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Author: Roxanne

I have always loved to learn. After years of trying to pick a major as an undergraduate, I met a professor who guided me to graduate school. And from graduate school, I learned that I could always go to school and keep on learning. And so I have...

Why is there sugar in my tomato soup?

January 30, 2012

So I have been trying low sodium soups. When I have time, I love to make soup from scratch. But I often don’t have time. So, enter the effort to find canned soups that taste good and are good for me. My favorite when I was growing up was tomato soup. It was the simple can of Campbells. I didn’t know there was any other kind. My mom made it with milk. Probably whole milk. I have no idea when all the low fat and skim varieties of milk became available. When they did, she started to use them.

And grilled cheese. Recently, I have started to put a sliced fresh tomato on my grilled cheese sandwich before grilling it. Yummm. But I digress.

The amount of sodium in Campbell’s tomato soup sent me on a search for something healthier. 530 mg of sodium in a half cup. Sorry but I usually have a cup of soup and so — half the day’s salt for a cup of coup. Yikes. [http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-campbells-tomato-soup-i81752]

I tried a couple of different kinds of reduced sodium canned tomato soup. I didn’t like them. I tried tomato basil reduced sodium hoping that the basil would help. I didn’t like them. Until yesterday. Progresso vegetable classics tomato basil soup. 580 mg sodium in one cup compared to 1,60 in one cup of the Campbells. There was just one problem.

When I took the first bite, I knew there was sugar added. I could taste it. I got up and flipped the can over and sure enough — under the Ingredients list — sugar is the 3rd ingredient. Why? You have to be kidding me. So I went on a search of the other soups. You guessed it. Sugar. High fructose corn syrup. It’s there. You just have to look for it.

So back on the hunt I went for a homemade recipe. I found one I like. But it has V-8 juice in it. And v-8 juice, well, it has a lot of salt in it… Sigh. There is a low sodium version [http://www.v8juice.com/FAQ.aspx]

When communication benefits health

January 28, 2012

 There is hardly anything more fun than getting together with family and friends. And celebrating life is the best reason to get together that I can think of.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We had a baby shower that proved the point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Everyone got a preview of the nursery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                     The food was fantastic. Chocolate-dipped strawberries. Crab cakes. Mini   quiche and more…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was fabulous! And will keep me smiling to remember it in the days and weeks to come…

 

Sharing the conversation

January 27, 2012

In case you missed the comment on yesterday’s post, here is a link to a shared video:

In India, all women must confront the cultural pressure to bear a son. The consequences of this preference is a disregard for the lives of women and girls. From birth until death they face a constant threat of violence. See the project at http://mediastorm.com/publication/undesired

What doctors in India don’t tell pregnant women

January 26, 2012

I was talking with one of my former graduate students yesterday, catching him up on the excitement we all feel as we look ahead to our grandchild’s birth. He in turn shared with me that his sister is pregnant.

I asked if they knew whether it would be a boy or a girl, and he told me that in India, there is a law that forbids doctors from telling the mother the sex of the baby. It was passed in an effort to help prevent the killing of an unborn female fetus. Apparently, boys are preferred over girls. I was shocked to learn that a country would have to adopt a law to try to prevent such acts. Are there other countries with such laws?

What to do about a ‘stiff neck’?

January 25, 2012

Yes, I have been traveling. And you may remember my story in my book, ‘Talking about health…’ where I was on spring break at the beach and got such a pain in my neck that I thought I would die. Well, this is what I know. First, physical therapy and exercises brought me back from that episode and keep me in shape for the most part. But I need a good pillow as well. For me, that turns out to be a memory foam pillow. No, I am not being paid to advertise this pillow. But it is worth telling you about it anyway. Just based on my personal experience. During my travels this past week, I started to feel that familiar neck twinge. I quickly decided to purchase a memory foam pillow to sleep on and — wallah! — no more neck pain. Here is a bit of info about how these pillows work:

What is the missing content in this ad and why is it worth talking about it for the sake of health?

