Recetas e Ideas para Cocinar (Sin Cocinar)

Me parece que el título de este mensaje es un poco confuso porque el “no cocinar” de ninguna manera implica “falta de preparación.” Mi hijo me acaba de mencionar este blog. Contiene muchas ideas creativas para comidas, entremeses y aperitivos. Díganme lo que piensan. Yo se que muchos de ustedes quieren cambiar la manera en que comen pero no saben por donde empezar. Pueden apuntar con su ratón y dar un click y encontrarán algo bueno para comenzar. Bon appetit! Buen provecho!

Pharmacies

About 2 months ago, the Compounder Pharmacy interviewed me (here). Now it's time to return the thanks. This is lengthy for a blog post, but this is well worth your time to read. It's very informative and easy to comprehend. I hope their tribe increases. For those who are entering university or grad school with interest in medicine and specifically pharmacology, I would listen carefully to my friends and interact with their science/art.
If you're interested, I talked about the questions I had re: pharmacology and traditional medicine all the way back in med school in this post.

Here goes...



PMC: Is Compounder a name or a type of pharmacy?

CP: The Compounder is the name of our pharmacy. It has been in business in Aurora, Illinois since 1983. The original name was The Medicine Shoppe. Over the years we have adjusted our specialty to meet the needs of our community. From 1986 to 2006 we were extensively involved in preparing and dispensing high tech intravenous fluids to home patients. Beginning in1998 we directed our attention at compounding services for less critically needy people – and their pets.

The Compounder is owned and operated by Patricia and Larry Frieders, a husband and wife team of pharmacists.Compounding is a combination of art and science – the assembling of useful preparations that meet the precise needs of a customer. Compounder preparations are not available from commercial drug manufacturers.

PMC: What sets your pharmacy apart from the big brands (Walgreens, CVS, Osco, etc.)?

CP: Practically every pharmacy in the United States sells drugs that come from commercial manufacturers. One important part of the daily work in a pharmacy is repackaging larger bottles of pills and liquids into smaller quantities. Of course the pharmacists are involved in important clinical activities such as communicating with patients about their prescriptions and disease. They still stock large bottles from which the customer receives his or her prescribed amount.

Sometimes the pharmacists in the traditional pharmacy get involved in a compounded preparation, but the frequency is very minimal. At The Compounder, and other pharmacies that specialize in compounding, our only job is making custom preparations from scratch that meet the specific needs of our customers.

Like any pharmacy our preparations are dispensed under the orders of a doctor.

It is important to note that we don’t just make more compounds than the pharmacists in a standard drugstore. We’ve taken courses to hone our skills to an entirely different level. Where some pharmacist might grind some tablets and add simple flavored syrup, we obtain the pure chemical ingredient and mix it with an understanding of the specific characteristics needed for that specific compound. Often we use advanced technology to make our compounded preparations elegant and biologically available. For example, we use a device called an ointment mill to prepare medicated topical products that are extremely fine.

PMC: Do you mainly work with doctors or patients or both?

CP: The Compounder is a licensed pharmacy in Illinois. Our pharmacists and compounding technicians are licensed as well. We accept prescription orders from doctors and dispense the finished preparations to our customers. It is not uncommon for us to consult with customers who then take our recommendations to their doctors.

We do not dispense compounded prescription medicines without a doctor’s order.

PMC: What is pharmacology? Simply explained, what are the major schools of thought that pharmacists follow?

CP: Pharmacology is the study of how drugs work in the body – how they are dosed and excreted – and the good and bad effects they cause. The vast majority of pharmacists focus their attention on the use of commercially available drugs – the ones that are basically “one size fits all.”

Sometimes people have to adjust how they use a commercial product to receive a benefit without bad side effects. Compounders work to achieve the best fit between the medicine and the patient by adjusting the medicine.

The Compounder does not stock commercial prescription drugs. We are focused only on custom compounds. Our motto is “Too Many People Take Too Many Drugs.” This is basically at odds with the standard of drug use today, where more seems to equate to better. It almost seems that every ailment is actually a sort of drug deficiency. Instead of searching for underlying causes of disease or discomfort – and fixing it – it is more common to use a drug to mask the symptoms.

