Coeliacs and Tamiflu
I haven’t got the dreaded swineflu yet, but can I be sure that Tamiflu is gluten-free.
A lot of medicines are not and as an example most cough mixtures contain wheat-derived glucose. Boots Chesty Cough Linctus is OK, as it is based on sucrose.
I have found some information on the web, one US site says that all Roche products are gluten-free and I’ve also found this list of exgredients for Tamiflu.
Capsule core:
- Pregelatinised starch (derived from maize starch)
- Talc
- Povidone
- Croscarmellose sodium
- Sodium stearyl fumarate
Capsule shell:
- Gelatin
- Yellow iron oxide (E172)
- Red iron oxide (E172)
- Black iron oxide (E172)
- Titanium dioxide (E171)
Printing ink:
- Shellac
- Titanium dioxide (E171)
- FD and C Blue 2 (indigo carmine, E132)
This list just shows what does go into some of the things we take.
I got this information from the Electronic Medicines Compendium. I tried to search for another couple of drugs at the main site and it worked.
Legal Highs
There was a fascinating program tonight on BBC3 about legal highs.
It says to me that I don’t really want to take anything dodgy.
Blood Test for IVF Success
The Times today reports that a blood test has been developed that helps to predict IVF success.
I hope that the blood test looks for problems of coeliac disease.
Here’s why!
I am a coeliac and used to suffer from very low vitamin-b12 levels until I was diagnosed as a coeliac at 54 or so. Now on a gluten-free diet, my b12 levels are fine.
As a man, that doesn’t matter, but I can trace my coeliac ancestors back through my family tree. The men died young and the women never had any children. My sister didn’t and was never diagnosed as a coeliac, whilst of child-bearing age.
I also moderate a list on the Internet for coeliacs. Over the last few years, three women have joined in their mid-thirties who have just been diagnosed. All were childless, but wanted children and within months they became pregnant and successfully gave birth.
Are questions about coeliac symptoms asked when people are looking to conceive with IVF? After all, amenorrhea is a common coeliac symptom.
As an engineer/scientist these notes are not good research, as they are personal and a rather small sample, but serious research needs to be done in this area.
Coeliacs and Mental Problems
Just listening to the twins, Will and Rupert Young, on the radio as I write. Will is the well-known singer and his twin brother, Rupert, has a history of mental problems. He’s just set up the Mood Foundation to help people with their problems.
It’s just a small point, but I moderate a list on the Internet for coeliacs. We are all allergic to the gluten, found in wheat, barley and rye. What keeps coming up is those with this allergy are often diagnosed as suffering for depression, bi-polar disorder and other mental problems. When they go on a gluten-free diet, the symptoms disappear.
Obviously, this is only likely to help in the cases of the 1-in-100 of the UK population who are coeliacs, but to test for the allergy is now a simple blood test.
Taking a scientist’s view of the body, undiagnosed coeliacs are often low in vitamin b12 and guess what? This is absolutely essential for healthy functioning of the brain.
But perhaps more importantly, we need to have a totally open view to mental illness and not rule out ANY cause of a person’s problems. After all a cured patient can become a valuable member of society.
Rupert has just said that he was helped by equine assisted therapy. As someone who breeds racehorses, I know that horses can help in mental problems. To relate to say a mare and a skitty foal, you have to be calm, just to get them to take a tidbit. And so you learn how to calm your emotions. Also for people who have problems with violence and losing their temper, they don’t want to try anything remotely like that with a horse. They’ll get a good kicking. So you learn to control yourself.
Does Gluten Lower Cholesterol?
I am a coeliac, which means that I don’t eat the gluten in wheat, barley and rye. But does not eating gluten mean that I have other health problems.
My doctor is worried about my cholesterol, which despite eating all the right things does seem to be rising. Over a period of four months, I stayed off all of the dangerous foods, used Benecol and the level rose by half a point. This is worrying. Especially, as I’m very anti taking statins. Nothing particularly against statins, but I just don’t take drugs unless they are absolutely necessary.
The levels for your information were as follows.
- December 2008 – Total 6.0, Trig 1.3, HDL 1.16, LDL 4.25
- April 2009 – Total 6.7, Trig 1.1, HDL 1.63, LDL 4.57
I’m not a medical person but I think I can draw the following conclusions.
