Balanced meals=Balanced weight?

How you combine the foods at your meals affects how quickly that food passes through the stomach and how quickly and dramatically the blood sugar rises. If your meal is primarily carbohydrate, the stomach empties in 1-1.5 hours and the blood sugar shoots very high very quickly. If you add protein to your carbohydrate, you meal hangs around the stomach for about 2.5 hours and the blood sugar response is slower and not quite as high. Adding fat (focus on quality fat--olives or olive oil, fish or fish oil, avocados and nuts) to your meal provides for the meal to retain in the stomach for up to 4 hours (hence less hunger) and blood sugar response is much slower and lower.

The down side to controlling hunger and keeping our insulin response to meals in control by balancing our meals with carbohydrates, protein and quality fats... can't think of one.

I'm Still Hot...It Just Comes in Flashes!

We're having a repeat of our seminar to help women understand hormone changes; how stress and nutrition and hormone supplementation can help with these changes. If you're "hotter" than you want to be, give us a call (358-4576). We'll add you to our list for the September 28 7PM seminar here at the pharmacy.

Pharmacist of the Month

Did I forget to brag? No, I couldn't have.

In July, Professional Compounding Centers of America named me Pharmacist of the month. The very best part of this recognition by some of my most respected peers, is that I get to go to one of their seminars FREE. We have a love/hate relationship with PCCA seminars. I love them and my staff and family hate them. I come back so rejuvenated--so excited about the new things that I've learned to help us all. I guess I become a little annoying to those closest to me.

I also love giving seminars; sharing the knowledge that I receive. Contact the store for information about our next BHRT seminar. One patient came in for her refill this week and said "I'm back to being me! I'm better during the day, because I'm sleeping at night. Not just sleeping, but I'm dreaming again!" I love success stories.

Who's Worried About the Flu?

I'm going to:
Eliminate sugar and processed foods from mydiet. (Sugar consumption has an immediate, debilitating effect on your immune system.)
Take a pharmaceutical grade source of omega 3 (fish oil)
Exercise (My immune system needs good circulation in order to perform at its best for me.)
Optimize my Vitamin D levels. (Vitamin D deficiency is a likely cause of seasonal flu viruses. Getting an optimal level of vitamin D will help me fight infections of all kinds.)
Get plenty of good quality sleep (Sleep in a dark room; remove hazards between me and the bathroom for middle of the night trek so I won't have to turn the light on.)
Deal with stress effectively. (If I feel overwhelmed by stress, my body will not have the reserves it needs to fight infection.)
Wash my hands. (duh)
These steps give me confidence that, should the flu strike, I will be at my best to prevent a serious illness.

We'll see...

The Future of Hospice?

We've had some inspirational hospice stories in the last couple of weeks and one heartbreaker involving some unpleasant family dynamics. All in all, I can say "I love hospice."

I remember the day we admitted my mom to Hospice Care of the Southwest's program. A weight lifted off my shoulders that day, simply because I had a team of professionals helping me make decisions about Mom's care. She was in their program for a little over 5 months. She greeted her maker in comfort, fresh, clean and perfumed thanks to her hospice aide. Since "cleanliness is next to Godliness" that was important to her and therefore to me.

I would recommend hospice care to any and all especially since revealing data has surfaced. A study by Duke University discussed the efficency, cost effectiveness and the fact that hospice patients live an average of 30 days longer than non-hospice patients. That's no surprise to me since I saw first hand how quickly a hospice team can respond to a change in a patient's condition and turn a possible life threatening condition around. For more information about the Duke University study see hospice http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/2007/11/hospice.html

I sure hope all the "experts" in Washington who are deciding the future of our healthcare keep these things in mind. Hospice care, like independent pharmacies are good for our country and cost effective too.

Human Interest

Mother Teresa said "What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway”. I have a great admiration for people with initiative, those with a vision. I would like to bring to your attention a couple sets of visionaries. My daughter Ginny and son-in-law BJ have a good friend, Zac, a good man who has become afflicted with cancer. My response and that of many is to pray and wring your hands and wish there was something more I could do. I’m proud to share that BJ and some of his friends have taken their concerns a step further and set up a web site and a fundraising event to help defray some of Zac’s immediate financial needs. While I was resting from a hard days work or puttering in the garden, BJ was working numerous hours (along with his wife and friends) on the Flat Zac Classic and training for said event. Check out their efforts at FlatZacClassic.org.

Another immediate financial medical need is for young Kashton, an 11 year old special needs child here in Amarillo. Kashton’s parents and family members are another set of “go-getters”. They, through word of mouth, sold Kashton’s Krew T-shirts to raise money to rent the Amarillo Drag Way. Well, because I’d do just about anything for Kashton and his parents, I bought us a set of T-shirts, and we spent Friday night at the “drags”. From what I hear it was the biggest night at the drags since the hey day of the 70’s and a huge success for a family who refuses to sit around and wring their hands.

Mother Teresa would be so proud & I’ve advanced from wringing my hands to clapping them for these events.

Vitamin D's for Me!

Some may be interested in the progress in recent years regarding the role of Vitamin D in prevention of cancer and other diseases. I got a lot of information about Vitamin D at www.grassrootshealth.net. This is also the site that is doing a study to determine how much Vitamin D supplementation it takes to raise levels to optimal and to study the health effects. Testing required 2 drops of blood and $40; oh yeah, and lengthy health and sun evaluation. They want to test you every 6 months for 5 years. My husband and I signed up. I figured we were 2 opposite extremes, he frames houses in the sun all day long and I rarely see the light of day. He never supplements and I take 5000iu of a pharmaceutical grade quality daily. We'll see whose levels are optimal.

Many disease processes may be affected by Vitamin D insufficiency. Some of those are TB, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, type 1 diabetes, high blood pressure, increased heart failure, muscle myopathy and cancer including colon and breast cancer. It is projected that the incidence of some of these diseases could be reduced by 20% to 50% or even more. Of course Vitamin D has been well documented to reduce osteoporosis risk.

Another interesting fact this site noted was that the darker the skin, the greater the probability of a vitamin D deficiency. Also that even in southern Arizona, 55% of African Americans and 22% of Caucasians are deficient.

Like I said-you couldn't keep me from taking a supplement that; along with my great multi-vitamin and fish oil, could affect my quality of life so much.