Raena Morgan: We’ve mentioned medications, Dr. Thompson. What about natural supplements? What have you seen in your practice that you’ve used that’s been successful?
Dr. Owen Thompson: You know, it’s a very good point, there are a lot of supplements that people can purchase themselves without a prescription and I have seen them really help people. Probably the one that I see the most, that people ask me about is, “What can I do to lower my cholesterol without taking a prescription medication?”
Raena Morgan: That’s the number 1 question?
Dr. Owen Thompson: That’s probably the number 1 question. And, it’s interesting, Raena, if you take the supplements and totally ignore your diet and exercise you’re probably not going to have a tremendous amount of luck. But, with lifestyle modification I have seen people make significant improvements in risk factors with supplements. Fish oil is one of those that have been very helpful for patients in my practice. I think people make mistakes sometimes and they don’t take enough; they don’t even know how much is in the tablet they’re taking. So, they need to—wherever they’re getting their supplements—find out from whomever they’re purchasing them from what they would recommend for them, based on the strength of those tablets. A lot of people will take a 1000 milligrams and take 1 a day, but a lot of people with cholesterol problems really need quite a bit more than that. They may need 5 to 7 grams a day. So, they need to make sure they’re getting enough and they probably should talk to their health care provider about that. Flaxseed extract I’ve also seen be highly helpful in lowering people’s bad cholesterol and their triglycerides as well. And, a lot of people, of course, use both of those in combination. And then, there are also, as you know other supplements that just seem to have some general health benefits for us. In recent months vitamin D has really become a big topic in the press. It’s interesting, what we thought the normal levels for vitamin D have been for many years, physicians and researchers have shown now has probably been too low. People don’t get enough sunshine to convert or manufacture the vitamin D so people need to make sure they get vitamin D and I think there are other supplements as well. But, the big ones that I think that I have personally seen success for cholesterol problems, in particular, are fish oil and flaxseed extract. I’ve also seen people who have been on other supplements, in addition to that, for other reasons, who really have made a big difference in their lipid levels without prescriptions.
RM: That’s very encouraging. Thank you, Dr. Thompson.
Raena Morgan: Yes it is, very encouraging.
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