Need a prescription for Cheerios?

[windcatcher]

Here's another antedotal regarding a vitamin vs a drug.

Many people with cardiovascular disease with suspected problems in clots forming (which often includes those with bypasses, stents, angio plasty, heartvalve replacements) are placed on warfarin or coumadin (heparin). These drugs acts by inhibiting platelets from sticking together, thus many folks refer commonly to them as 'blood thinners'. In actuallity, they help to prevent or delay clot formation thus one may bleed prolongedly from a slight cut..... or hemorrhage, if a vessel breaks or a wound is serious. They may also lessen the chances of a clot forming and causing a heart attack or a stroke. Coumadin can be a life saver.... but requires frequent and careful monitoring.

However, Coumadin (the drug) has a natural antagonist available in the diet called Vitamin K. The body naturally makes its Vitamin K in the gut when normal bacteria are present and the diet provides the proper foods for conversion. Vitamin K helps the blood to clot. It also helps to protect calcium storage, and in the blood, it helps PREVENT calcium from becoming part of the harden plaques which contribute to diseased arteries. Calcium plaques on the walls of blood vessels is implicated in hardening of the arteries, blood pressure and less elasticity of the vessel walls and a contributing factor in clot formation and emboli.... which is a traveling blood clot. Guess what.... while Vitamin K promotes normal blood clotting... it also has a counter action of helping to prevent calcium build up in the arteries and blood vessels. But Coumadin, which helps prevent blood clots, is not sparring of calcium and doesn't impede its loss from the bones nor its build up in the arteries.

Menaquinone (K2) is capable of blocking the blood thinning action of anticoagulants like warfarin, which work by interfering with the action of Vitamin K1. It also reverses the tendency of these drugs to cause arterial calcification in the long term. [emphasis added is mine]

FROM HERE

Between the patient and his doctor.... is determining the health risk and health benefit of chemical therapy....... which is really what medication for chronic conditions is. The informed doctor knows both the nutrition and the medication and determines what is best for his patient taking into consideration all that he knows. But many specialist practice in group settings and part of belonging to a group of specialist includes conforming and agreeing to 'standards of practice' which are meant to offset the liability issues.... but may promote the accepted 'prescription' over any dietary consideration or ammendment. Part of this problem may also lie in the nutritional supplement industry as well, as it is not standardized beyond the most basic telling of the chemical presence and measure per dose: How much is 'bio available' and how much will be active in the body and how much is likely to be 'wasted' or of no value.... and even whether it is a synthetic copy or extracted from natures own provisions is seldom, if ever, reported..... so in the doctor's defense.... even if some wished to recommend any dietary supplements it is not possible to insure that a patient will get a reputable supplement from a provider.... or pick up some cheap product sold at a 'dollar store' reporting to be the same thing on its label.

 

[gb93433]

Since whole grains have been proven to have healthy benefits, and lowering cholesterol, their claims are not false, otherwise your doctor would never tell you to eat more whole grains and fiber, then their label is not false.

Any diabetic doctor will also tell you to reduce your intake of carbohydrates and when you do it also lowers your cholesterol and tryglicerides. Doctors will aslo tell us that kids who drink lots of sodas typically also have high cholesterol. If one also stops eating their cholesterol will also go down.

Unless the government is going to start regulating your food, whole grains and fiber, then there's nothing with cheerios for them to do. While we're at it, lets add fats, sugars and fresh vegetables to the governments hit list of foods we have to get directly from them.

When one eats corn flakes, etc. in Europe he quickly finds out that there is no sugar in them. Companies make a lot of things addicting to those who partake. Take away the sugar from breakfast cereals and see what happens. Kid's IQ often goes up about 25.

 

[Alcott]

Now maybe we will need a prescription for orange juice and all it's Vitamin C-- it's a preventative drug against colds and flu [don't we know? :smilewinkgrin:] Then orange growers will be put out of business like poppy farmers, so we'll send another industry to Mexico and have all kinds of smuggling schemes to get them here. But already they have dogs that sniff fruits coming in, because that's where drugs are sometimes hidden; especially in large fruits like watermelons. One time the dog trainers found a pack of sad collies they decided to train for that operation, and they really came through. They're called melancholies.

