Health and Wellness Archives - Page 12 of 17

Dr Art Hister – Prescription Drug Use

If you’re a typical senior, chances are you’re on at least 2 prescription drugs, and many of you are likely on several.

That’s according to a survey just carried out in the US where 88.4 % of people over the age of 60 were found to be on at least one prescription drug (I figure the other 11.6 % were probably not seeing a doctor), and 31 % of all Americans (not just seniors) were taking 2 or more prescription drugs, while a staggering 11% were taking 5 or more prescription drugs.

And note that those are drugs by prescription; most of those people, I am sure, were also taking at least one, and probably several over-the-counter preparations.

Now there would be nothing wrong with those numbers, if all those drugs were 1) prescribed for very good reasons, in other words, they were being taken either to prolong life or promote health, 2) they were all safe, 3) they were all effective at doing what they are supposed to do, and 4) there were very few drug interactions to worry about.

The sad truth, however, is that many prescription drugs are iffy in their effectiveness, their safety is always at issue (even after many years), and drug interactions are a huge concern, so that the more drugs you take, the greater the potential problems.

And unfortunately, the way our health care system works, it’s not always possible to go through all those variables in the typical visit with the family doctor.

Not only that but indications are always changing, that is, what the doctor told you about why you need a certain drug when you first got that prescription may no longer be valid, yet many people continue on prescriptions for years and years without asking if it’s still necessary to do so.

That’s why one of the most important friends you can make is your pharmacist. Your pharmacist is often the best person to ask about what a medication is supposed to be doing, what side effects you should expect, what potential complications to look for, what drug interactions you should be aware of, etc, etc.

Go ahead, the next time you get a prescription filled, talk to your pharmacist about that drug – you’re going to be pleasantly surprised at what you learn.

Dr Art Hister – Male Menopause

Male menopause? Really doubtful

This one is close to my heart for a couple of key reasons: 1) I wrote a book about it (Midlife Man – you can still buy a copy from my web site. Trust me, it’ll be the best buy you make this year; would I lie to you?), and 2) I am just “so there” personally, by which I mean whether or not there’s such a thing as “male menopause” is of intense interest to me.

But not just for me.

That issue is in fact a huge debating point among medical health professionals. Many doctors argue that there is no such thing as a “male menopause” (this has been my opinion for years, and if your read that book, you’ll see why), and many others saying that yes, male menopause is a big problem among aging men. Those doctors prescribe various forms of testosterone in order to treat a certain set of symptoms that have been labeled as those of “male menopause”.

I, however, have always argued that (based on what I have understood and studied about hormones in men, especially aging men)

that group of symptoms that are clustered under the umbrella of male menopause are just so vague that they can actually be due to anything at all. Most likely simply getting older. And that there is no proof that a man with such symptoms needs or will benefit from testosterone therapy.
we simply have no idea what normal testosterone levels should actually be because they can fluctuate so much with normal events. For example, if an average man’s team wins an important game – and we all know how much stock “real” men put into having favorite teams – his testosterone levels shoot up, which might be sort of scary news for men who are fans of the Vancouver Canucks.

And to illustrate just how little we really know about “normal” testosterone levels, in a study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism researchers measured testosterone levels in aging men in 5 different countries and found that there was as much as an 18 % variation in testosterone levels among men from different parts of the globe. This is just another indication that this issue needs way more study.

Bottom line: there are a few men who suffer clear and dramatic drops in testosterone levels with age, and for such men, there is some good reasoning behind the use of testosterone therapy.

For most men getting extra testosterone, however, the rationale behind its use is much, much, much more iffy.

Dr Art Hister – Multitasking is Harder as You Get Older

In an intriguing study based on people’s abilities to resume a task after being interrupted to do a second task, researchers have concluded that the older you get, the harder it is to multi-task. Although why they needed a study to come to that conclusion, god only knows, because anyone over the age of 30 could have verified that for them in an instant. That’s as long as the elderly verifier could remember what the researcher had asked, of course.

But they did spend money on this project so here’s what they found: that while younger people could easily go back to a task they’d interrupted and resume it at top speed, people over the age of 60 could not do that. This is mostly because the older folks kept focusing attention on whatever task the interruption had involved rather than on the task that had preceded it.

Ergo, older folks have trouble keeping 2 things going at the same time.

Which is true, of course. But what the researchers didn’t find out – the study wasn’t set up to do that – is that unlike young people, who are obsessed with feverishly fiddling with their iPods, iPads, and phones at the same time and keeping it all straight, once we get to a certain age, about the middle of our lives, most of us stop caring whether we can do two things at once. This may be mainly because we can either hire someone to do some of those stupid things for us or because we realize that most of the things we thought were so important to do are not. Another thought is that when you’re a certain age, by the time a second task has rolled around, you can’t even remember that you had another task you were working on.

Dr Art Hister – Fish Oil and Pregnancy

Some studies have shown that if pregnant women eat more fish, their babies may end up with slightly higher IQs at the age of 7 than the babies of moms who don’t eat as much fish during pregnancy.

