12/21/05 NEWSLETTER carlstonmd.com
Dear Patients HOME

Happy Holidays to you and your loved ones! The office will be closed Friday December 23 until Friday December 30.

I have been finding a huge amount of interesting information to share with you. That creates editing problems for me, figuring out what will be most useful to you. From your feedback, it seems that I am pretty good at hitting the target, so goes the latest attempt.

Best, Michael Carlston, M.D.
www.carlstonmd.com 
707-545-1554
In This Issue: INDEX
  • VITAMIN C AND COLD PREVENTION
  • WEIGHT LOSS AND SLEEP
  • PHARMACEUTICAL DISHONESTY
  • COLIC AND MOTHER'S DIET
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    VITAMIN C AND COLD PREVENTION TOP

    Quite possibly the most important figure who led medical science out of nutritional darkness was the world’s only two-time Nobel Prize winner, Linus Pauling. His Nobel Prizes were for chemistry and peace. Some have argued that he should have also received another for his work on the DNA double helix. His nutritional opinions were often controversial, but invariably supported by sound theory. Those who know little about him still recognize the name (“He’s the vitamin C guy, right?”)

    Research on vitamin C has been controversial all the way back to the initially scorned discovery that scurvy was caused by a deficiency of C. Pauling believed that humans would be healthier if we consumed doses of vitamin well in excess of the amount needed to prevent disease. The issue most frequently studied has been using vitamin C to prevent colds.

    Those who have not studied the research well often falsely believe that Pauling’s theory was disproven. That is not the case. The most recent study supporting Pauling took place over a five-year period. Investigators compared the customarily recommended dose of vitamin C - 50 mg/day with 500 mg/day. They found that subjects taking the larger dose experienced fewer colds. The colds they did have lasted as long, and the symptoms were as severe, they just had significantly less of them.
    WEIGHT LOSS AND SLEEP TOP

    Among the surprising factors associated with gaining weight, sleep may be the most confusing to many. The linkage is clear. Understanding how has been harder to nail down. Those of you who watch late night TV or cable probably know this is a consequence of stress. Well, maybe there is some truth in that but probably not.

    Another hormonal explanation (actually bi-hormonal), has taken a big lead in the sleep-helps-you-lose-weight-explanation sweepstakes. Leptin is a hormone that makes you lose your appetite. Grehlin is another hormone, but it makes you want to eat more.

    Researchers took 12 healthy young men, had them establish a healthy 8-hour sleep pattern, and then changed it. When they cut their sleep back to 4 hours a nigh,t leptin dropped by 18% and grehlin rose by 28%. The ratio between these hormones shifted by 135%. That is big. Also, they found that the sleep deprived subjects craved sweets, starches and salty food. Sleep amount did not alter desire for protein sources.
    PHARMACEUTICAL DISHONESTY TOP
    Although many people have long suspected drug companies of all sorts of nastiness, I’ve usually considered them more misguided than malevolent. I am losing my naiveté.

    For a very long time Merck was placed on a pedestal as an example not merely of a good pharmaceutical company, but as a beacon of corporate responsibility. Now we have Vioxx. Merck’s program of suppressing findings about the danger of Vioxx recently came to light.

    Merck’s scientists published a study in one of the two most important medical journals in the U.S. (New England Journal of Medicine). When they received information that three patients in the study suffered heart attacks, they hid this information. If these data were included, instead of looking as “safe” as naproxen (about which there are also growing questions about heart attack and stroke risk), Vioxx would appear to be four times as risky.

    COLIC AND MOTHER'S DIET

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    Parents, particularly first-timers, experience a great deal of stress. If the new child has colic it can become a bit of a nightmare. There are all sorts of interventions people try, seeking relief. Many of those involve dietary change.

    Researchers in England conducted a randomized trial investigating whether eliminating many common allergens (wheat, soy, cow’s milk, nuts, peanuts, eggs and fish) is likely to be helpful in infants under 6 weeks of age. It was.

    I have some reservations about the study. First is my experience that many infants (maybe even the majority?) with colic often don’t start until 6 weeks of age. The second is the lack of a sound placebo group. If parents believe something positive is being done, that should change the dynamics in the household and could help the infant.
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