 

[Marcia]

The problem is a diet without balance promotes deficiencies which lead to disease if not corrected. Some early deficiencies and the pathology which follows can be corrected if corrected in time.

But medicine isn't aimed at dietary needs. Medicine isn't even aimed at producing a cure: It is aimed primarially at treating the symptoms, relieving discomfort, altering the body's response so that test appear to be more positive, and prolonging the quality of life (or at least projecting the image that this is being accomplished 'because of modern medicine').

But, I think, Hippocrates, considered to be the father of medicine, is credited with teaching his students 'you are what you eat'.

There can be no such thing as 'a nutritional deficiency' or an imbalance in diet if there doesn't exist the possibility of balanced nutrition in contrast. These issues were being studied rather vigourously in the first half of the twentieth century and most of what is known now is a product of those early studies. However, studies in nutrition and the metabolics of the body have been a low priority since the end of WW II. If one were to follow the pharmaceutical industry and the economics it produces, and its influence upon research, and lobbies, and laws affecting food and drugs.... one might get a different perspective regarding why little is being disseminated today concerning nutritional requirements and nutritional balance and good health.

With Cheerios, I think the issue concerns the question 'Does it contribute to controlling or lowering the cholesterol and placque build up in the blood vessels?' .....How about oatmeal.... does it make a difference when included in the diet in contrast to if it is withheld? If it does then isn't it right to include this information to the public..... unless there is no problem with cholesterol.... in which case..... why give a drug to control something which the body makes naturally and which doesn't matter anyway: And, if controlling cholesterol is important and one needs drugs to help keep it under control, is it not also wise to be informed about the foods which affect and support the lab values of cholesterol, and inform the public so they can include these dietary 'helps' as part of their dietary habits?

Everything we eat contributes something to our balance of health.... and in spite of the standardizations of 'allowances' for gender and age groups.... there are also individual differences, which may be altered by infections, injury, genetics, and disease,....... and even by medications which are deemed to be necessary....may interfere with the balance and create greater needs in some areas and less needs in other areas.

Even, dietary supplements, which many take with the thinking that they are helping to maintain health.... may not be all that its 'racked up' to be: We allow ourselves to be confused when we hear or read conflicting statements about supplement studies. Seldom is it revealed as to how detailed or specific a study is done.

For example: The recent study on Vitamin E which caused many people to stop taking that supplement or brought the wisdom of taking it into question that it could also produce side effects: When revealing these studies to the public through news reports... the information isn't volunteered and may not even be part of the published study to inform us of the QUALITY of the Vitamin E which was studied: First of all, was it nature's own carefully isolated Vitamin E which was isolated and used in the study or was it a cheaper and synthetic form of Vitamin E? While some believe a chemically made copy is as good as the original, there are others who contend that synthetic versions of nutrients are like synthetic hormones.... they may work in some instances for a while, but their bioavailablity and activity in the body as a substitute for the real, maybe recognized by the body's systems as being inferior, or artificial, and eventually lead to other problems as the body tries to make adjustments to deal with those balances foreign to nature. Second, if in natural form, vitamin E has 8 different chemical structures, all or most of which are present in the foods in which it is naturally found... then did the study carefully include the balanced formulation as God made it, or did the test include the most prominent or cheapest form of that Vitamin and exclude the others from combination, thus limiting the study to the effectiveness of just one form?

HOW ABOUT THE TRANSFAT ISSUE....controlled by the FDA? That issue being...... it is reported in some literature that there is no 'safe' allowance for transfats. The FDA, accepted this and decided that foods containing transfats must be so labeled and so labeling started: But the Food Industry complained and the FDA ................ The FDA BACKED DOWN from informing the public because the Food Industry's protest, and now the only time we're informed if a food contains transfats IS IF the transfats are or exceed 0.5 mg/per serving....... whatever the Food Industry declares constitutes a 'serving'. If 4 ounces (120g) is considered a serving, and the can contains 3 1/2 servings..... it makes no difference if the can will be one person's serving or split between two...... But in most instances, one can believe that the servings represented on a package seldom represents what goes on the plate of an active adult or teenager. Thus the FDA is misleading us and IS NOT INFORMING US.

I realize how we eat affects our health. That has nothing to do with allowing cereal boxes to make medical claims about their products. For one thing, they don't tell us anything negative that might be there. But they are simply not qualifed.