weekly wellness

Proof: It is ingrained in our culture that high calorie high fat food is cheap and healthy options are not. I participated in a great fundraiser a week ago. At the end of the motorcycle ride, they served a free lunch. Well, the food ( BBQ on refined white bun, mayonnaise based coleslaw and baked beans) was, the bottled water cost a dollar. (?)

Go Slow Whoa: Holy cows this is great. You know this traffic light program as I bragged about Sarasota County Schools and it’ GSW lunch menu much of last year. Green is go; healthy low cal foods are green. ETC (you can learn more at the NHBLI WECan website http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/wecan/learn-it/) Well the nutrition folks at Sarasota County educate the students that Whoa is a food to eat in small amounts and only on rare occasions. This includes educating the kids on which foods outside of school fall into the different categories. Lo and behold, a McDonald’s on a main road in Sarasota has a tag line running the perimeter of its building. It says something like this, “WHOA- kids, stop in …..” My great hope is that the kids will see the big WHOA which IS in bigger letters than the rest of the sentence, and remind their parents that McDonald’s has red foods and they should eat somewhere else.

Pharma: The goal of big pharma one would hope is to save lives, extend lives, ease suffering. It may well be, but to read the paper and listen to financial news shows, it doesn’t appear to be the main goal. I am not naive to think that drug makers do not aspire to make a profit. It just feels hard to “swallow” at times. Sort of like a horse pill. Particularly shocking to me recently were two separate stories I read. One regarded the upcoming release of a generic version of a best selling HTN drug. The company that makes the name brand was bracing for a loss in sales that worried investors. I get that part. However, the brand name company was upset more because the generic version may be approved sooner than expected (good for the millions of people on the drug) and the company’s plan to offset the loss wasn’t ready. It is the offset plan that angers me because so many companies do the same thing. The drug, Altace, is in capsule form now and the company was trying to get a tablet form out before the generic which could extend the patent. Anytime they “change” the formula, like making it a longer acting form or switching to a one a day instead of two a day dose, they can extend their profits. I think it isn’t fair to the consumer to be gouged and tricked that way. There isn’t anything new about the drug because it looks different. The second story, regarded a change in the labeling for the anemia drugs we have heard a lot about lately, The statement in the article that was most disconcerting indicated that the black box labeling would make it hard to curtail losses from this “blockbuster drug’s sales.” This same issue got worse later in the week when I read about the drug’s maker setting up a website where cancer survivors and their family members could write in praising the drug so that the US Congress and the FDA might be swayed to change their warning that at high doses and in certain populations the drug was inappropriate and had high adverse event risks. The company in other words was trying to back door lobby and their reason was, to stop the loss of sales!

What Does Vermont Have? Vermont just ousted Minnesota out of the top spot of health in the USA according to a nonprofit group, United Health Foundation. The group uses sources like the CDC, the AMA and the Census Bureau to compare certain criteria. They look at obesity rates, and also the number of persons living in poverty, number of uninsured and similar issues. Vermont claims a systems change approach to health. This is a model to emulate. Health promotion, policy and physician involvement. For instance, a campaign to tell us that we should eat more wisely, and move more supported by a policy that mandates restaurants to list nutrition info and employers to offer fitness opportunities. During which doctors tell their patients that they are overweight and refer them to a health educator, nutritionist or exercise specialist to receive support to change. [vote for me for president J]

Lack of Use: Lack of use causes more pain and more atrophy (wasting of muscles) than over use. Exercise improves mobility, balance, mood, and health while reducing pain associated with arthritis and fibromyalgia or FMS if you prefer. The latest study to support this assertion comes from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical school. This is probably not the kind of message Pfizer wants out there since it recently received FDA approval to market its drug Lyrica to FMS sufferers. Ah, well TOO BAD

Living Longer not Better: We have increased the options for treating disease and we have learned what causes those diseases. We know that the majority of these debilitating illnesses can be prevented but we’ve made little progress in actually preventing them. In other words, little progress has been made in motivating people to adopt healthier lifestyles. Policy makers too lag behind in pushing the issue of prevention over treatment or at least insurance coverage for the same. The newest rise in illness is for peripheral artery disease in women. This happens when arteries narrow due to plaque buildup and blood flow to ones limbs is reduced. Any time the blood flow is impaired it’s a bad thing. It is the same when clogged arteries slow blood flow to the brain. It is significantly related to the rise in obesity. The rise in obesity rates is directly related to eating too much of the wrong foods and doing too little daily activity.

Pregnancy Notes: This week I learned that smoking during the last trimester of pregnancy was the most related to smaller gestational size of the fetus. All smoking is detrimental to the fetus both due to neural effects from nicotine and toxic effects of cigarette smoke. Smoking can lead to premature birth and SIDS as well as many other things. It was a surprise though to learn of something being worse in the last trimester, as it’s usually the first. This means that it is never too late in pregnancy or in life to STOP smoking. In regards to quitting, nicotine replacement therapy is recommended for most smokers, though not usually pregnant ones. If one is unable to quit smoking without NRT the risk to the baby is far greater than with NRT which is clean nicotine. Therefore, if a woman does need the NRT to stop smoking, the best option is gum or lozenge instead of patch. This is because the patch dispenses a constant flow of nicotine over time. The others could deliver a dose of nicotine only at the time the mother chose and hopefully only in crisis situations. Lastly, about pregnancy, did you know that gum disease can increase the risk of infant mortality? Independent of other factors, research found that a mother with gum disease has a greater risk of experiencing a fetal or infant death, I am sorry I forget which it was. The inflammation from the disease gets in the blood stream as it does with all of us and where it increases heart disease risk in the general population it also adversely affects a pregnancy. Brush your teeth!

Wishing you wellness… may or may not write next week. If not, enjoy family and friends and remember to increase your activity and don’t eat TOO much at once, its bad for the heart. (I mean it is immediately bad for the heart, not that it leads to heart disease)