Search for tag: "supplements"

It's been an issue for several weeks now, parents scrambling to try and find baby formula amid the shortage. So what are you supposed to do? You have a hungry baby who needs to eat.

Like many women, I was unable to completely provide enough breast milk to feed my boys. Trust me. It wasn't for lack of trying to increase my supply with supplements, medications, pumping, working with my OB and five lactation consultants. And we learned, for me, I have a medical condition that just won't allow me to make as much as my kids needed, so I had to supplement. And I find this is often the case for many of my patients' mothers.

Often, some women just choose not to breastfeed, and they want to just give formula. And that's okay too. Most important is for the baby to be fed and loved.

So what exactly happened to cause this formula shortage? The manufacturer of Similac products, Abbott Nutrition, recalled powdered formula brands due to bacterial contamination in some of their batches. This, combined with supply chain issues, triggered a nationwide formula shortage.

For families that were affected, this has triggered a lot of questions about what to do. The easiest thing that parents can do is to just switch to a different infant formula. I know that sounds scary, but many store brands and other brands, like Enfamil and Gerber, have formulas that are equivalent to Similac.

Most babies do just fine on a cow's milk-based formula, and there are a ton of variations for whatever your babies might need — gentle formulas, formulas for soft bowel movements, formulas for breast milk supplementation, formulas with extra ingredients to help with digestion and brain development. There are so many options out there.

I often recommend generic or store brand formulas because they're cheaper, but they still have the same nutritional quality as the brand names. We used generic versions of gentle formulas for both of our boys and found they actually tolerated them better than the brand names.

What if your baby is on a special formula, like for milk protein allergy or prematurity? The good news is these formulas really aren't affected by the shortage as much. Your pediatrician can help figure out what is best for your baby in those situations. There are milk banks where women who have excess breast milk donate their milk, and that's a great source for babies who are preemies. Neonatal intensive care units often work with milk banks to get milk for preemies. The milk is strictly screened and totally safe.

What about mixing infant formula differently to make it last longer? This is a big fat no. Adding extra water to make diluted formula is bad. I've seen it happen more than once, where parents do this and it has actually landed their babies in the intensive care unit. What happens is that too much water upsets the balance of salts in their body because the babies' kidneys can't process that much water. That causes the babies' sodium levels to drop to the point that the babies have seizures, and it could be fatal.

Babies will not get the correct amount of nutrients if the formulas are diluted. That is why we have specific instructions on how to properly mix formulas.

What about all of those homemade baby formula mix recipes? Those aren't a good idea either. While, in the past, people made their own baby formula, that was before we had a really good handle on the specific nutritional needs of infants. And those homemade baby formulas don't provide the right concentration of nutrients that we now know babies need. Some babies have even been hospitalized after being given homemade formulas.

Finally, what if your baby is close to turning 1? Can you start milk early? Well, it depends on how early. Babies actually need the nutrition that is in formula until they're 12 months old. I would say that if they're within two weeks of turning 1, you can start transitioning to whole milk. Transitioning before that puts them at risk of iron deficiency anemia because milk has no iron in it. Also, once they start drinking milk, they need to limit their consumption to 16 to 24 ounces per day, or they could develop iron deficiency anemia as toddlers.

Parents often ask what milk kids can have if they don't want to give their kids cow's milk. Luckily, there are a lot of alternatives. Soy and pea milk are the most similar to whole milk in terms of nutrition. They can also have oat milk or nut milks, like almond or cashew milk. Plant-based milks are good for calcium and vitamin D, but they may not have the best nutrition when it comes to protein, fat, and calories, things toddlers need from ages 1 to 2, as their brains are still developing. And other milks, like goat's milk, can cause pernicious anemia due to vitamin deficiencies.

The good news is there are reports that the formula shortage should start to improve in a few months once the factories get the okay from the Food and Drug Administration to resume production. Until then, hopefully, parents are able to find alternatives.

