Archive for the ‘Greg's articles’ Category
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009
If you are aged 65 years or older, then it’s highly likely you are taking a medication to treat an ageing-related condition, for 90 per cent of your peers do so. 40 per cent of you take five or more medications simultaneously and likely have been doing so for an extended time, perhaps years.
Sometimes your doctor is not fully aware of your medication program as medications are “stacked” following visits to doctors and specialists for new ailments.
Are these medications, taken dutifully at set times really doing you good and what would happen if you discontinued their use?
I’m sure many of you have a sneaking suspicion that the medications you take have waned in effectiveness and are creating problems of their own but are fearful of challenging their efficacy and the weight of medical opinion behind them.
A very well credentialled study published recently in the journal Drugs and Aging and reported in the Sydney Morning Herald suggests that not only do many drugs prescribed to the elderly contribute to hospital admissions and deaths but withdrawal from them can improve health.
Professor David le Couture, a geriatrician at Concord Hospital in Sydney and Director of the Centre for Education and Research on Ageing is a brave man intent on spotlighting the chasm between the results of drug company-sponsored medicine trials and the actual effect of these medications on the elderly.
His University of Sydney study of all previous research into medication withdrawal in older people concluded that the elderly receive no benefit from long term use of many common medicines and, shockingly, that their health may improve with discontinuation of their use.
I would imagine Professor Couture has been scratched off the Christmas list of major drug companies.
Time to withdraw?
His study found coming off drugs that affect the brain and nervous system, like sleeping pills and anti-depressants improves mental abilities and reduces the risk of falls - responsible for high rates of hospitalization and deaths in the elderly.
Blood pressure for up to 85 per cent of those 65 years or older remained stable for 6 months to 5 years after withdrawal of medication for that purpose and there was no increase in the death rate.
A typical methodology of studies reviewed by Professor le Couture was in a New Zealand study which divided those on sedatives or anti-depressants into two groups. One group continued the medication, the other group took a placebo identical in appearance. After a year the placebo group were found 66 per cent less likely to have a fall and there was no increase in the death rate.
What’s going on here? Why is futile and possibly dangerous polypharmacy the norm for nearly half the elderly?
Clearly it is in the interests of drug companies to promote the widespread and continued use of their medications but surely one’s doctor evaluates their effectiveness?
It appears that doctors are sometimes confused about which medications their patients are on and are not authoritative enough to challenge the wisdom of their intial prescription by a specialist.
To make matters worse, the elderly are not generally recruited to trial the drugs they will be prescribed and the effects of taking multiple drugs is not studied.
Clearly, it’s not in the intersts of the pharmaceutical industry to fund trials that might conclude that loading up the elderly on possibly contra-indicated drugs could be bad for them, or that weaning them off long-term use of many drugs might actually be beneficial and not make a condition worse.
Knowledge is power
By now, you have picked up that I favour a preventative approach to health in ageing but I do acknowledge that modern pharmacology is a useful tool in prolonging life in those who have developed ageing-related conditions. However, with the resources of the Net at everyone’s disposal it is time the patient empowered him or herself with information about the medicines doctors prescribe.
In a recent, and admittedly petty example, I took the trouble to research several of the ingredients in my “natural”, “Ayurvedic” herbal Indian toothpaste. I love it’s chalky, cleansing texture and myriad aromatic herbs, from Asian Holy Oak to Catechu. But Sodium Laurel Sarcosinate, Sodium Saccharin and Methyl Hydroxy Benzoate Sodium? Where do these scary-sounding ingredients fit into the “natural” spectrum?
It turns out SLS is a foaming agent frowned upon by some researchers and Saccharin is an artificial sweetner banned for decades in most Western countries due to studies linking it to cancer in rats. Nice. And MHBS? A toxic preservative also banned in many countries.
I’ve been dipping my “natural” toothpaste into soda bicarb for extra cleaning power and when the current tube runs out I’ll be using it exclusively to brush my teeth, maybe adding a few drops of peppermint oil.
I emailed the company in India asking them to reconcile their “natural” claims with the undesirable characteristics of these industrial ingredients but they chose not to reply.
