Blog Posts

Caffeine and Arginine: A combo that could be killing athletes

2/12/2013

There have been several reports in the news lately of healthy athletes dropping dead due to a sudden heart attack. A couple of these reports, including the most recent Boston Marathon death have mentioned athletes having caffeine in their system and some have claimed the athletes are taking a supplement which contains caffeine and the amino acid L-arginine. Caffeine alone should be used with caution in endurance training, since it can be a strong stimulant based on your metabolism and your genetics”

Read More below if you're interested

The Risks of Self-supplementation

1/14/2013

To make a long story short:

Self-supplementing can be just as dangerous as self-prescribing or self-diagnosing.
See an expert who has education and experience in clinical nutrition.
Labels can be deceiving and confusing.
There are more products out there that have negligible doses than those with appropriate doses, don’t be fooled.
Not all supplements and vitamins are safe, some are absolutely contraindicated for certain people.
The media (news, TV shows, etc…) are more interested in thrilling an audience rather than doing legitimate research.
Don’t believe everything you hear, when in doubt ask your local ND.
Some supplements are targeted towards specific populations or conditions but when you look at the ingredients they’re just repackaging a multi-vitamin or a single nutrient, calling it something else and charging way more.
I would prefer all of my patients get their nutrients through whole foods but those who are deficient or can’t get them from whole foods should be taking appropriate supplements.
If you're going to be spending $100-$1000's on supplements each year, it would be wise to know which ones are appropriate or not.

Click on Read More if you would like more detail about these points.

Why Should I Pay for Naturopathic Medicine?

1/3/2013

A couple of people have told me that they have a hard time justifying paying to see a Naturopathic Doctor.

Hopefully this analogy will help shift the mindset:

Scenario 1: You pick up a car for $500 to last you through the winter. You go to start it up and all of the sudden you hear a terrible noise coming out of the muffler. It’s just a beater so it’s reasonable to just patch up the hole. You’re going to get rid of it after the winter anyway right?

Scenario 2: You’ve saved up to buy that new car you’ve always wanted and a couple months later you hear that dreaded noise. You want this car to last at least the next 10 years. That hole is a just a small sign of things to come so it’s better to get a professional service to fix your car (i.e. mechanic or dealership) and get the whole part replaced. After spending hundreds of dollars on your car, your bank account isn’t happy but you won’t have to worry about the problem coming back for a long time.

Scenario 3: You’re born with a priceless body that scientists would not be able recreate with billions of dollars. Your body is not disposable; you want it to last a century. If you don’t want to patch up a decent car that you hope will last a decade I would hope that you would not want to just throw a patch on your body that has the potential to last 100 years. By the time you’re retired would you rather be driving around that car that you decided to patch up every time something went wrong or would you prefer to have that ol’ classic car that looks brand spankin’ new and everything runs perfectly. You’ll be the envy of all your peers. We don’t have the option to sell or trade our bodies, so it’s important to seek professional services in order to keep them in optimal shape.

Regarding your health,

While those temporary patches are important while you work on finding a solution, they shouldn’t be depended on for life. It might be necessary to apply a patch until you can find the right person to fix your problem or until you can get the money to pay them but the mindset of, “That’s good enough” shouldn’t suffice. Most of us get one chance with our body and our health is what will maintain it so we can enjoy it for as long as possible.

If you’re willing to spend over $20 000 on a vehicle and dish out hundreds of dollars at a time to keep it tuned up or to repair it, you should not be afraid to treat your health the same way. You’re more important than your car.

Our bodies are miraculous machines, they can enable us to do so many things or they can literally be the death of us. We have to cherish and invest in our irreplaceable bodies rather than the replaceable material things in life. We have to look at our bodies as if they are the vehicle that will get us through the next 100 years and treat it as such.

A couple of other things to keep in mind:

The less a Doctor is paid per patient, the more patients that Doctor will try to see
Aside from the advanced education, research and experience your ND utilizes to help improve your health, most ND's spend a lot of out-of-office time working on each patient's individual case. It's better to treat the price you pay as if it's "per health" rather than "per hour" because you might sit down with your ND for an hour but they could spend a whole day working up your case.
If money is an issue, just like most other professions, most ND's will be able to work something reasonable out for you.
If you have benefits, depending on the company you could get the first 4 visits for free or 80% off of all of your visits.
Most people you talk to who have been to an ND have no problem paying for the service, these people realize how valuable their health is because the majority of them have realized how severely poor health can affect their life.

Thanks for reading!
Any feedback would be much appreciated.
Let me know if you agree or disagree, if my blogs are too long or you'd like more detail, etc...

Forward>>

Caffeine and Arginine: A combo that could be killing athletes

The Risks of Self-supplementation

Why Should I Pay for Naturopathic Medicine?

Dr Justin Gallant ND

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