This content was originally created for audio. Some elements such as tone, sound effects, and music can be hard to translate to text. As such, the following is a summary of the episode and has been edited for clarity. For the full experience, we encourage you to subscribe and listen— it's more fun that way.

vitamin and supplement industry is big business in the United States. According to the Journal of nutrition there are around 90,000 different dietary supplement products on U.S. store shelves, making up a $30 billion dollar industry.

These supplements make vague, yet bold health claims, including improving ‘heart health,' ‘promoting muscle growth,' and ‘boost vitality.' Men seeking out these benefits in a pill have grown throughout the years, with around 73% of U.S. men taking a supplement daily.

But do these supplements actually work or do they just make your urine quite expensive?

We asked our nutrition specialist Dr. Thunder Jalili. He works with the University of Utah Department of Nutrition and Integrative Physiology and he has the answers to our supplement questions. Research On Supplements is Unclear at Best

So what supplements does Dr. Jalili take? Vitamin D, fish oil, and a baby aspirin. But he admits that he does so even though the science is not clear that these supplements are actually effective.

According to Dr. Jalili, if you look at the research, a majority of supplements have very little effect on your health and just pass through the body. Considering the cost of most of these pills, they're mostly "making your pee expensive."

When it comes to supplement and vitamin research, there are very few reliable, repeatable, and conclusive studies available. In fact, a lot of the findings between studies can be contradictory.

For example, it's a fallacy to assume getting 10,000 percent of your daily suggested dose of Vitamin C will provide any extra benefit than just getting the recommended amount. There is no clear scientific evidence to correlate a super high dose of vitamin C with a reduction of cold symptoms or prevention of illness.

Luckily a high dose of vitamin C is not likely to cause any physical harm. So there's no immediate need to stop taking it, but it's probably providing little health benefit. It's Best to Get Your Micronutrients from Food

"It's really a crutch to help support a poor diet," says Dr. Jalili in regards to vitamins.

He discourages his patients from relying on supplements to make them healthy. It's important to focus on getting the macronutrients and micronutrients your body needs from a healthy diet. Adopting a healthy diet is the most effective, tasty, and safer method of getting vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients into your body.

In fact, Dr. Jalili tells people not to take multivitamin. While a daily multivitamin may seem like a great way to help ensure you're getting enough minerals every day, they can not only be ineffective, but potentially dangerous.

Some studies assert that multivitamins provide no benefit in the minerals it provides. Other studies have shown a potential link to the regular consumption of multivitamins and an increase in developing cancer. Interestingly, consuming the same dosage of these minerals from food does not show the same cancer risk. There is No Such Thing as a Magic Pill

Out of the 90,000 supplements available, Dr. Jalili suggests there are two that may be worth taking:

• Fish oil - Early research into fish oil supplements has shown it may help reduce a person's risk of primary cardiovascular events.

• Vitamin D - Low levels of vitamin D can lead to a lack of energy and heart disease. It's common for vitamin D levels to drop in people as they age, do older patients may need to take a supplement.

For both of these supplements, recent research has shown that these pills provide only a minimal benefit. Neither present any serious adverse effects. With the low risk and small potential benefit in mind, Dr. Jalili takes both supplements.

It's important to keep in mind that no supplement will completely fix the health effects of a bad diet. The one good rule is: "Eat healthy foods that are good for you."

"Eating unprocessed, plant based foods is good for you. We can all agree on that," says Dr. Jalili, "It's everything beyond that we have to be open minded and objective about. And be prepared to change our mind if the facts change." Workout Supplements Are Best for Elite Athletes

When it comes to performance enhancing workout supplements, Dr. Jalili admits that there are some potential benefits to taking some of the compounds, but they are really only effective for elite athletes.

For example, creatine can be useful in building muscle. It can provide a small increase in performance when used in part of a systematic strength training routine. But the change is relatively minimal and the supplement itself is quite expensive.

Dr. Jalili suggests asking yourself what your goals are before spending the money on creating. Are you an elite athlete that needs gains for a specific athletic performance? Or are you a regular guy trying to get healthy? Do those small expensive differences a supplement may make really matter to you and your health goals? Is it beyond important for you to be able to lift 10 more pounds within a month?