For example, indigestion is a very common complaint. It is often referred to as acid reflux disease. There is a clear opinion in modern medicine that this condition is the result of too much acid in the gut. As a result modern science has developed drugs that act in the body to suppress the amount of acid produced. We find that the reflux symptoms are actually the result of too little acid. The refluxing of stomach contents is a reaction that can be relieved by replacing some of the missing acids. We recommend small amounts of lemon juice or vinegar – and it usually works. AS we age we all experience decreased secretions of stomach acid. When the lemon juice approach becomes less efficient we fall back on a really old remedy, supplying supplemental hydrochloric acid (real stomach acid). Some doctors prescribe dilute forms of acid in a dropper bottle. While we can compound those formulations, we can also recommend a supplement called Betaine HCl.

I use the word “supplement” and it is important. Conditions are often the result of not having enough of one element or another in the body – like the acid example. It is then necessary, and efficient, to provide that missing substance as a supplement. It is often important to use a supplement correctly. In the case of Betaine we suggest taking a dose AFTER eating. This approach adds necessary acid to the amount already produced in the gut instead of totally replacing the natural acid.

PMC: What are some good resources for our patients to look at?

CP: People today are often left to their own devices for their health. Very few professionals in the health fields have the time to get to the root cause of a problem – or to counsel their clients about better lifestyles consisting of better nutrition, exercise, and fewer drugs.

We try to fill that gap in healthcare – offering suggestions for resolving problems and preventing them. Some doctors are also at the forefront of this ideology, but not enough. We can do some counseling and evaluation but often a qualified doctor is needed and they are hard to locate. Because they treat their patients with success instead of dozens of prescriptions their reputation spreads and they often become so busy that they cannot take on new patients.

The Internet is a good starting point for patient information. Sadly, charlatans lurk there as they do in any field. So, people have to be careful where they look and who they believe. I have two suggestions for finding resources;

1) Be cautious of suggestions that seem too unusual. For example, one Internet doctor recommends eating raw foods, including raw meats, as a path to health. Maybe many of us cook our foods too much, but it seems a stretch to return to eating everything raw.
2) Be inclined to accept advice that agrees with other similar presentations. Two comments are probably describing the same truth if they do not directly oppose one another, but instead support. For example a report that there may be problems when heating plastics in a microwave is consistent with another report that warns about placing boiling water in a plastic bottle. Both are similarly warning about the possible dangers when subjecting plastic products to extreme temperatures. Neither claims that plastic containers are inherently dangerous.

PMC: Any parting shots or tips for our readers and patients?

CP: Pharmacy’s roots are in the compounding arts, the apothecaries of days past. The success of major drug manufacturers initiated a shift away from the talents needed to prepare a custom compound and towards the unique skills called upon in pharmacy today. Pharmacists can routinely compound a simple preparation, here and there. It takes someone who has decided to specialize to prepare a truly elegant compound day after day. We find that people want this kind of personal, custom attention and we make sure we have the skills and technology to meet their expectations.

Sitio de Internet en Espanol-- Por Fin!!!

Por fin, acabaron de resolver unos problemas con el "upload" de nuestro nuevo sitio de internet en espanol. Vealo aqui. Espero que les gusten.

Recipes & Ideas for Cooking (Without Cooking)

I guess the title of this post is a bit misleading because "not cooking" in no way implies "no preparation."
My son just pointed out this blog to me. It has lots of creative ideas for meals, snacks and appetizers. Let me know what you think. I know there are lots of you that want to change the way you eat, but don't know where to start. You could almost point your mouse and click and find something for starters.
bon appetit! Buen provecho!

Meditaciones Acerca de la Salud y Educación de los Niños

He escuchado acerca de muchos niños de 4to y 5to grado a quienes se les ha diagnosticado DDAH (Desorden por Déficit de Atención e Hiperactividad) o DDA (Desorden por Déficit de Atención). Esto me preocupa porque muy a menudo a estos niños no se les hace el diagnóstico correcto o son diagnosticados solo parcialmente. En mi opinión, muchos de estos niños dejan principalmente de usar el hemisferio derecho del cerebro, el cual es usualmente el más creativo y aprende mejor en el mundo real.