- The triglyceride levels are well within the normal range.
- The high-density lipoprotein levels are considered in the range for greatest protection against heart disease.
- The low-density lipoprotein levels are considered high, but not quite in the highest risk level.
But can it be that by sticking to my gluten-free diet, I’m actually causing the problem.
I found this under a heading of Your Cholesterol Levels will Probably Rise in an article called Side Effects of a Gluten-Free Diet.
For the first four decades of my life, while I was still eating gluten, my doctors always told me I had the lowest cholesterol levels they’d ever seen. It retrospect, it’s easy to see why — my intestines weren’t absorbing any of the cholesterol in the foods I was eating. Those days are over. Now I have to watch my cholesterol levels along with everyone else. When I check food nutrition labels for the presence of gluten, I also check the fat and cholesterol content. It’s very important to choose low-fat, low-cholesterol foods. Packaged gluten-free products are often higher in fat than their gluten-containing counterparts. This is especially true of packaged gluten-free cookies, crackers, and cakes. The American Heart Association points out that foods that are high in soluble fiber have been shown to help lower cholesterol — so look for beans, peas, rice bran, citrus fruits, strawberries, apple pulp, and gluten-free oats.
This doesn’t apply to me, but I can see the logic. I don’t eat many packaged biscuits and cakes, but I do it lots of berries, beans and apples. Apples I didn’t eat until I tried to lower the cholesterol. Now I eat one a day instead of the occassional crisp.
But this doesn’t seem to explain my problems.
I also found this article called Gluten Lowers Cholesterol on Dr. Mirkin’s web site. It’s from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and it comes from the University of Toronto, so it meets all of those criteria needed to be a proper scientific report and is not something produced by a health nutter.
Here’s the abstract.
A study from the University of Toronto shows that a high-gluten diet helps lower oxidized LDL cholesterol, triglycerides and uric acid.
Many studies show that eating whole grains helps to prevent heart attacks, but doctors are not certain why. Before the bad LDL cholesterol can cause plaques to form in arteries, it must be converted to oxidized LDL. This study shows that gluten does not lower blood levels of the bad LDL cholesterol; it helps prevent LDL from being converted to oxidized LDL cholesterol. Gluten also lowers blood levels of triglyceride that increase heart attack risk.
There is an interesting discussion on the problem on the US web site, celiac.com. Now this is not proper scientific fact, as it is really a collection of peoples’ opinions.
Someone suggested the South Beach Diet.
Starting the SBD was a pretty radical change for me, but I found pretty quickly that I really enjoyed eating this way and felt lots healthier. If you’re interested you should get the book, but basically you eat lean meats, LOTS of veggies, good fats (e.g. olive oil, nuts), dairy (if you can tolerate it, which I can’t) and small portions of fruits and whole grains. People tend to think of it as a “low-carb” diet in the same vein as Atkins, but it’s really not. It’s just focused on GOOD carbs (whole grains, fruits, veggies) and GOOD fats.
This is virtually my diet, but I perhaps don’t eat as many whole-grains as I could.
There was also a warning about statins.
Other than that, eat loads of fruits and veggies, good protein sources like fish and drink more water. Do not be talked into cholesterol lowering drugs unless you want liver or kidney problems. They have serious side effects and my brother, who has celiac disease (in denial) and Type 1 diabetes, took one and now his kidneys are in poor shape….from the drugs.
I’ve had similar warnings about statins from a couple of lawyers. As my wife was a barrister, I can vouch they are always a good source of gossip about doctors, hospitals and drugs.
I shall be researching this further.
Scotland and East Anglia
Radio Five Live was in Scotland today, as it is the tenth anniversary of the Scottish Parliament.
No problem there, but this government has widened the divide in public support between Scotland and many of the English regions. Here in East Anglia, we have the same GDP as Scotland, but have many fewer government jobs, export a lot more, have better health etc.
So we’re doing a lot better except in one respect.
Various projects such as the dualling of the A11 are never completed. We get everybody else’s cast off trains. The government doesn’t want to protect us from the sea. And we now have the farce of the downgrading of Ipswich Hospital with respect to heart patients.