And in our rush (I was going to say “in our arrogance” but that was simply too arrogant on my part) to believe that we understand stuff long before we actually know what we’re talking about, a lot of experts have recommended that pregnant women and prospective moms increase their intake of fish in order to get higher levels of fish oil products in their blood streams.

Well, there are certainly lots of good reasons to eat more (safe) fish, especially by moms, but making your baby smarter as a result is not one of them.

Not, that is, if you believe – and I do – a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association which enrolled 2000 pregnant women, half of whom got fish oil supplements and half of whom got a placebo of vegetable oil.

When the babies were evaluated at12 months they found no cognitive score differences in the babies when they were evaluated at 18 months, Why? 3 potential reasons.

Fish oils supplements don’t actually improve cognitive scores
The women in this study were already getting enough fish oil in their regular diet so taking supplements would not have shown any benefit
Maybe vegetable oil supplements – the placebo – increases cognitive scores as much as fish oil so the researchers were not able to detect a measurable difference.

Whatever. Bottom line: fish is good for you and supplements are, well, no one knows really. So eat lots of (safe) fish.

Dr Art Hister – Food to Lower LDL

First, the very, very good news: a study has shown that a combination of foods – not just single good-guy foods such as fish or veggies but the whole shebang put together – can significantly lower the risk of bad health consequences in individuals who eat that combo, and in only a short period of time, which may be even better news.

Thus, in this small study of 44 overweight people from Lund University in Sweden, the individuals who ate the way they were told to eat lowered their LDL levels (that’s the “bad” cholesterol) by a staggering 33 % through diet alone (in most diets the maximum LDL-lowering effect is usually about 15-20 %), their total cholesterol levels fell by 14 %, and they also experienced significantly improved levels of other important metabolic factors such as clotting proteins.

So what’s the bad news, you wonder.

Just this: the foods they were given to eat which were very rich in the usual good-guy elements (anti-oxidants, fish oils, probiotics, fibre etc.) and which included good stuff like blueberries and veggies also included heavy doses of barley, soy protein, oily fish (which in Sweden must surely have been herring and the like) and vinegar.

I think if it were me, I’d settle for less of a drop in LDL if it also meant less of an intake of tofu, barley, and herring.

Dr Art Hister – Drugs for Mild Alzheimer’s Disease

A frustrating but likely accurate analysis of a drug widely-used to treat early (or mild) Alzheimer’s disease concludes that the drug is not effective in these cases.

This new study was published in the highly-respected journal, Archives of Neurology, and in this analysis of several previously published studies about the drug memantine, the authors of this report found that memantine does not slow either memory decline of cognitive function decline in mild cases of Alzheimer’s disease.

It’s a frustrating analysis, as I wrote earlier, because frankly, there are so few drugs that can be used to try to stem the progress of AD, so taking away one that is prescribed by many doctors is well, frustrating, but it’s important to note, especially for those people who believe that anything, even if it’s only slightly effective, is better than nothing when it comes to such a depressing condition as AD, that this is simply not true: using nothing is often a better choice given that all drugs, including memantine, have potential significant side effects and complications associated with their use.

And that’s a very good principle – nothing may be the best choice – to remember for all conditions involving the use of potentially problematic medications, which is why it’s always a great tactic to make very good friends with your pharmacist so that you can ask him or her about those potential risks when you’re put on a new drug.

Dr Art Hister – Sun Exposure

If you’re worried about skin cancer, here’s another thing to worry about.

An interesting review of about 41 patients (published in the Archives of Dermatology) trying to ward off a recurrence of basal cell carcinoma, one of the two most common forms of skin cancer, found that (and I’m actually quite surprised to learn that even the men were doing this), in this study at least, a large majority (80%) of those people who had a basal cell skin cancer were actually listening to their doctors and were using sunscreen every day, avoiding sun exposure during peak hours, and wearing appropriate clothing to cover up exposed areas of skin.

That’s the terrific news.

The consequent bad news, however, is that in their understandable zeal to avoid the sun, over half of them ended up with vitamin D deficiency (you get most of your vitamin D, of course, from sun exposure).

Bottom line: if you are fervent about avoiding the sun for whatever reason, then it’s a good idea to take vitamin D supplements.

Dr Art Hister – Prescription Drug Use

Dr Art Hister – Male Menopause

Dr Art Hister – Multitasking is Harder as You Get Older

Dr Art Hister – Fish Oil and Pregnancy

Dr Art Hister – Food to Lower LDL

Dr Art Hister – Drugs for Mild Alzheimer’s Disease

Dr Art Hister – Sun Exposure

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Dr Art Hister – Prescription Drug Use

Dr Art Hister – Male Menopause

Dr Art Hister – Multitasking is Harder as You Get Older

Dr Art Hister – Fish Oil and Pregnancy

Dr Art Hister – Food to Lower LDL

Dr Art Hister – Drugs for Mild Alzheimer’s Disease

Dr Art Hister – Sun Exposure

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