This is a transcript of a Dr. Jay Show broadcast on 1560TheGame. Dr. J. Michael Bennett is a Board Certified Orthopedic Surgeon and a Fellowship Trained Sports Medicine Physician serving patients from Katy, Fort Bend County, Metro Houston and Southeast Texas from offices in Richmond and Sugar Land, TX. Call 281-633-8600 for an appointment.
This is the transcript of the fourth and last portion of the Show:
Anyway, we’ve got a caller here coming in today, this is John. John, welcome to the show, thanks for calling in. What can we do for you?
CALLER – Yeah, I’ve got a 2-year-old daughter that’s got a genetic muscle disorder and some of the studies show that supplements could help her build muscle tone and my question is, how young can you give supplements to children and is there a difference between supplements for children and adults?
BENNETT – That’s a great question, John. How old did you say she was again?
CALLER – She’s two years old and was diagnosed with mitochondrial disorder.
BENNETT – Okay, I think that the issue with supplements and kids fits in perfectly with our discussion about when to decide to use a supplement and when to think about not using a supplement. The first was if you are pregnant or breastfeeding, I mentioned that before. Another is if you are younger than 12 or older than 65. And that’s primarily because there are very few supplements that have been tested on children and safe doses are relatively unknown at this point. And I think it would be important with you in particular to deal with this with your physician hand in hand, and if you are seeing a specialist that deals with her type of condition, then he may be aware of certain types of supplements that work well with children. But across the board, generally speaking, there are very few studies regarding kids and so the dosages are very limited or unknown at this point.
So you’ve got to be very careful with supplements in regards to kids because the metabolic system is a little bit different, how they metabolize things is a little bit different and on the other extreme, the same thing goes for patients or people that are older than 65 because they metabolize things slower and they can have a build-up of these supplements or their by-products in their system and not know it and that can actually cause contraindications or problems with their other medications. So I think that is something to discuss with your physician and actually come up with a plan. You’ve got to really take into consideration the patient when you are considering these things. Everybody’s different and whether or not a supplement is good for you or bad for you you’ve got to take into account a number of different situations.
Like I mentioned, No. 1, if you’re pregnant or breastfeeding make sure you discuss this with your Ob-Gyn. Prenatal vitamins are pretty much across the board recommended from most Ob-Gyns from what I understand as well as folic acid these days which is pretty incredible how far we’ve come in determining that folic acid in itself can now prevent things like neural tube defects, which are nerve or spine issues at birth. The second reason to avoid supplements is if you’re having surgery because sometimes supplements can decrease the effectiveness of anesthesia. And the last thing you want to do is have something you are taking on the side effect your ability to be asleep during your procedures. You need to be careful with that. And it can also, like I mentioned before with the fish oils, cause thinning of the blood which can lead to bleeding or create high blood pressure.
I don’t know if you recall but when that whole ephedra thing happened, there were people having heart attacks and issues with their cardiac abnormalities and irregular heartbeats because that was a stimulant and once again it wasn’t really being monitored or regulated and people with pre-existing heart problems were taking it and that was leading to big problems.
I think that supplementation is an exciting area. I think there is a lot of new stuff that is coming out there, but I think that it hasn’t entirely been tapped out and I think that we don’t have as much data and information as we’d like to. But everyday something new is coming out, and every day you can open up a journal or a book and find out that there’s a study or a supplement that’s being incorporated in a study that actually makes a difference. Just the fact that I went out and had a book on supplements and alternative treatments published by the Mayo Clinic goes and shows that this is becoming more mainstream in regards to medicine.
Another big release that occurred in the last couple of weeks was this study that came out in the Journal of Radiation Research that was done between the University of Pittsburgh and NASA here in Texas as well as Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and a local company called Amerisciences. They created a study that looked at the effects of radiation on mice. They had three groups of mice and each group had a separate dietary intake. I believe the first group had a standard diet, the second group had like an FDA regulated diet, and the third group had a high anti-oxidant chemo-preventative diet that was high in these things that we talked about like the kale and the berries and there’s another fruit that’s called cupawasue that’s actually very high in anti-oxidants as well. And so these three groups of mice were tested and they were exposed to lethal doses of radiation. So they followed these mice to see what the mortality was and actually the first group of mice, I believe, just didn’t survive very long. I think it was probably a day or so. I think the second group on the FDA diet actually survived a few weeks and the third group actually survived 240 days. And this was a big deal. It actually was on FOX News the other day and NBC is going to be talking about it as well.
I know they are actually doing some human trials now with the same type of diet and the same type of supplementation and I think it’s going to be exciting to see what those results are. Speaking to a couple of the doctors that are involved with this, they say it is very encouraging. So I think that the future of medicine is really going to take into consideration the treatment of the patient as a holistic aspect. I mean you’re not just looking at an elbow or a wrist or a knee, you’re going to start looking more into, “okay, you’ve got some arthritis in your knee, why do you have some arthritis? What kind of inflammatory issues do you have going on? What’s your diet? What’s your nutrition? Are you taking care of yourself? Are you getting enough exercise? Are you practicing preventative medicine?”
I mean even the government is getting involved with that. This was exciting research that just came out in the last couple of weeks and it’s Houston grown. These guys – Amerisciences – are located here in Houston and NASA of course, and Baylor, and the University of Pittsburgh … this is a valid study and this is the type of information that you need when you’re making your decision on what to take.
Because there’s a lot of snake oil out there. There’s a lot of people out there peddling stuff saying, “Hey this is what works, take this.” And all you have to say is, “What’s your data?” Or ask them, “What is the absorption rate on your supplement?” Is it 95 percent or 75 percent? If they don’t have a clue, then move on. You’re not getting a good deal there, okay? So these are the things that you’ve got to take into consideration when you’re buying these products.
If you’d like to review your supplements or you’d like to discuss the supplements you’re using with Dr. Bennett, please call his office at 281-633-8600 for an appointment.
