![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutThere were a couple of really big, randomized studies published in Lancet recently. One showed that Lovaza (think: fish oil, only seriously cranked up) reduced overall death rates in men with cardiac disease. The other showed that Crestor did not. And, might I add, why exactly would you be taking Crestor if the goal wasn't reduced overall death rate, but hey, why go there. Maybe you work for the Alabama state government and are trying to save $25/month on health insurance (altho then I'd have to ask what your copay was looking like).
What's so special about Lovaza? Well, each capsule is kinda like 1-3+ teaspoons of cod liver oil. Assuming you bought reputable cod liver (or fish) oil, you aren't too concerned about mercury and other heavy metals anyway because they were removed. It would _appear_ to be the case that Lovaza has left the vitamin A in place (but don't hold me to that; I haven't been able to figure that out yet), and I do have to wonder about whether that's part of what they're worried about when they say you need to have your liver function monitored while on Lovaza.
Digging around a bit, I was trying to understand the whole anticoagulant issue. It seems that Lovaza really amps your platelets up, which is going to have an impact on the efficacy of aspirin/coumadin/warfarin/etc. as an anti-clotting agent. Which you might care about if you're taking that to prevent a stroke, DVT, whatever. (ETA: I think I have exactly misunderstood the concern. Apparently some fish oil preparations amp the blood thinning. I am now very confused.)
ETA2: Someone went digging for any actual evidence of clinically interesting bleeding associated with supplementing omega 3s and/or fish oil. What he found? Meh.
http://newsletter.vitalchoice.com/e_article001131583.cfm?x=b11,0,w
Still, I don't see why there was an accompanying editorial telling people not to take just any fish oil supplement, after all, this one is Special and FDA-approved and etc. Asking them to inform their health care practitioner makes sense (after all, a bunch of those same issues would seem to apply to any fish oil supplementation).
I am kinda wondering if this is why my midwife was surprised at how good my platelet count was looking in the third trimester blood draw (after all, it's pretty normal through dilution to be somewhat anemic at this point, among other things). I did _tell_ them I was supplementing fish oil. I'm not sure any of us realized it might have this effect. Then again, Odent keeps going on and on about sea-food and fish oil and fatty acids while in the same breath (or at least the next paragraph) talking about how it is physiologically normal/correct/good to have lower hematocrit/platelet count/anemia/wtf late in pregnancy. *shrug*
ETA4: Oh, never mind. No connection that I can determine.
At this point, between the magnesium revelations and the fatty acids, I'm just about ready to roll off the couch laughing. Hoocoodanode? Cod liver oil and milk of magnesia. What next from the medicine cabinet of the late 19th/early 20th century? Calamine lotion? Kaolin?
As long as we can avoid all the purgatives, I'm willing to entertain just about anything at this point.
What's so special about Lovaza? Well, each capsule is kinda like 1-3+ teaspoons of cod liver oil. Assuming you bought reputable cod liver (or fish) oil, you aren't too concerned about mercury and other heavy metals anyway because they were removed. It would _appear_ to be the case that Lovaza has left the vitamin A in place (but don't hold me to that; I haven't been able to figure that out yet), and I do have to wonder about whether that's part of what they're worried about when they say you need to have your liver function monitored while on Lovaza.
Digging around a bit, I was trying to understand the whole anticoagulant issue. It seems that Lovaza really amps your platelets up, which is going to have an impact on the efficacy of aspirin/coumadin/warfarin/etc. as an anti-clotting agent. Which you might care about if you're taking that to prevent a stroke, DVT, whatever. (ETA: I think I have exactly misunderstood the concern. Apparently some fish oil preparations amp the blood thinning. I am now very confused.)
ETA2: Someone went digging for any actual evidence of clinically interesting bleeding associated with supplementing omega 3s and/or fish oil. What he found? Meh.
http://newsletter.vitalchoice.com/e_article001131583.cfm?x=b11,0,w
Still, I don't see why there was an accompanying editorial telling people not to take just any fish oil supplement, after all, this one is Special and FDA-approved and etc. Asking them to inform their health care practitioner makes sense (after all, a bunch of those same issues would seem to apply to any fish oil supplementation).
I am kinda wondering if this is why my midwife was surprised at how good my platelet count was looking in the third trimester blood draw (after all, it's pretty normal through dilution to be somewhat anemic at this point, among other things). I did _tell_ them I was supplementing fish oil. I'm not sure any of us realized it might have this effect. Then again, Odent keeps going on and on about sea-food and fish oil and fatty acids while in the same breath (or at least the next paragraph) talking about how it is physiologically normal/correct/good to have lower hematocrit/platelet count/anemia/wtf late in pregnancy. *shrug*
ETA4: Oh, never mind. No connection that I can determine.
At this point, between the magnesium revelations and the fatty acids, I'm just about ready to roll off the couch laughing. Hoocoodanode? Cod liver oil and milk of magnesia. What next from the medicine cabinet of the late 19th/early 20th century? Calamine lotion? Kaolin?
As long as we can avoid all the purgatives, I'm willing to entertain just about anything at this point.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-09-02 03:20 pm (UTC)Kaopectate used to have kaolin in when I was little (named after kaolin and pectin): I don't know whether it still does.
The only thing that makes me feel really friendly towards homeopathy is remembering how many lives it must have saved back when preparations of mercury were the typical other choices (and there were a lot fewer palliative measures, too). I would like to think that we have a little better sense now. I seem to recall reading that some of those mercury preparations actually worked to some extent. Germs don't like heavy metal poisoning any more than anybody else does. But it was probably kind of like being on chemo or something. They were still selling mercuric oxide for styes (stys? I forget) not that long ago, maybe still are.
Maybe we'll get back to the "milk of one cow" thing: in the raw milk days, people used to say that if you could get milk that hadn't been mingled with a lot of other cows' milk, it was likely cleaner (which makes perfect sense: that much less chance for a diseased or insanitary cow to be involved, and probably that much less chance of spoilage as well, assuming you lived near the cow).
That reminds me (I may have told you this story), I have a hilarious letter somewhere from a Victorian lady trying to run a small boarding school (very small, like five or fewer students -- at that point she had two, I think): she had just gotten a goat and was expecting its milk to do for the household. No wonder she couldn't get many students if she expected them to have goat's milk in their tea without complaint.
My niece was born on Labor Day, by the way. In fact it must have been her birthday yesterday (you can see we aren't much of a family for cards and such).