If you do choose to take creatine, be sure to increase your hydration. Creatine has the potential to cause issues with kidneys and increase the chance of developing kidney stones if you drink enough water Your Doctor is Not the Best Resource for Nutrition

If you have questions related to anything about your nutrition - supplementation included - your doctor probably isn't the best to contact. Most doctors in the U.S. receive minimal nutritional training in medical school. Your doctor will only have knowledge of nutrition if they are self-motivated and self-educated.

For questions about diet, food, and supplements, it's best to go to a certified nutritionist.

Otherwise, Dr. Jalili suggests a few good online sources about supplements:

• Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

Remember not to look for hope in a pill. Your diet, sleep and exercise will have more of an impact than any sort of supplementation. 23andMe May Have Used Your DNA to Develop a New Medication

Did your genetic data help develop a new treatment for psoriasis? The direct to consumer genetic testing company 23andMe recently announced that their genetic library had been sold to and used by a South American company to develop a new drug that may help a lot of people suffering from psoriasis.

It's exciting news, but individuals whose genetic information was used were not compensated, and many didn't even realize their DNA would be used like this.

The Who Cares team discusses what implications this new breakthrough means for research, big data, and ultimately patients that choose to have their DNA tested. Housekeeping - Who Cares About Their DNA Giveaway

Last week we posted a video of Troy and Scot doing a pushup challenge in the studio with Dr. Ernie Rimer. The challenge was inspired by recent research that suggests men who can perform 40 pushups have a 96% less chance of suffering from a cardiac event.

Check out the video on our Facebook and take a listen to the episode to learn how to improve your pushup form and how you can work up to 40 pushups.

Second, Troy has been recovering from a significant running injury he had last year. He's been working hard on getting back to normal. After months of rehabilitation and perseverance, he's running long distances again. In fact, Troy recently ran a race with a good enough time he was able to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Just Going to Leave This Here

On this episode's Just Going to Leave This Here, learn how Scot accidentally got dog poop in his nose. Troy has serious questions for the designers of men's urinals. Talk to Us

If you have any questions, comments, or thoughts, email us at hello@thescoperadio.com.

This content was originally created for audio. Some elements such as tone, sound effects, and music can be hard to translate to text. As such, the following is a summary of the episode and has been edited for clarity. For the full experience, we encourage you to subscribe and listen— it's more fun that way.

Dr. Ernie Rimer is the Director of Sports Science for the University of Utah Athletics Department. He works with elite athletes to help them get in fighting shape for game day. But it came as a surprise to Troy that Ernie isn't built like a line-backer.

Ernie explains that he's a sports scientists and a self-proclaimed "recovering strength and conditioning coach." 10 years ago, he worked out to look big. His goal was to be one of those massive guys, but as he focused more on the science of fitness and matured, his goals have changed.

Ernie says, "I stopped caring about how I looked when it comes to my fitness and I started caring more about what fitness does for me in my normal life."

For Ernie. Health means having the proper physical fitness and mental state to live an extraordinary life and career. For him, it's about having the physical fitness to pursue the things in life he enjoys and be in the right frame of mind to engage in fulfilling activities on a daily basis. The Health Benefits of Strength Training

The US Department of Health and Human Services recommends American adults should engage in strength training at least twice a week. For best results, these workouts should be moderate to intense in difficulty and target all muscle groups.

Currently, only 30% of Americans are actually getting that exercise in every week.

A lack of strength training in men can have real consequences. Without strength training, after age 30, men start losing 3-5% of their lean muscle mass. Not only will that impact a guy's day to day functionality, but lean muscle is also the body's metabolic engine. Less muscle means fewer calories burned every day.

