Healthy Skepticism Library item: 438

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Cornacchia C.
Drugs: They don't Want to Go
There Monteal Gazette 2004 Jun 13

Full text:

Their medicine cabinets already stuffed with some of Canada’s most commonly prescribed prescription drugs, a group of motivated Montrealers is on a mission.

The six women and two men, aged 42 to 55, have dedicated themselves to cutting back on pills and finding other ways to lower their cholesterol, blood pressure and other health risks.

“If there’s a common theme, it’s that they are surprised and disappointed to find themselves taking medication at their age,” said Sandra Grant, a Montreal clinical dietician who brought the group together last fall.

Grant started a healthy-lifestyle class, which meets once a week in Lachine to learn how to reduce hypertension and high cholesterol through diet and exercise.

“We’re learning how to lead a healthy life in today’s world where there is such easy access to food and a general lack of activity,” Grant said.

Many of the group’s members are already taking Lipitor, Losec and a collection of hypertension medications, such as Vasotec, Norvasc, Avalide or Atacand.

Grant said they all want to get off the drugs if possible.

Bonnie Lecouffe, a 53-year old Lachine woman, takes Vasotec for hypertension and just before joining the group her doctor warned her she may also need cholesterol-lowering medication.

“I’m really am desperately trying to change my lifestyle,” she said.

In the past, she explained, she has trimmed down with Weigh Watchers but regained the weight over time.

Now, she siad, she is focussing less on her weight and more on learning about food and how it affects her body’s cholesterol level and blood pressure.

“I’m learning how to shop low-fat, read labels, stock my kitchen and live on less sugar,” she said. She no longer buys packaged foods, cookies and chips.

She is also attending an aquafit class and walking daily, usually 10,000 steps a day on her Special K cereal counter. So far, she has lost 20 pounds and her cholesterol level has come down too.

Grant said the program provides the support necessary to make lifestyle changes – something doctors, even dieticians, can’t always provide.

Over eight weeks, Grant, who has a private practice and works at Montreal’s St. Mary’s Hospital, teaches the class among other things the Dash diet, a now well-publicized, low-sodium, high-calcium dietary regime that has been proven to reduce high blood pressure.
(www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/hpb/dash)

She also instructs them on identifying saturated and trans fat, which foods contains soluble fibres that can reduce cholesterol naturally and how much exercise is enough.

“Before joining the class, many had been told they would have to increase their medications soon,” said Grant. “They don’t want to go there.”