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
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| Dietary supplements (Photo credit: Andrei Z) |
Physician serving patients from Katy, Fort Bend County, Metro Houston and Southeast Texas from offices in Houston and Sugar Land, TX. Call 281-633-8600 for an appointment.
Good morning Houston, this is Dr. J. Michael Bennett coming at you live from 1560 the Game. Thanks for tuning in to Saturdays with Dr. Jay. We’re going to get into a few things here regarding your health, wellness and sports medicine aspects. Just to give you a little bit of background on the show, I am an orthopedic surgeon, board certified, and I am also fellowship trained in sports medicine. I also have a Certificate of Added Qualification in sports medicine. I practice in the Greater Houston Area, out in Sugar Land, Texas, and, I’m with the Fondren Orthopedic Group.
The idea of the show is basically to inform you guys and to clarify any misunderstandings, misconceptions or myths regarding sports medicine and wellness and to really make you an informed consumer because patients really should approach medicine as a product, and research their physicians and research their procedures at least as much as they would when buying a new car or a stereo or anything like that. You’ve got to really do your due diligence regarding this because it is your health and that’s your future and you want to maximize your return on the investment. But you always have options and the idea of this show is to make sure you are educated and you have a little bit of an idea of what those options are.
So anyway, reviewing the last show, if you guys didn’t tune in, we had Dr. Terence Chang on from the Physicians of Sugar Creek and he was talking to us about heat exhaustion and heat stroke. That was a very good show and we’ll probably bring him back again and have him discuss a few other medical issues with us. But today we’re going to talk about more of the wellness aspects of the show as opposed to the orthopedic aspects and this is, I think, becoming more and more prevalent amongst my patient population because every time I go and see a patient, I check their medication list and I look at what type of supplements they take and I would say that about 98 percent of the time each patient is taking some sort of supplement whether it’s a multivitamin, a fish oil, glucosamine, or whatever. And I get a lot of questions regarding these supplements and their efficacy and what exactly they do or how they work or where to get one and so this show is going to be primarily dedicated to giving you some information regarding supplementation.
Most of this information is actually coming from the Mayo Clinic; they recently published a breakdown of alternative treatments and supplementation and I’m going to be
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| Colon Cleanse Dietary Supplement (Photo credit: SpecialKRB) |
referring to that quite a bit during the show. It’s interesting to see how things have changed over the past few years, ever since I came out of med school. I remember taking a specific class on alternative medicine and at that time, supplementation, acupuncture, manipulations – things like that – were almost taboo, and nobody talked about them as being a really traditional way to treat patients. But I think nowadays you’re seeing a shift in the paradigm of medicine. You’re seeing a combination between your traditional medicine treatment and modalities as well as incorporating some of these alternative treatments. And you’re seeing more and more physicians incorporating these options in their offices so I think it’s even more important that you understand a little bit more about it.
We’re really just hitting the tip of the iceberg by talking about supplementation today, but I really encourage you guys to call in. Our number over here is 713-439-1560. I also want to give a quick shout out to the Texas Sports Medicine Institute for sponsoring the show, and, I do have information on my website as well – www.jmichaelbennet.com – regarding supplementation and where to find the particular supplementation that I use.
But anyway, starting off with supplementation, really the definition of supplements is the dietary intake of herbs, vitamins and minerals and since 1994, when the Congress passed the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, there’s been just a huge explosion in supplement sales, now exceeding $20 billion dollars annually. I mean $20 billion dollars – that’s a lot of money! It’s crazy when you think about that. It’s a huge market, and this Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act really just defined what a supplement is and put the responsibility of insuring the supplement’s safety on the manufacturer. The differences between a supplement and a medication is that a medication has to go through stringent testing and has to follow FDA guidelines and that can take years to do.
A supplement can really go straight from the manufacturer to the shelves and there is no regulation, no standardization out there regarding them so that ends up being a big problem. It’s great for the manufacturers because they can have a great idea, come up with a supplement and put it out in the market but it, unfortunately, makes it tough for the consumers because you don’t know what you’re getting and you don’t know what the quality is and you don’t know much of that is absorbed and you don’t know if it’s actually going to cause an issue with your current medication. So you’ve got to be very careful and like I said you’ve got to do your due diligence regarding the supplementation. You’ve got to put your time and effort into researching that supplement and making sure that this is the kind of supplement you want to use. So we’ll go over some of the things you want to look for when you’re buying a supplement.
