’t focus on the individual – there’s just not enough money to do so.

Should You Get Your Levels Tested?

Because of the growing connection to health issues like cancer, many people want to know what their levels are. Measuring your levels helps us decide whether you’re deficient, and how much to supplement. If you have questions, just contact us at 705-444-5331, or [email protected]. Measuring your vitamin D levels may no longer be free in Ontario, but answers to your questions are. 🙂

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Patient-Centered Care: How Our Well Woman Visit Was Born

Posted on | by Tara Gignac, ND | Leave a Comment on Patient-Centered Care: How Our Well Woman Visit Was Born

Cervical cancer is the 3rd most common cancer in women aged 20-49, with peak incidence occurring age 40-50. This year, some 1300-1500 Canadian women will be diagnosed.

With proper screening, cervical cancer is a preventable disease, but of those who die from it this year, only about half will have had a recent pap test.

So why aren’t women getting paps?

Sometimes it’s because they don’t have a medical doctor, but mainly it’s because the process is uncomfortable. It’s easy to put off for another day. And another.

I spent years reminding patients that it was time for a visit to their doc for a “yearly” and many would put it off. I would offer to do the test myself, (ND’s are licensed in Ontario for pelvic and breast exams, and pap tests) but still there would be hesitation.

A year ago I sat down with some of the important women in my life and asked them this question:

What is it about the experience of your annual physical that you hate? Or, to put it more positively, what would you change about this experience that we all have to do, but don’t like to do?

Here are some of the comments I got:

“Do the sheets and gowns have to be paper?”

“Does everything have to be so cold?”

“There is never any easy way to ‘clean up’ and you leave the office feeling uncomfortable and looking for a washroom.”

“I’m worried that in the summer my feet might smell and it’s embarrassing.”

“Why does the light have to be so stark?”

“I wish I could get a copy of the results, not just ‘no news is good news’.”

Is this all that was standing between women and regular paps? Well-armed with some of the reasons why women were opting out or delaying paps, we set about creating a new “Well Woman” annual visit from the ground up.

The Well Women Visit at StoneTree Clinic was created around what patients actually needed and wanted. Your visit takes place in a softly lit room, with real linens and warm socks. All equipment used is warmed and lubricated, and at the end of your examination you receive a cup of hot raspberry leaf tea to soothe the uterus and calm the soul.

You should feel respected and comfortable…or as one woman said, “It’s never fun. But this is definitely as good as it gets!”

Discomfort is a lousy reason to avoid an annual exam. But it’s a reality. Spread the word to the women in your life: screening is important, and there are options to make it easier.

We offer Well Woman Days every few weeks – call the clinic at 705-444-5331, or book online here.

Isn’t it time someone cared about your health like you do?

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No More Fat Talk?

Posted on | by Tara Gignac, ND | Leave a Comment on No More Fat Talk?

Last week was “Fat Talk Free Week” in the US, a a campaign to bring awareness to how common conversations can contribute to poor body image, low self-esteem, and eating disorders.. What a great idea! During the week, participants at 35 college campuses across the US tray to eliminate statements about weight, fat, clothes, and other negative self-image topics.

There’s good reason for the campaign. Statistics show that body dissatisfaction leads to eating fewer fruits and vegetables, and even doing less exercise – it seems we really are what we believe. Focusing on your weight and how much you hate yourself for it will never get a carrot in your month (or at least not one that isn’t followed by a bag of cookies). Focusing on health, and your right to be healthy and vibrant, is the only way help facilitate healthy lifestyle choices.

If you need a more compelling reason to not trash talk yourself, read the book, Like Mother, Like Daughter by Debra Waterhouse.  It’s an eye opener and will very much change how you talk about yourself, your weight and your choices. And check out the video below.

-Tara

Isn’t it time someone cared about your health like you do?

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