Did you know that many common pharmaceuticals can deplete nutrients from the body? Some side effects that can occur with certain medications stem directly from their effects on our nutrient status.

According to the Drug-Induced Nutrient Depletion Handbook—an evidence-based reference book written by pharmacists trained in clinical nutrition—drugs can cause these depletions by altering the absorption, synthesis, storage, and excretion of various nutrients.

Many people already know about certain cholesterol medications depleting the critical antioxidant CoQ10. In fact, numerous patients who take these medications have been instructed to take CoQ10 by their cardiologist because the heart, brain, and muscles tend to struggle when the body is depleted.

What’s less commonly known, however, is that CoQ10 is also depleted by blood pressure medications, blood thinners, diuretics, diabetes drugs, antibiotics, antivirals, and even acid blockers.

Here are some other common medications and the nutrients they can deplete.

• Lisinopril: Zinc, Magnesium, and Calcium
• Carvedilol: CoQ10, Melatonin
• Levothyroxine: Iron, Calcium
• Amlodipine: Melatonin, Potassium, Vitamin D, Calcium
• Metformin: CoQ10, Folate, B6, B12
• Hydrochlorothiazide: CoQ10, Magnesium, Phosphorous, Potassium, Sodium, Zinc, B1, B2, B3, B6, Vitamin C, Folate
• Birth Control (estrogens and medroxyprogesterone): Magnesium, B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, Vitamin C, Zinc, Folate, Selenium
• Fluoxetine: Folate, Iodine, Selenium, Melatonin
• Sertraline: Folate, Selenium
• Aspirin: Folate, Iron, Potassium, Sodium, Vitamin C, Calcium, B6

Take a look at all the medications you are currently taking, and make a list of which nutrients are being depleted by each one. In some cases, patients may have several drugs depleting the same nutrient. Look through your list for double, triple, or even quadruple depletions and focus on those first. Bring your list into Peoples when shopping and ask to speak with a pharmacist–they’ll help you figure out which nutrients need to be tended to first and how to do so.

If CoQ10 is at the top of your depletion inventory, which is very common, ask a Peoples Wellness Specialist to recommend a high potency, high bioavailability CoQ10. There are many to choose from at Peoples and they’ll help you make the right decision for you.

If you’re interested in figuring out which of these nutrients you may want to supplement with, you might want to book a consultation with one of our practitioners. When supplementing, it’s best to work directly with a professional in order to ensure that everything is being done safely and taken in the right form and dose in order to best support your health.
 
Matt Dorsey, BSc, MAcOM, LAc is an integrative medicine consultant, licensed acupuncturist, and doctoral candidate who draws from his studies in East Asian Medicine, Acupuncture, Medical Herbology, Clinical Nutrition, Psychology, and Pharmacology to help his patients regain their health in the most well-rounded way possible. Some of his specializations include autoimmune disease, depression, anxiety, chronic pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, cardiovascular disease, and mitochondrial optimization. For more from Matt on drug-induced nutrient depletions, check out www.NutrientDepletions.com. You can also hear Matt talk about nutrient depletions on the Cultivate Wellness Podcast.
 
 
Sources:
1. “Drug-Induced Nutrient Depletion Handbook” by Ross Pelton, RPh, PhD, CCN, James B. LaValle, RPh, DHM, NMD, CCN, Ernest B. Hawkins, RPh, MS, and Daniel L. Krinsky, RPh, MS.
2. “Drug Muggers” By Suzy Cohen, RPh
 
If you have comments and/or questions about this blog, email us at blog@peoplesrx.com.

After the rush of the holidays and indulgent foods, let’s take some time to rest, digest, and zoom in on a category of herbs called Bitters or Digestive Bitters. You may have heard of a few famous brands of bitters that are used as a flavorful addition to cocktails, but before the cocktail, these bitters were marketed for medicinal purposes.

The use of bitters can be traced back 2,000 years when wine was infused with roots, barks, and spices, and used as a digestive aid. Our modern diet is lacking in the bitter flavor, so it’s important to add it back in, whether by taking a tincture of bitters before every meal or incorporating more dandelion greens and arugula to our salads.