The big misperception out there is that since supplements are natural, they’re good for you. And there’s the concept that if a little is good for you, then a lot must be great. It’s kind of like eating a Snackwell’s. You have one Snackwell’s and there’s a certain amount of calories with that and it’s probably not going to hurt you too much, but when you eat the box of Snackwell’s, that becomes a problem. Same thing with supplements except supplements can actually be borderline dangerous when you go into mega doses of vitamins and you can actually cause some serious problems. So you always have to be very careful with the amount you’re taking and make sure you’re doing your due diligence.
When used in conjunction with modern medicine, and in good health, supplements can be helpful. But you’ve got to make sure you understand that it is a supplement; they’re supposed to be supplemental to your nutritious diet, rest, and exercise. They’re not supposed to be like a magic bullet, the one thing someone can take in the morning and boom, lose 10 pounds or get ripped. It doesn’t take the place of good nutritious diet, rest and exercise and these things are the key. Supplements supplement. So you want to make sure that you’re not out there trying to replace your diet and exercise with a supplement. And if there are ever any questions regarding the supplementation and the efficacy, you’ve got to make sure you run it by your physician. Always keep us in the loop so we know what’s going on.
What I really want to get into first is the questions you should ask yourself anytime when considering a supplement or really anytime you buy a product over the counter.
No. 1. Does the product promise rapid improvement in health and performance? I think that’s a big red flag. I mean, anything that says, “take this pill once a day and tomorrow you’re going to wake up and you’re going to lose 10 pounds” or, says something about you seeing “immediate effects” needs to be approached with caution. There are few things out there that can cause quick results and those are usually stimulants. And that changes your mood or activity level and that might be one thing. But, you know, when you’re looking at a change in your body habitus or anything like that, that’s a totally different can of worms. So you’ve got to be careful about that.
No. 2. Does it seem to be too good to be true? Ask yourself that. If it really does seem that way, well it may not be.
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Herbal supplements (Photo credit: anolobb) |
No. 3. Are the results evidence based? Insurance companies and a lot of the medical societies are really pushing more towards evidence-based medicine and that’s the basics behind the standard of care, which is the algorithm or the treatment outline that we use or incorporate when we’re treating a patient. So I’m not going to go out on a limb to do some random procedure that has no track record and has no evidence that shows that that procedure does any good. The same thing can be applied to any kind of supplementation or any type of medication that you’re taking so you want to make sure that it is evidence based and that there are studies out there that show that it is evidence based.
No. 4. Is the supplement pharmaceutical grade? When I saw pharmaceutical grade that is actually a standardization regarding supplementation, and I believe it’s when greater
than 75 percent of that supplement is absorbed. So if it’s pharmaceutical grade it’s a good thing and so you look for that; you’re buying the supplement, make sure it’s pharmaceutical grade because that means you’re getting the best absorption possible. Unfortunately, a lot of supplements out there don’t state anything about this. You think you’re getting this supplement and you’re paying whatever amount of money for it and you’re popping those pills every day and you’re not noticing any decrease in your joint pain or you’re not noticing any improvement in your mood or your activity status and that could be the fact that you’re excreting the majority of that supplement out of your system; you’re not keeping it. So you want to make sure you get a supplement that’s at least 75 percent absorbed.
No. 5. Does the manufacturer follow any kind of guidelines? And that’s going back to that FDA thing that I mentioned before. The majority of supplements out there follow no guidelines. Some of these companies basically create a supplement or product, put it on the market, and that’s it. Nowadays you’re actually seeing more and more start to fall in line and create standards that are consistent with the FDA guidelines even though they are not required to follow the FDA guidelines. So that actually makes a big difference in my book in regards to picking a supplement. You want to have somebody that’s following some sort of standardization because otherwise, you don’t know what’s going on, nobody’s really looking out for your best interest, you don’t know what you’re getting.
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.