Nuestro sistema educativo enseña y ha ensenado a nuestros niños desde una perspectiva de una sola dimensión: pluma y papel, pizarrón y maestro; o desde una perspectiva de dos dimensiones: la de una dimensión incluyendo computadoras u otras formas de medios de comunicación electrónicos.

Un enfoque mas completo utiliza todo el mundo para instruir. Este escenario tridimensional de aprendizaje es multidisciplinario y requiere el uso de todos los sentidos del niño; o sea, integra los sujetos en lugar de lo que los compartamentaliza. Por ejemplo, la habilidad de tocar un instrumento sinfónico no solo aumenta la coordinación de un niño, sino que también llama a su lado la habilidad de desarrollar matemáticas. Esto es obvio, pero cuando el niño aprende a tocar una pieza musical de Mozart, se le puede enseñar mejor si el instructor usa el lenguaje de las artes (en este caso Alemán, Italiano y Latín) o historia/geografía (el hecho de que Mozart compuso en Austria durante el periodo conocido como la época clásica). Mucho más puede decirse acerca de esto, pero el dirigir a nuestros niños a “conectar los puntos” en todas sus materias de la escuela probablemente disminuiría el creciente número de “niños con problemas.”

Además, yo sugiero dos cosas para el niño “problema” o con DDAH/DDA:

• El niño de hemisferio derecho puede también funcionar bien si a el/ella se le permite sostener un objeto (claro, en algunos tipos de salones de clases eso podría ser una molestia). Es mejor hacer eso porque ello envuelve en el sistema de activacion reticular un área mientras permite que el niño aprenda en un ambiente convencional.
• Papá y Mamá: Revisen las etiquetas de las comidas para asegurarse que ellos no están comiendo azúcar refinada, carbohidratos o aditivos en exceso en las comidas a las cuales ellos son alérgicos. Estas substancias pueden dar lugar a un gran número de eventos que pondrían al niño en la categoría de niño "problema”—DDAH, DDA. Tráiganlos aquí para que se les pueda tomar su nivel de aminoácido. Si encontramos que hay alguna deficiencia, en lugar de darles más medicamentos, podemos darles suplementos que contengan neutracéuticos como el aceite de pescado, magnesio, zinc y vitaminas C y B.

No sabemos, talvez en un futuro estos niños sean los cirujanos usando robots para operar en el cerebro de alguien en alguna otra parte del mundo. O talvez, muy posiblemente podrían ser la nueva generación de genios en lugar de vagabundos, o gente que abandona los estudios o presos en la cárcel.

Musings on Children's Health & Education

I’m hearing about plenty of 4th and 5th graders who are “diagnosed” as ADHD or ADD. This concerns me because more often than not, these children are either misdiagnosed or partially diagnosed. Many of these children, in my opinion, primarily default to using the right hemisphere of the brain which is usually creative and learns best in real world.

Our educational system is and has been teaching our kids from a one-dimensional perspective—pen & paper, blackboard & teacher; or, from a two-dimensional perspective—the one-dimensional including computer or other forms of electronic media.

A more complete approach uses the whole world to instruct. This tri-dimensional setting of learning is cross-disciplinary and demands the use of all the child’s senses; that is, it integrates the subjects rather than compartmentalizes them. For example, the skill of learning to play a symphonic instrument not only enhances a child’s coordination but also calls to their side their ability to do math. This is obvious, but a child who learns to play a piece by Mozart is best taught when the instructor uses the language arts (in this case, German, Italian, & Latin) or history/geography (the fact that Mozart composed in Austria during a period known as the Classical period). More could be said about this, but leading our children to “connect the dots” across all their school subjects would probably cut down on the rising rate of “troubled” kids.