Bitters are herbs and foods that literally taste bitter, and they work best when you are able to taste them. Our tongues are loaded with bitter receptors! When these receptors are signaled by the taste of something bitter, the salivary glands, stomach, pancreas, and liver are encouraged to produce digestive juices and enzymes. They set the stage for digestion, and adequate digestion is essential in providing the body with what it needs to function well. Bitters can also benefit liver function, help in lowering blood sugar, stimulate appetite, and curb sweet cravings.

Some of the most common plants you’ll find in a bitter formula are Dandelion leaf and root, Gentian root, Angelica root, Yellow Dock root, Artichoke leaf, and Burdock root. Citrus peel is also commonly seen in many bitter blends.

These herbs have varying properties, but they all have one thing in common–they are bitter to taste and stimulate the digestive fire. In many bitters products, you’ll also find familiar spices such as fennel, cardamom, and star anise. These are all warming to offset the cooling nature of the bitter herbs. They are known as carminatives, which can help dispel gas and reduce bloating.

You’ll find various bitters at all Peoples Rx locations. A favorite brand of mine is Urban Moonshine–they have a variety of flavors and a convenient spray that is easy to carry around. They also offer a vinegar extract for those who prefer not to take alcohol.

Another fun way to take bitters is to add them to mocktails! A splash of citrus bitters in sparkling water with some elderberry syrup or Dr. Mitchell’s fruit anthocyanins, and voilà! Delicious!

If you’re looking for a new wellness habit to start, try incorporating bitters into your daily routine. Your digestive tract will thank you!
 
Laurène Elliott-Deyris is an Herbalist and Wellness Specialist at Peoples. She received her training at The Wildflower School of Botanical Medicine in Austin and is furthering her clinical studies with the Eclectic School of Herbal Medicine program out of North Carolina.

**This article is not intended to be medical advice. Please consult your healthcare practitioner before use.**

If you have comments and/or questions about this blog, email us at blog@peoplesrx.com

One of the most rewarding aspects of my nutrition and lifestyle counseling practice is making recommendations that trigger mental, emotional, and spiritual shifts of perspective. Something as simple as visiting a weekly farmers’ market can create a new awareness of food, community, and health. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, my prescription this month might be just as enlightening, albeit a bit risqué: get naughty!

Research has shown a clear link between loving, intimate relationships and better health, including lower blood pressure, higher oxytocin levels (the “bonding hormone”), lower risk of cardiovascular disease, higher levels of immunoglobulin A, better longevity, and greater ability to fight cancer. Of course, a healthy relationship is more than just physical. But the trust, communication, and bonding that characterize a loving relationship is invigorated by a healthy dose of romantic encounters.

If your sex life needs a boost, you might find some medicinal help from several herbs and nutrients that heighten libido and support healthy reproductive function. The male energizing tonic Red Rooster is a natural sensual enhancer with Chinese herbs known to improve energy, libido, sexual performance, stress handling, and focus. Gaia Herbs makes Male Libido and Female Libido, products which include similar herbs plus tribulus (often used to support arousal, erectile dysfunction, and low sperm count in men as well as PCOS and infertility in women), and maca (a Peruvian plant used for male and female hormone imbalances, ED, sexual desire, stress handling, and even immune support). And don’t forget to set the mood for love with the best aphrodisiac of all–the delectable chocolate covered, local, organic strawberries from Peoples Deli!

This Valentine’s Day, take the time to reflect on and nurture your relationship. If you are not in a relationship, don’t fret over Valentine’s Day. Love and nurture yourself and the warm and loving relationships you have in your life, even if not the romantic sort. That said, please don’t ignore your heart’s yearning for love.

My dear friend, local dating expert/coach and TED speaker, Crista Beck says, “You absolutely need to make time for love. In our culture, it’s too easy to get caught up in being busy. When you make love a priority, not only will you have the benefit of a happy companionship, but you improve your health!”

