Some doctors give bad advice on supplements....

Today's post: Monday, 4-7-2008

A woman wrote in to an online doctor saying that her 72 year old husband had an operation to remove a cancerous bladder tumor. Before that, his blood pressure was usually around 130 over 70. Since the surgery his blood pressure went to over 180 over 90. He was taking no prescriptions, but did take several supplements "including CoQ10, fish oil, hawthorn, and a multi vitamin." She then asked if the surgery itself might have caused this dangerous increase in his blood pressure.

The doctor she wrote to started his answer saying that stress WILL elevate blood pressure, but so will cardiovascular disease. But before he goes on to suggest her husband have cardiovascular disease checked by his doctors, he suggested that her husband stop his "non-prescribed supplements."

He goes on to say that the supplement strengths might have changed suddenly as a cause for this spike in blood pressure. He then goes back to competent medical advice saying that anesthetics & surgery themselves do NOT tend to cause such increases in blood pressure. And, he says her husband should be checked for the possibility of complications of the surgery & cardiovascular disease. He also suggested putting her husband on a very low salt diet & saying that he may also need to take drugs to lower his blood pressure.

This is extremely bad advice taken as a whole. But, because it is delivered in a confident & authoritative manner & some parts of it are actually pretty good, it sounds convincing.

Do NOT take advice on supplements from such doctors. And, if possible, & you will be consulting a doctor like this one further, get a better & better informed doctor on questions concerning supplements..

The doctor, Mark Houston, MD that I have read on the subject of reducing high blood pressure & who is a recognized expert in this area, quotes studies that show that CoQ10, fish oil, hawthorn, and the vitamin C & B6 in a multi vitamin each independently have been shown to lower high blood pressure. Further, if the multi had any calcium or magnesium, these have also been shown to lower high blood pressure.

So, is suggesting that her husband discontinue ALL of his supplements, competent advice?

Probably not. Her husband may have been taking too little of the key supplements like CQ10 or fish oil to have much of an effect on his high blood pressure. But, since she doesn’t give the amounts, he might have been. If so, suddenly stopping might well add another 10 or 20 points to his already dangerously bad high blood pressure. To put it mildly, when doctors make that kind of mistake with their knowledge of drugs & it harms a patient, they can be sued for malpractice.

In addition, these particular supplements are known to have beneficial effects on overall health & cardiovascular disease.

This doctor also missed that the most probable cause of the surge is the fear & terror that her husband may well have been going through in facing the chance that such extensive surgery for cancer might not have been enough to keep him from dying of cancer. He may also have been suffering from post-operative pain that was causing him that much stress.

So, good advice on checking & addressing those concerns would have made the medical part of his answer a great more helpful.

As you can see, some doctors such as Mark Houston, MD have studied the literature on supplements & used them effectively with their patients.

That’s the kind of doctor to look for.

Then there are doctors like most of the ones I’ve been fortunate enough to go to, who have seen some convincing information on supplements &/or had their patients point to good online information they have found. At worst, such doctors realize that supplements can be beneficial and will do extra research before making the kind of incorrect statements this online doctor did. At best, they will know enough to give some advice that is accurate.

If you take supplements or have a condition that benefits from doing so, try to avoid doctors like the online doctor in this example.

Of course, there ARE some times when supplements truly are not a good idea. Some, such as St Johns Wort & the otherwise health promoting fruit, grapefruit, or supplements taken from it, have drug interaction effects. And, occasionally studies will be done showing some less used supplements are harmful or tend to come from sources that spike their supplements with unannounced amounts of a drug. Also, before surgery where your blood will need to clot adequately for safe healing, doctors will advise temporarily discontinuing aspirin & supplements like Ginkgo Biloba which can prevent enough clotting from taking place several days before the surgery & for a bit after it.

Even the doctors who actually use & prescribe supplements will bring up such issues from time to time.

The bottom line is that since supplements do work to protect health in many ways & huge numbers of people take them, with the exception of very narrow specialties such as cardiac surgeons, doctors need to know more about supplements than this online doctor did to give sound & accurate advice.

So, if a doctor says not to take supplements, under some circumstances he or she might be correct. But unless it is one of the kinds of issues we just discussed, you would be wise to seek a better informed doctor or get a second opinion from a doctor who is better informed.