January 18, 2012

I have been meaning to look up the research linked to ads about high fructose corn syrup for awhile. You know the ones. They says that the two are the same and that your body doesn’t know the difference. What they don’t every explicitly say in any of the ads I have seen is: they are both high calorie carbohydrates that should be eaten in moderation, err on the side of less rather than more.

Turns out that the Corn Refiners Association started the ad campaign to clear up misconceptions about corn syrup versus cane sugar. You can see the original ad here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scHpZ10ok0c&feature=related 

I cannot embed it because the Corn Refiners have disabled embedding. After a bit of surfing, I did find one of the ads from the campaign because someone else is using it along with their personal conclusions about why corn syrup is bad. I thought it would be worth checking to see if I could find any research.    

A review of the science [found here: http://ajl.sagepub.com/content/4/6/515.full.pdf+html] supports several conclusions. Of course, the broadest conclusion is that more research is needed. But that being said, here goes. On p. 519, the authors conclude,

“From a compositional standpoint, high-fructose corn syrup, sucrose, invert sugar, honey, and concentrated fruit juices are all virtually interchangeable. All of these nutritive sweeteners are composed of approximately 50% glucose and 50% fructose. All are absorbed similarly, have similar sweetness, and have the same number of calories per gram.”

And when the shoe is on the other foot in health communication, so that a patient wants to reject treatment or medication, what then?

Jauary 17, 2012

Sometimes, life really is a race…

Here is my daughter pictured in a skull at the Head of the Charles rowing competition. Looking at it, I am thinking about how our discussion about conscience clauses ignores the other side of the story.

I was reminded of our right to refuse treatment based on our values and morals when I once more searched to find published research about how doctors, especially pharmacists, talk about these issues with patients when it means that a doctor/pharmacist is not going to provide medication or treatment.

Orr and Jensen conclude in the Journal of Medical Ethics,

“How should the clinician respond when a patient or family requests “inappropriate” treatment based on religious beliefs? As in all situations where there is disagreement about treatment options, good communication is the most important step towards resolution. The patient or family must clearly understand the medical situation. This may require repeated discussion, conversations with consultants,viewing of x-rays or other clinical data, or other efforts familiar to most clinicians. A management conference, which includes the patient/family, primary physician, consultants, bedside nurses and others from the care-team, is often the best way to ensure that such communication happens.” (1993, p. 145; http://jme.bmj.com/content/23/3/142.full.pdf+html)

The article’s title? “Requests for “inappropriate” treatment based on religious beliefs.”

I think the suggested course of communication in the decision-making scenario is a great model for how to talk about decisions when the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak…and the focus is conscience clauses and the provider’s religious beliefs.

 

 

 

What might happen when a pharmacist uses a conscience clause?

January 16, 2012

A conscience clause — when might a pharmacist feel conflicted about filling a prescription? The most commonly discussed event is birth control. Birth control pills, the morning after pill… these medications cause feelings of conflict between values related to pro-life and anti-abortion, and dispensing the medications.

The store, Target, supports a pharmacist’s rights not to fill these prescriptions. However, a pharmacist must direct a consumer to another Target store where the prescription can be filled. I can find no research that has been done to see how such conversations might take place or what happens when — as in the town where I live — there is one Target store. I don’t know if there is more than one pharmacist there. I don’t know if any of them object to filling these prescriptions. But if they do, what happens? How would I know? Who would tell me?

What is a conscience clause and how does it affect health communication?

January 14, 2012

Do you remember the first time that you heard the word ‘conscience’? I grew up in a household where my parents used the word and shaped my ‘conscience’ — my sense of right and wrong. And as an adult, I feel the twangs of my conscience guiding my decisions. I would hate to have a job where someone told me that I could not follow my conscience. It is hard enough to work in a job where and live in a world where not everyone shares my ‘conscience’. But at least I am able to behave based on my moral code, even if it doesn’t always reward me to do so.

Health care providers face challenges to their ability to act based on their conscience in some situations. Efforts have been made to adopt policies to allow health care providers to act based on their conscience. These ‘conscience clauses’ aim to allow doctors and pharmacists and other health care providers to choose not to provide some services because to provide the service would go against their conscience. Watch this video and we’ll talk more about this issue in the coming week.