If you are unsure how to manifest love in your life, consider consulting with a dating coach as a part of your self-care plan. You might just live longer!

Allison Horan, MPH, is a nutritionist and health educator. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Texas at Houston. In 2012 she founded Innovate Corporate Wellness, a workplace wellness company that uses a preventive health approach to develop strategic wellness programs for businesses and organizations. Allison has contributed to published research in the field of worksite health promotion and has also lectured at state and private organizations as a part of ongoing wellness initiatives. She is certified in Applied Clinical Nutrition, Ayurveda, and Yoga, and has taught yoga and mindfulness for over 10 years. She is available for private nutritional and lifestyle counseling through Peoples Rx. Call 512-219-8600 to schedule an appointment with Allison.
 
 
If you have comments and/or questions about this blog, email us at blog@peoplesrx.com.

With February officially serving as Heart Health Month, we turn to Naturopathic Doctor* Julia Strickler for the rundown on little-known heart facts and tips on how to best care for your heart and overall cardiovascular system. The good news is that the best foods and activities for your heart may also be the most delicious and enjoyable, as well!
 

Facts about your heart

On average, your heart beats about 100,000 times per day. Over the course of an average human lifespan, the heart will beat more than 2.5 billion times.

A healthy resting heart rate is between 60-100 beats per minute for an adult. Athletes often have slower heart rates, while children typically have faster average heart rates.

A healthy adult heart is about the size of your two fists. Located in the center of your chest between your lungs, your heart pumps blood through over 60,000 miles of blood vessels and capillary beds.

The majority of heart attacks occur on Monday mornings. The theory: Stress. Watch this TED Talk to learn how to make stress your friend.

Heart disease is the #1 killer in the U.S., with about 610,000 people dying of heart disease every year. 1 in every 4 deaths is a result of heart disease.
 

Natural ways to support heart health

An-apple-a-day may prove to be just as beneficial as a low-dose statin when looking at preventing vascular death in people over 50 years old. A study in the British Medical Journal revealed that consuming an apple a day helped to reduce vascular deaths almost as much as statin drugs with virtually no side effects. Apples are not a replacement for current medications, but this is promising research.

Move more, sit less. Looking at data from the California Men’s Health Study, over the course of 8 years, the men who were most sedentary outside of work and overall were more likely to develop heart failure, regardless of their level of exercise. The more you can stand or walk during the day, the better your cardiovascular profile. There are even desks that cater to standing work-stations to reduce the number of sitting hours per day for office workers.

Fat feeds your heart. A 2013 study in the New England Journal of Medicine found a 30% reduction of heart attack, stroke, and death from heart disease when people switched to a Mediterranean diet. The study was cut short after the researchers saw such clear results that they felt it was unethical to continue for the groups that were not eating Mediterranean style meal plans. To follow a Mediterranean diet, encourage olive oil, nuts, beans, fruits and veggies, fish, and moderate wine consumption.

Laughter is the best medicine. Belly laughing can send 20% more blood flowing through your body. The increased circulation from laughing helps to provide the essential nutrient exchange to your tissues for healing. This is one good reason that laughter really is the best medicine!

Love, sex, and heart health. A healthy, active sex life can decrease a man’s risk of heart attack by half. A British study looking at men who orgasm three or four times per week found significant reduction in heart attack and stroke. On the flipside, erectile dysfunction could be an early warning sign of developing heart disease and should be discussed with your doctor as part of a cardiac work-up.

Mood matters. There is a strong association between increased incidence of heart disease associated with depression. A review of positive psychological well-being and coronary heart disease (CHD) found that there is a modest, but consistent reduced risk of CHD in people with positive outlooks. However, a mechanism for the relationship has not yet been identified. The bottom line: taking care of your mental health may help your heart.

Heat up for heart health. Saunas may be able to help heal the heart. People with chronic heart failure went to the sauna five times per week and improved their heart function and their exercise endurance. Serotonin-releasing neurons also fire in response to the increased body temperature, helping to make the sauna experience more pleasurable.
 