On the flip side, regular consistent strength training can provide a lot of benefits:

• Increase in daily physical performance
• Maintenance of bone density and muscle mass
• Improved joint health
• Increased metabolism
• Better control of Type 2 Diabetes
• Improved balance
• Releases endorphins
• Better sleep patterns
• Increased executive brain function and productivity

Additionally, moderate strength-training just a couple of times a week may help you live longer. According to the American Journal of Epidemiology, strength training is just as important, if not more than cardiovascular training. Moderate strength training can lead to a 23% risk of death from any disease and a reduction of 31% of cancer-related deaths. Start Your Training At a Level You Can Maintain

Ernie is used to working with elite athletes, but that doesn't mean he can't pull from his experience trying to build programs for family and friends. Years ago, he used to give his friends and family the same crazy strength and conditioning programs similar to the ones he gave his athletes. He found that there was no way for a non-athlete, regular guy to keep up with these types of regimens, so his approach changed.

"Your strength regiment has to be sustainable," says Ernie. For him, the plan needs to be something he can keep up with regularly and feel good about. He's no longer looking to punish himself - or his friends - in the gym anymore. And more importantly, it's important to find a plan that isn't so time-consuming or intense that it begins taking away from the things he loves to do in life.

So should a regular guy start? Ernie doesn't recommend anyone go out, buy an expensive gym membership and try to "crush it." Especially if they are relative sedentary now. The best strategy is to start with trying to increase your current activity level at least a few times a week. Shoot to do a little bit of basic resistance training two to three times a week. Keep the training plan short and simple to begin with. It's important that you can get comfortable with a basic routine before you start taking your lifts "to the extreme."

Remember, just because you're working out harder, doesn't mean you're getting more benefits. While a moderate resistance training plan can provide a ton of benefits and reduce mortality, research has shown that too much strength training can have an increase in all-cause mortality. There's a sweet spot to strength training. Shoot to find yours. The 5 Strength Exercise Routine the Scientist Recommends

Dr. Ernie Rimer suggests a relatively simple routine of five exercises to help anyone, at any level to reap the health benefits of a strength training program. The plan focuses on multi-joint exercises that work multiple muscle groups and joints in the body. "They give you more bang for your buck," says Ernie. These are the exercises he suggests everyone start with first:

1. Athletic/Acrobatic Starter
   Start your workout with something that pushes your physical ability and gets the blood moving. Jump up on a box or step. Jump up and down. Run up and down a short flight of stairs.

2. Lower Body Strength
   Find an exercise that uses all of your lower body muscles. Start with bodyweight or resistance bands before moving to weights. Try squats, lunges, or step-ups to simultaneously workout your entire lower body.

3. Posterior Chain
   Your posterior chain is the complex of muscles that starts at your lower back, then runs down your glutes, hamstrings and calves. These are some of the biggest muscles in the body and they help with posture and body movement. These muscles help you maintain proper form while lifting, so it's important for them to be strong before moving up to a more intense lifting program.

Exercises like the hip hinge, Romanian deadlift, and "good-morning" work all the muscles in the posterior chain.

4. Upper Body 'Push'
   Your upper body is broken up into two groups. The "push muscles" include the chest, shoulders, deltoids, and triceps. Work them up by trying push-ups, a bench press, or overhead press. These exercises work a lot of these muscles all at once.

5. Upper Body 'Pull'
   The other upper body muscles are all involved in "pulling" motions. These include your upper back, lats, biceps and forearms. Try exercises like rows and curls to work this muscle group.

The number of reps and sets of this routine should be custom to where you currently are in your physical fitness. Focus on taking one step forward in your fitness at a time. Remember, just a moderate amount of strength training twice a week can have huge benefits.

A beginner should start with a number of sets and reps they can sustain and stick with it for a prolonged amount of time. Even if it's just one set of each exercise, one time a week. If that's a step forward for you, then start there.

"We want to get you further," says Ernie, "But it's important to take a step you can commit to and sustain."

As you get into a routine of strength training, you can eventually work towards two to three sets of each of the exercises, two to three times a week. Do These Exercises Anywhere with Any Time You Have

You don't need to carve out a couple of hours a week in your busy schedule or spend a lot of money on a pricey gym membership to start strength training. These exercises can be done at home with bodyweight with whatever time you have available.

