Capsule Comments by Bill Coon, Muskoka Medical Centre Pharmacy

Treatment of High Cholesterol
When blood tests show that your cholesterol is high, the main marker doctors watch is the so-called bad cholesterol or LDL. The goal is to keep it under 2.0. There are tablets that do the job quite well and are taken daily. Work is being done on a twice-yearly injection that may do the same thing. Clinical trials are currently being done.

Still smoking?
Only 14.6 per cent of Canadians still smoke. That’s good news. However, tobacco causes three out of 10 cancer deaths. Smoking can lead to cancers of the mouth, throat, stomach, kidney, pancreas, bladder, liver, colon, cervix and even a blood cancer called acute myeloid leukemia. If stopping smoking was one of your New Year’s resolutions and you haven’t done it yet, make it a Spring resolution.

Information to bring with you to an Emergency department visit
Emergency wards are busy places. If you have to use these services, things will go more smoothly and quickly if you have a list of your medications and health problems written down. Also, have your care card and names and phone numbers of your doctor and one or two family members to contact. Emergency personnel just love it when all this information is handed to them!

Don’t believe everything your read online
With all the fake truths floating around the internet, it’s important to fact-check, especially when it is regarding your health. Often, health sites are selling product from their on-line store which can make the health information biased. Look for websites than actually list references to scientific journals, then look them up to see if the information quoted is valid. It is a minefield out there. Check thoroughly and talk about it before you take it.

Acriflavine being investigated
With antibiotic resistance being a huge worry in medicine today, doctors are looking back in history for help. During WWI, acriflavine, an antiseptic was used to prevent bacterial infections during that war. It got replaced by penicillin in WWII but scientists are looking at it today to see if it might be active against some of the superbugs that are so hard to treat. It looks promising and work is actively going on to see if it can be added to the armory to fight antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Alzheimer’s treatments seeing promising results
Finding a new drug to treat Alzheimer’s in all its various stages is really difficult. Dozens of companies and university laboratories are working on it but the solution is very elusive. One drug, solanezumab was looking very promising and reached Phase 3 trials but didn’t work well on the middle and late stages of the disease. So new trials have began for early onset Alzheimer’s patients. The new trial could take up to two years to complete. Alzheimer’s research moves very slowly…….

Want stronger finger nails?
There are countless claims about what vitamins can and cannot do in our bodies. Pharmacists are sometimes asked about how to make finger nails less brittle and there actually have been a few good studies about the use of biotin that shows promise. Biotin is one of the B vitamin group and if you were to try it, take 2.5 mg daily, It may take six to eight months for results to appear but may be worth a try.

The history of Warfarin
New medications are sometimes found in strange ways. In the 1920s, spoiled clover hay caused hundreds of cows to die from hemorrhaging. It was discovered that the clover contained an anticoagulant named warfarin. However it took many more years to perfect a method of purifying this chemical so it could be used in humans. Today, this “blood thinner” helps prevent heart attacks and strokes.

Be sure to visit Penny at Muskoka Medical Centre Pharmacy in the Home Health Care department for your compression stocking, mastectomy or ostomy needs.

Bill Coon graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto in 1984, and was the Faculty’s Centennial Scholar that same year. Bill and his pharmacist wife, Barbara, along with Paul Whitehead, opened Muskoka Medical Centre Pharmacy in 1990. The understanding that medications are only part of the health solution has lead to Bill’s interest in fitness and health, both personally and professionally. Bill’s Capsule Comments provide a full range of up to date health information.

Muskoka Medical Centre Pharmacy is conveniently located in the Huntsville Professional Building ~ 348 Muskoka Road 3 North, Huntsville Phone:(705) 789-1785

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