Take home tips

Eat. Follow a Mediterranean-style meal plan.
Move! Sit less. Try a sauna.
Don’t smoke.
Laugh. As much as possible!
Love. With your whole self.
 
 
Julia Strickler, ND,* is a Naturopathic Doctor and Wellness Director for Peoples Rx.

 
 
 
*Naturopathic doctors are not currently licensed in the state of Texas.
 
 
If you have comments and/or questions about this blog, email us at blog@peoplesrx.com.

People are often surprised when the cause of their migraine, skin rash, or elevated cholesterol is a food sensitivity. The digestive system is not always the primary place where food allergies reveal themselves. Other organ systems like the skin, nervous system, and cardiac system can more swiftly respond to inflammatory reactions before digestive tissue becomes irritated. In chronic conditions, our bodies can endure a disorder for years. For example – it takes 40-70 years of daily cigarette smoking for chronic lung disease or cancer to manifest (American Lung Association).

Skin conditions like eczema are frequently related to food triggers. In 2015, The Clinical Journal for Experimental Allergy reported in a cohort study that infants with eczema were 11 times more likely to have food intolerances. The most common food intolerances associated with eczema are gluten and dairy, which are two common first-foods introduced to infants.

Dairy is a base for many formulas and is often encouraged by pediatricians as a source of calcium. Unfortunately, the inflammatory nature of milk likely creates more malabsorption than actual nutrient support. Even though skin is flared, look to the diet for the inflammatory cause.

Migraines and headaches have been long-associated with food triggers. The Journal of Neurological Sciences published a study that found 60 percent of the migraines they assessed to be associated with food intolerances. However, many people with migraines will not report digestive upset.

Elevations in LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) and blood pressure are also linked to inflammatory diets. With a reduction in inflammatory foods, much like eliminating smoking and alcohol, LDL will also decrease. Dietary cholesterol is less impactful on your body’s total cholesterol than dietary inflammation. Blood pressure is also involved in that inflammatory reaction, and will also lower with an anti-inflammatory diet.

You do not have to have Celiac Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, or Crohn’s Disease to suffer the consequences from an inflammatory diet. Many people misconceive that if they are not having gastrointestinal distress, their particular diet must be fine for them. However, people who have digestive symptoms (gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, pain) are actually well informed by their body.

It is important that patients be honest with their practitioners about their eating habits when having issues so that diet can either be ruled out or looked into as a possible culprit. If you are curious about inflammatory diets and gut health in general, Peoples regularly has diet-focused events in our seminar series. Check out these upcoming events this summer:

Gluten Free/Dairy Free Easily
May 2 at 6pm

Thyroid, Adrenals, and Fatigue: Elimination
May 10 at 7pm

Ketogenic vs. Paleo
June 6 at 6pm

Amy Nelson, ND* received her Naturopathic Doctorate from the National College of Natural Medicine in Portland, OR where she studied nutrition, homeopathy, herbal and functional medicine. In addition, Dr. Nelson was the Associate at The IBS Treatment Center in Santa Monica where she treated irritable bowel syndrome and complex food allergies. Dr. Nelson utilizes her experience in natural medicine to address female and male hormonal imbalances, mental health, and digestive disorders.
 
 
*Naturopathic Doctors are not currently licensed in the state of Texas.

Just in time for heart health month, a new article is making the rounds through the medical media. It is a big deal. Since the mid 1970s the medical establishment has assumed that dietary fat, especially saturated fat and cholesterol, were correlated with developing heart disease. This led to the development of dietary guidelines limiting consumption of cholesterol, saturated fat (below 10%) and fats in general. These became the official word in 1977.

Before I deconstruct the traditional view of saturated fat and cholesterol, I think it is only fair to acknowledge that based on the information available at the time, it was not a crazy conclusion. Plaques in the arteries of those with heart disease were found to contain cholesterol, and many of those same people were overweight. Obesity was assumed to be due to an excess of calories, and fat has more calories per gram than carbohydrates or protein, so eating fewer calories was easier if you cut fat. It was not a crazy leap to make.