Look around your place and get creative. There are plenty of ways you can complete the five exercises without much equipment. For the athletic component, find some stairs in your house or a sturdy chair or coffee table. If Ernie's kids can jump up and down from a coffee table why can't you?

For the other exercises, try bodyweight exercises. Simple squats can work the lower body. Good-mornings for your posterior chain. Pushups and pull-ups for the push and pull of the upper body. Start with exercises you can easily do next to your bedside in the morning.

Additionally, bodyweight exercises are a great place to start. In strength training, form is key. If you're lifting a heavy weight with bad form, you can seriously injure yourself. Bodyweight exercises are much safer to begin with. You can get quite intense without as much risk of injury. Bodyweight exercises are also a great way to learn the correct form of an exercise before you add weight.

You don't have to devote hours of your week to this training to get in shape. For example, Scot is currently in a master's program and a lot of his time is spent doing course work. He takes a short 5 minute break every hour when he's studying. He fits in a few bodyweight exercises during his breaks to keep his body strong.

According to Ernie, these small bouts of training can be as effective, if not more, than a solid block of training time. "Exercise Microdosing" is a big area of research today in sports medicine. Sports scientists have seen results that several short doses of strength training in a day may be more beneficial for bone health, muscle development and joint health than a longer, sustained amount of time.

Keep it simple. Fit it in when you can. Aim to improve. How to Get Motivated and Stay Motivated

For a lot of guys, getting motivated and staying motivated to do any strength training can be difficult. If you're going to see the results, you need to be able to keep with a strength training regiment long term. Not just a few weeks.

Dr. Rimer says there are a few strategies he suggests you try to stay motivated:

• Share Your Goals with Others - Let your friends, family, and significant others know what you're trying to do, why you're trying to do ti, and ask them to hold you accountable.

• Find a Workout Partner - Sometimes having a partner willing to go through the workouts with you can help you stay motivated to work out regularly.

• Focus on Constantly Improving - rather than watching the numbers on the scale or at the end of a dumbbell, focus on the abilities of your body. Can you lift a little more than you did last time? Is the workout getting easier to complete? That's a real improvement! Stay focused on the steps you are taking to become healthier, rather than how far you have to go to meet some ruler measurement.

Producer Mitch has tried strength training in the past and completely lost motivation. He searches online and finds plans and workout videos made by "internet muscle bros." He's tried their fitness crazy plans, choked down the supplements, watched his macros, and he still feels miserable and ends up quitting. He sometimes thinks he'll never be "one of those guys."

Dr. Ernie, he explains that this is the major disconnect a lot of guys face when they first start strength training. It's easy to try and make your goals focused on "looking strong," to aim to get the type of physique you see on the cover of magazines. But according to this sports scientist, that look shouldn't be the thing that motivates you.

"An exercise regimen should be about maintaining the fitness you need to facilitate an extraordinary life," says Ernie. Make your extraordinary life your primary motivation.

Ernie says that the "internet bros" online can be helpful in finding a strategy that works best for you. Focus on the advice they give, rather than what they look like. Focus on how their strategies can best benefit you and - most importantly - how their method can facilitate what you want to do with your life. Dr. Rimer's Megaphone Moment:

"This is Dr. Ernie Rimer on the first-ever Megaphone Moment on The Scope. Today I want to say if you want to get started. Make it simple. Sustainable. And make sure that it facilitates and extraordinary life." Just Going to Leave This Here

On this episode's Just Going to Leave This Here, Troy has been working with a dog trainer and wonders if the same strategies can be used to train dogs can be used to train himself. Meanwhile, Scot is currently researching the very notion about men not caring about their health and finding it's way more complicated than he suspected. Talk to Us

If you have any questions, comments, or thoughts, email us at hello@thescoperadio.com.

Dr. Jones: Well, you just happen to be at your computer and your sex life was on your mind and you Googled women's low libido. An amazing number of natural products came up with rather naughty names. Well, what about this? This is Dr. Kirtly Jones from Obstetrics and Gynecology at University of Utah Health, and this is the scope of supplements on The Scope.