The latter doesn’t actually bother me, as my nearest hospital is Addenbrookes in Cambridge, but the distance from say where I used to live at Felixstowe to Norwich is about two hours. It’s just too far!
For IVF go to Europe
This article about IVF in The Times caught my attention.
Whatever your views on the subject and I don’t have particular ones either way, this is a subject we should take seriously, as it seems being childless is for some a disaster. I can’t comment, as I am the father of three and didn’t have to make the decision.
But we have to bear in mind that everyone’s pregnancy is a cost to the NHS. This is not a problem with a single birth, but who pays for multiple births, which often have complications.
I would also throw in the fact that as a coeliac, if I was a woman I might have problems in conceiving. I know of women who on being diagnosed have quite quickly got pregnant and successfully had a child. I also know that no women in the coeliac line of my family have given birth in over a hundred years. I’m no doctor, but could it be that if your vitamin-B12 and folates are low, you’re not going to conceive a healthy baby.
This is yet another reason for everybody to be checked for coeliac disease.
Dr. Egerton White
I am fairly unique amongst people these days in that I was delivered by my GP; Dr. Egerton White.
He was your classic GP of the time in North London. He had the Rover 90 or 110, the corporation, waistcoat and watch-chain, the kindly face and warm hands, and everything else that went with the job.
But why did he come all of the way from Winchmore Hill to my parent’s home in Cockfosters?
It was a drive of about five or six kilometres and all of my friends and neighbours used doctors who were much closer. My father always said that it was because his was one of the first houses built in the area and there weren’t any doctors. He may also have been a client of my father’s printing business. But then that wouldn’t add up, as the house was built in 1936 and I don’t think my father was working there at the time.
It has always been a puzzle.
I can still see Dr. White’s face in my mind, as he came many times to see me at home. I should say, that I also went to see him and his partner, Dr. Curley, at Winchmore Hill just as many times too. It was an unusual face in that it was round and covered in dark pigmented spots.
Only now, do I know what the problem is with my health. I am a coeliac, which means I’m allergic to the gluten found in wheat, barley and rye. But in those far off days of the late 1940s and early 1950s, no-one knew how to diagnose my problem. He thought I may have had an egg allergy, but try as he could, he missed the diagnosis. Incidentally, go through my medical notes and you’ll see all sorts of symptoms that now I put down to being a coeliac.
Note that I don’t use coeliac disease. I suffer from a diet-controlled non-illness.
One incident stands out. At about seven, I caught scarlet fever. Or did I?
I had all the symptoms and was placed in isolation at home. But according to Dr. White, I was the only case in London. So was it some weird manifestation of my allergy. I don’t know and I suppose I could find out if I had a test for the antibodies. But does it really matter? No! In the grand scheme of things.
About seven years ago, I bought a new car. The salesman had the same skin colour with the pigmented spots as Dr. White. And the salesman was black or of mixed-race!
So does this partly explain the reason how the good Dr. Egerton White came to be my family’s doctor in North London?
Jerri Neilsen FitzGerald
Sad to see that this courageous doctor has died.
She gave herself a biopsy without anaesthetic, whilst working as a doctor at the South Pole and then treated herself for breast cancer. Just like my wife, she got over the cancer and returned to work. Jerri became a motovational speaker and carried on until the cancer took her in the end.
She is quoted as saying this.
It doesn’t matter how or when you die. The only thing that matters is, did you ever live?
I’ll go with that and I’ll give her a toast tonight, when I have my evening glass of wine. Or two!
740 Euros to Remove a Tick in Holland
This was sent to me by a Dutch friend.
Ziekenhuis rekent 740 euro voor weghalen teek door Cees Jansen
Breda – Een simpele medische ingreep bij de spoedeisende hulp bezorgde een 34-jarige man in Breda een woedeaanval.
Translated this becomes.
Hospital charges 740 euro to take away a tick by Cees Jansen
Breda – a simple medical intervention at the hospital provided to a 34 year-old man in Breda provoked a lot of anger.
As you have to have compulsory medical insurance in Holland, he was probably OK. But if you’re going to Holland make sure you take your European Health Insurance Card.
The Anonymous Widower 