My point is - do not trust companies with a profit motive to care for your health without empowering yourself with information first. In the case of medication I recommend you find a sympathetic doctor who will consider monitoring you as you withdraw from some or all of the medications you currently take.
At least until elements of the pharmaceutical/medical industry take a more analytical and sympathetic approach to prescribing drugs to the elderly. Currently it appears the use of some medications can only be likened to using a hammer to crack an egg.
Help from the human genome
Recent developments that marry human genomics to pharmaceutical prescription may improve or fix the problem.
The Australian Government is considering funding tests to target drugs at the right patients, reduce harmful side effects, and promote the saving of billions of dollars in the process.
Pharmacogenomics aims to use individualised tests for patient biomarkers to test effects of drugs on patients. Individuals respond differently to drugs. You either respond as predicted or you wind up in hospital with severe side effects.
Some drugs identified in the study are those prescribed to the elderly for colorectal cancer, anti-coagulant stroke prevention, cholesterol-lowering and anti-depression.
Let’s hope the elderly will be included in studies and trials this time.
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Sunday, June 15th, 2008
““With the ancient is wisdom; and in the length of days understanding”
Job 12;12
What Did the Pyramid-Builders Eat?
Monument-builders, empire-makers, and hard-working farmers: the energetic members of ancient Mediterranean civilizations were relentless in their achievements and their legacy is a diet we can harness today to slow the ageing process.
Historians, engineers and scientists argue passionately about how Egypt’s pyramids were built. These architectural marvels were built with copper tools, machinery unknown and a workforce of many thousands. What we do know today is that this workforce was not in slavery. The building of the pyramids was one of the city-dwelling world’s most enduring experiments in social engineering. It was a project of immense, energetic scale harnessing meticulous organization of building materials, work teams and food supplies.
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Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
“’Tis too much prov’d - that with devotion’s visage
And pious action, we do sugar o’er
The devil himself.“
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
I went shopping the other day, reading labels as I went, and hit a wall of frustration in the cereal section of the supermarket.
I couldn’t find any brand of muesli that did not have added sugar. Even the brand I had stuck to for years had been overtaken by a giant food conglomerate and had succumbed to the sugar avalanche that engulfs our lives.
I have since found a single brand that has no sugar but it’s too late for my allegiance. I have fallen off the commercial muesli wagon and now make my own. (See my recipe at the end.)
Why get one’s knickers in a twist about sugar? Isn’t most of what we eat broken down into sugar eventually?
Yes, it’s true that glucose fuels our cells after digestion and metabolism have converted much of our food into this ready supply of energy. However sugar is meant to be fed to our cells at the end of this process, not at the beginning. Especially not in the quantities a typical industrialised diet provides.
Next time you shop, go on the sugar alert. Read the labels of every processed food you buy and identify sugar in the ingredients list. It may be called fructose, glucose, dextrose, sucrose, or maltose. You’ll be surprised to find that every thing from peanut butter to the bread you spread it on has sugar added. The food industry is as hooked on it as we are.
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Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007
“For what utterance can be more pitiful than that of Milo of Crotona?
After he was already an old man and was watching the athletes training in the race-course, it is related that, as he looked upon his shrunken muscles, he wept and said:
“Yes, but they are now dead.”
Cicero (4BC-65AD), De Senectute 9.27
Poor Milo. If only he had continued his training regime, he might have enjoyed a more robust old age.Milo, called by ancient Greek geographer Strabo “the most illustrious of athletes” was a pretty amazing character who transcended both fact and fiction.
He first competed as a wrestler at the Olympic Games in 540BC where he won the boy’s division. He returned eight years later and commenced a winning streak that did not cease until his sixth Olympiad in 512BC. That’s five titles in a row, a feat unmatched by any modern Olympian. The Games were held, as now, at four year intervals so Milo must have been over 40 when he triumphed at the 67th Olympiad. That’s an astonishing achievement by today’s standards and almost unbelievable considering athletes of the ancient world had short careers and were rarely competitive past their prime.