Announcer: Covering all aspects of women's' health. This is the Seven Domains of Women's Health with Dr. Kirtly Jones on The Scope.

Dr. Jones: Recently the FDA announced a recall of two supplements marketed to increase women's sex drive called Libido-Max and Zrect. These supplements have a prescription chemical called flibanserin in them that was not disclosed. Flibanserin is a drug in the prescription medicine called Addyi for low libido in pre-menopausal women, which has some significant side effects including dizziness and passing out.

This is the first time the FDA has recalled a product contaminated with this drug, but it's just the latest in the recall of a number of supposedly natural supplements for men and women's libido which have been found to have drugs in them. In the case of some men's drugs for libido, they included drugs for animals not approved for humans. Some of the drugs for men that were recalled were Uproar and Monkey Business and Rectalis and some other names I really don't want to say out loud in The Scope studio.

So the supplement business is a multi-billion dollar a year industry. With many of my patients who have come with a bag of their medicines with questions for me, and this bag might have many bottles of supplements that claimed the contents would be used for one problem or another. At the bottom of the bottles was the statement required by the FDA, "These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not indicated to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease."

My patients would ask if these supplements were good for them and I could only answer that I don't know what's in them and that there's no standards for the herbs or supplements in them except for ordinary vitamins and minerals. Now the FDA's mandate is to evaluate the safety of food and the safety and efficacy of drugs it has no mandate and does not evaluate any supplements. Nobody does, except some independent researchers.

Over the past several years studies have found that over 25% of supplements for athletic performance are contaminated with steroids, stimulants, and banned substances. And in 2008 two products were pulled off the market because they were found to contain about 200 times more Selenium, an element that some believe can help prevent cancer, than their labels said and people got sick. According to the FDA about 50,000 adverse reactions to dietary supplements occur every year.

So what should you do? First of all, if natural supplements really worked, without the pharmaceuticals contaminating them, we would all be taking them. And if herbal supplements really worked better than placebo the company wouldn't need to add those drugs to the mix. So number one, eat a balanced diet and if you cannot or have a particular issue like pregnancy make sure your vitamins and minerals are tested.

Two, dietary supplements are complex products. The FDA has established good manufacturing practices, GMPs for dietary supplements to help insure their identity, purity, strength and composition. These GMPs are designed to help prevent the inclusion of wrong ingredient, the addition of too much or too little, and the possibility of contamination, and proper packaging and labeling. But the FDA doesn't really monitor these, they may actually inspect facilities periodically, but what does periodically mean?

Three, in addition, several independent organizations offer quality testing and allow products that pass these tests, to display their seals of approval. Some of these organizations that do testing include the US Pharmacopeia, the Consumer Lab, and NSF International.

And lastly, if the supplement has the statement "proprietary blend" on it, then all bets are off as to what's in it and how much is in it. We all want to feel well and function at our best. The supplement business survives on that hope. For our Scope listeners, just be careful and skeptical and thanks for joining us on The Scope.

Announcer: Thescoperadio.com is University of Utah Healths Sciences' Radio. If you like what you heard be sure to get our latest content by following us on Facebook. Just click on the Facebook icon at thescoperadio.com.

Interviewer: Vitamin D supplements. Dr. Kirtly Jones, do I need to take one?

Dr. Jones: That's a great question and it's debated hotly. Vitamin D is important. It helps your body absorb calcium for strong bones and it may help your micro biome so maybe your gut likes it. And there's some debate about your heart.

Foods that have it include milk, and eggs, and fish, and if you don't eat those things and you don't get outside or if you block up and cover up like your dermatologist said, you should take a supplement. The Institute of Medicine recommends 600 international units for young people and 800 for older people but not the 2,000, 4,000, 6,000, millions, whatever that you can get at the health food store. Or get out in the sun for about 20 minutes every day and your body will get all the vitamin D that you need.

updated: October 4, 2021
originally published: April 27, 2017