Here’s the problem. The data (even in 1977) did not support this assumption. It made so much sense that the medical community assumed that more research studies would eventually validate this assumption. Forty years later, it has failed to do so. Last year a team of researchers published a large meta-analysis study that challenged these assumptions. They reviewed the data in articles from 1977 to the present and concluded, “the main findings of this systematic review and meta-analysis are that the epidemiological evidence currently available to the dietary committees provides no statistically significant retrospective support for the introduction of dietary fat guidelines.” Additionally, studies have failed to support the theory that LDL, or “bad cholesterol,” highly correlates with heart disease.

So, what does cause heart disease? The bottom line: Inflammation and oxidative stress (chemical damage to mitochondria and the lining of the arteries). Inflammation and oxidative stress are caused by:

• High insulin
• High blood sugar
• Infections
• Excess alcohol
• Smoke (cigarettes, wood fires, coal, etc)
• Car exhaust
• Heavy metals (lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic)
• Pesticides, plastics, phthalates, parabens, dioxins, etc.

So can I just start eating fast food every day?
Well, no. Unfortunately the basic concepts of a healthy plant-heavy diet are still sound. All of the vitamins, minerals and fiber in fruits and vegetables are not only essential for our bodies to function properly, they are also high in antioxidants and essential in helping our bodies deal with the toxic chemicals we are exposed to on a daily basis.

Many fats are either highly processed or full of fat-soluble toxic chemicals, or sometimes both. These fats are not good for us because of the bad chemicals they contain or because of the unnatural structure of the fats.

The good news is that we don’t need to be quite as worried about the AMOUNT of fat we eat, and most of us don’t need to continue to try to eat a “low fat” diet to be healthy. We DO still need to focus on eating healthy, unprocessed, organic fats.

Are there still supplements I can take that support a healthy cardiovascular system? Yes!

• Antioxidants: Vitamin C with Bioflavonoids, Vitamin E and Glutathione are the “power triad” for reducing oxidative stress.
• Vitamin E lowers oxidation of fats, especially cell membranes, lining of the arteries and on LDLs specifically. Mixed carotenoids are best.
• Glutathione protects the mitochondria and supports the natural elimination of heavy metals and other oxidizing toxic chemicals.
• Vitamin C is the super antioxidant that “recharges” all the other antioxidants.
• Bioflavonoids support vitamin C as well as strengthen blood vessel walls.
• Turmeric, Bromelain, Boswellia and Black Cumin seed are all powerful anti-inflammatory herbs. They also have antioxidant activity and some help maintain healthy blood sugar and blood pressure.
• Omega 3 oils found in algae, krill and fish are anti-inflammatory and also help maintain healthy, flexible cell walls.
• L Carnitine, ALA, Chromium, Cinnamon (water soluble extract is safer than powdered herb) and Berberine can all help maintain healthy blood sugar and insulin levels.

Harcombe Z, Baker JS, Davies B. Evidence from prospective cohort studies does not support current dietary fat guidelines: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Br J Sports Med 2017;51:1743-1749.

Becky Andrews, ND*, LAc received her Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine and Masters in Acupuncture at Bastyr University. She specializes in complex, chronic and “difficult” cases, especially relating to digestive health, fatigue, mood and detoxification. She works extensively with MTHFr and genetic challenges. In addition to seeing patients in Austin, she is faculty at AOMA School of Integrative Medicine.

*Naturopathic doctors are not currently licensed in the state of Texas.

“How do I lower my cholesterol?”

This is one of the most common questions from patients. What everyone needs to know is that elevated cholesterol is more than just lab values on a page indicating a risk to cardiovascular health. Understanding what cholesterol is, its role in the body, and the cause of its elevation is key in understanding its important role in your health. Read more →

There is a tremendous amount of food mythology that exists in modern society, and Peoples is on a mission to myth-bust. One of the most distressing things that we commonly hear in the stores, our delis and even around town is the overwhelming concern that consumers have for fat in their food and the shockingly strong misconception that if something is “fat-free” then it’s healthy.

Read more →