Archive for May, 2007

Should YOU Be Gluten Free? Take the Quiz !

Sunday, May 20th, 2007

It’s funny how a simple, easy, confidential, secure self-test for a medical condition that food can cause

    and sometimes cure

can actually help people…and create buzz.

Over 500 people last week took the Gluten Free Quiz…many after GlutenFreeGirl featured it in her terrific round-up of Going Gluten-Free resources.

I created the quiz with CHEF Clinic after I saw a patient referred to me for a nutritional program to help lifelong, possibly food-related symptoms –upset stomach, anemia, insomnia, weight fluctuations.

After careful history-taking, food records and lab testing, she was found to have celiac disease. So was her sister.

Up to 3 million people in the U.S. and many more worldwide have hard-to-diagnose celiac disease, and suffer with gluten-inflicted symptoms, from infertility to thyroiditis.

97 percent don’t know that gluten is the cause. And a lot of solid science identifies those at risk: the Quiz makes it easy for people to use.

Of the first 1000 people who have taken the new Gluten Free Quiz, 45 percent have at least one major risk factor for celiac disease:
*
type I diabetes
*
iron deficiency anemia
*
osteoporosis
*
a first or second degree relative with celiac disease.

The Gluten Free Quiz intends to improve access to testing, and it’s free.

Anyone can eat healthfully and beautifully, with flavor and passion without gluten, but people with celiac disease–a destructive autoimmune reaction to the protein gluten– must eat this way.

Search the Gluten Free Swicki for delicious Gluten Free Recipes, web-wide.

Gluten is in not just wheat and barley, but in many other products, from soy sauce to face cream. It’s essential to know what’s in your products if you need to be gluten-free.

Take the quiz, print off a copy, and if you have a high score, take it to your doctor to ask, “Do you think I should be tested for celiac disease?”

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Does Your Pediatrician Measure Body Mass Index? 19 of 20 Do Not!

Tuesday, May 15th, 2007

Pediatricians are some of the nicest people in medicine.
And some of the busiest.
Few take the time to measure Body Mass Index (BMI) in kids.
Very few.
But they should, because it is the best single way to tell if your kids is overweight, and at risk for obesity, diabetes, an enlarged heart and ridiculing at school, after school and before school.
Or for heart disease in adulthood.
BMI is just weight in kilograms divided by height in meters, squared.
A handy BMI calculator–for kids–is here, from the CDC.
Traditional growth charts and curves did not have BMI until the year 2000, when the CDC added them.
In a study presented in 2007 in Toronto, 397 patient charts from a pediatric practice were examined.
They were for kids seen in 2004 at an academic medical center. The kids were between the ages of 5 and 11.
Only 5.5 percent had their BMIs in their charts.
Only 4.3 percent had BMI written on their growth charts and curves.
Doctors-in-training were more likely than staff physicians to chart and plot BMI.
Ask your doctor how high is your kid’s BMI.
If your kid needs help, get help as a family: it’s the most effective help you can get.

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