Additionally, I suggest two things for the “troubled” or ADD/ADHD kid:

• The right hemisphere child can also perform well if he/she is allowed to hold an object (of course, in some classroom settings that could be a nuisance). It’s better to do that because it involves the reticular activating system in one area while allowing the child to learn in conventional setting.
• Mom and Dad: Check your food labels to ensure that they are not eating refined sugars and carbohydrates or excessive additives in the foods they are allergic to. These substances could set up a cascade of events that put the child in the category of “trouble kid”—ADD, ADHD. Bring them in to get their amino acid levels checked. If we find that there is some deficiency, instead of medicating them more, we can supplement them with neutraceuticals like fish oil, magnesium, zinc, vitamin C and the vitamins B.

These children—who knows?—maybe in the future may be the surgeons, using robots to operate on somebody’s brain in some other part of the world. Or, they could very well be the next generation of geniuses rather than street people, school drop-outs or jailbirds.

¿Está todo en la mente?

Hace mas de un mes, en mi propio estado, un joven se puso de pie en un salón para conferencias en la universidad Northern Illinois y le quitó la vida a 5 estudiantes y luego la suya propia. Desde el tiroteo en el campus de Virginia Tech hace casi un año, este ha sido el tiroteo con más muertes en una escuela hasta ahora. Aunque todavía lamentamos la pérdida de las victimas, los medios de comunicación han hecho más grande el asunto del estado mental de los asesinos al momento de los asesinatos de lo que realmente es. De hecho, esta no ha sido la única, vez ni tampoco lo será, cuando la atención se enfoca en la salud mental de un criminal. El propósito de este mensaje no es cultural o sociológico. La pregunta que me gustaría proponer es saber si las reacciones tan drásticas como un tiroteo o tan “básicas” como la depresión surgen de un problema mental o no. Para clarificarlo aun más: ¿Son las drogas la cura para la salud mental?

Aunque no hay respuestas fáciles para esta pregunta, me gustaría mencionar unos cuantos pensamientos acerca de la ciencia neurológica en un nivel primario, del punto de vista de la medicina holística y que esperamos que le sea útil a usted.

Primero, la raíz de las deficiencias fisiológicas y sicológicas se encuentra en una “mala conexión” entre las células. Estas conexiones se llaman neurotransmisores. Hay millas enteras de neurotransmisores en su cuerpo. Puede imaginárselas como “mensajeros” de las células. Imagine si usted mandara un mensajero en una bicicleta con una llanta ponchada, o si usted contratara a un asesino para deshacerse de su propio mensajero. Suena ridículo ¿verdad? Pero la verdad es que usted regularmente hace lo mismo con sus “mensajeros” de las células. En otras palabras, usted puede estar a cargo de la salud de sus células y neurotransmisores. La interrupción entre las células y lo neurotransmisores muy a menudo se debe a la falta de los nutrientes adecuados. Un nutriente es un tipo de comida necesaria para el funcionamiento adecuado de la célula humana. Técnicamente, me refiero a los aminoácidos. Las condiciones tales como trastorno, depresión y fatiga están más relacionadas con las malas células que con algún problema abstracto en la cabeza.

Segundo, NO siempre es necesario medicar las “condiciones mentales.” No me malentiendan aquí. No estoy totalmente en contra de las medicinas. La respuesta a los problemas mentales puede a menudo deberse a algún desequilibrio en los fluidos de su cuerpo. Reducir las medicinas a cantidades más pequeñas, propiamente combinadas con suplementos nutricionales—contrario a la creencia popular—normalmente puede ser más efectivo que las dosis incrementadas de medicina.

Cuando la gente viene a mi, del psiquiatra o de otros cuidadores médicos quienes les han dicho que sus problemas se encuentran en su “mente,” me gusta escuchar al paciente, sacarle algo de sangre, conseguir una muestra de orina de ellos y mandarlos al laboratorio que se especializa en probar las relaciones neurológicas de sus sistemas. Basado en los resultados del laboratorio, yo trabajo con el paciente con una combinación de técnicas que son mas gentiles que los medicamentos pesados, con el fin de verlos conquistar sus “problemas mentales” particulares.