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Monday, October 15th, 2007
“Alas! The bride had died in horrible agony, for no sooner had she put on Medea’s gifts than a devouring poison consumed her limbs as with fire…“
The messenger in Medea, a Greek tragedy by Euripides 431BC
In Greek mythology Medea was a sorceress infuriated at being replaced in her husband Jason’s affections. Yes, he of Golden Fleece fame. She gave his new bride a robe with special powers. That special power was instant death to the person who put it on.
Our modern world is awash with dangerous chemicals that, while not administering instant death, can accumulate in body tissues over time and cause premature ageing and eventual disease and death.
Prior to World War 2, insecticides were inorganic: based on naturally occurring mineral and plant sources like arsenic, copper, lead and pyrethrum derived from the chrysanthemum flower. Nicotine sulphate was derived from relatives of tobacco and rotenone from an Asian legume.
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Monday, September 24th, 2007
“Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack”
Henry Miller 1891-1980
All of us realize the importance of exercise to the maintenance of our bodies and to the prevention of ageing.
For what is ageing but the slowing of our body’s machinery as it loses efficiency and begins to seize up?
It’s relatively easy to ignore this process given the effortless ease with which our lives are lived. But every now and then we get a painful reminder that our bodies need regular exercise and without it we cannot perform required or desired tasks with pleasure and competence.
Maybe for you it is when you run around with your kids or grandchildren and find yourself breathless and exhausted very quickly. Perhaps it is when you are confronted with a flight of stairs and dread the task of climbing them.
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Monday, September 10th, 2007
“Keep true to the dreams of thy youth”
Herman Melville 1819-1891
A tiny clipping of the above quote was found glued to the inside of the desk on which the Moby Dick author wrote his final work. The unfinished draft of Billy Budd, Sailor sat atop it, and was dutifully packed away by his widow, to be rediscovered and published in 1924.
This discovery helped ensure Melville’s literary immortality; the adage he treasured helps us kindle the spark of our own youthful passions and in turn keeps us young.
How many of you know some amazing elderly person who defies ageing as they indulge in ballroom dancing, bushwalking or even marathon running, like the oldest finisher ever in the notoriously tough Hawaiian Iron Man?
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Saturday, September 1st, 2007
“Among the islands on the north side of Hispaniola…in which there is a continual spring of running water, of such marvellous virtue that the water thereof being drunk, perhaps with some diet, maketh old men young again.”
Pietro Martire d’Anghiera
1472-1528
Italian geographer and historian
(In a letter to Pope Leo X in 1513)
When Sylvester Stallone came to Australia recently to promote his movie “Rocky Balboa“, about an ageing ex-champ miraculously turning back the clock in the ring, he was detained by Customs due to the presence in his luggage of a large number of mysterious vials. He told the press it was a storm in a teacup and that the substance in the vials was harmless and something he had been taking for years to improve his health and appearance.
He certainly looked great for a man approaching 60.
When his lawyers were obliged to fly to Australia later to attend court, it was revealed that the mysterious elixir was human growth hormone, something his fellow aspirants to youth and good looks have been injecting for years, generating billions of dollars for the doctors who skate around US laws and attract the ire of the FDA as they prescribe it in staggering amounts.
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Saturday, August 25th, 2007
This autumn
Why am I aging so?
Flying towards the clouds, a bird.
Matsuo Basho, haiku poet
1644-1694
The world’s top longevity and health experts are flocking to Okinawa to interview 90-year olds who climb ladders to prune their fruit trees, follow 100-year olds who cycle kilometres to their vegetable gardens for long, laborious days that culminate in hauling heavy loads of produce to market, and to detail every aspect of life in this Shangri-la no longer hidden from the world.
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Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007
“Oh Sir! You are old;
Nature in you stands on the very verge
Of her confine.”
William Shakespeare (King Lear)
Dietary supplements: Age-slowing essentials or quackery?
Humanity has always looked to substances outside everyday foods for the enhancement of health and as bulwarks against the physical ravages of time.
Ancient Greek athletes reportedly consumed bull’s testicles in order to acquire the vigour of that powerful, spirited animal. Rome’s charioteers downed doses of boar dung in water to guard them against injury or death in the frequent spills that occurred in the circus maximus. Gladiators, brawny superstars of the arena, were given the ashes of burnt scorpions to pep them up.
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