Latest news with #familyPhysician
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Opinion: Closing Alberta harm-reduction hubs is going backwards
In 2018, a middle-aged man arrived on my patient panel. I will call him Jon. Jon was being treated in our clinic for hepatitis C but did not yet have his own family physician. When I met with him for our first visit, he told me the story of how he had contracted, years prior while incarcerated, this chronic viral infection of the liver. Supplies for tattoos and drug use were contraband at the time, so he and other inmates had shared needles and syringes. By the mid-1990s, studies were advancing our understanding of harm reduction. Based on growing scientific evidence, Canada began to implement programs that were known then as needle exchanges and have since evolved into low-barrier, wraparound services. Many today think of harm reduction as being about drug use only — supervised consumption sites for example. But harm reduction is nothing new. It was historically integral to the HIV/AIDS movement of the late 1980s and early '90s, when communities of men who have sex with men and people who use drugs (PWUD) demanded access to care that helped them reduce their risk of disease transmission. It worked. Today's modern care includes a whole spectrum of public health interventions that sharply decrease the risk of sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBI). These include things as simple as access to condoms or new syringes. The gold standard is to provide these on demand. Anything less, like having to exchange your used syringe for a new one, increases infections. In Alberta, harm-reduction services are often co-located with primary health care, including pregnancy and wound care as well as treatment for substance use and other mental health disorders. These centres are resource hubs for people who find themselves in the most painful of life's trying moments. Red Deer's Turning Point Society, founded in 1988 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, is the only resource of this kind in all of central Alberta. This week, it was announced that all provincial funding for Turning Point will be discontinued on Nov. 1. What will closures like this mean for Albertans? Without access to wraparound services that include best harm-reduction practices, blood-borne and sexually transmitted infections including hepatitis, HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia and syphilis will rise. Hospital use and costs will also increase due to more skin, organ and bone infections, more ICU stays, and even amputations. The cost of infections like these is a high price to pay compared to a harm-reduction kit that costs around a dollar. There is a common conception that the neighbourhoods around resource hubs such as Turning Point are more likely to have many discarded needles and syringes or that they are 'honeypots' for drug dealers. Studies have shown these not to occur. In fact, the hubs' cleanup and outreach crews often ensure that the area is more tidy and safer than they would be otherwise. My patient Jon came a long way since I first met him in 2018. He was eventually cured of his hepatitis C. He continued to use injection drugs and was careful to never share equipment — he knew the risks. He relied on our centre — one of Calgary's resource hubs — not only for his drug use supplies but also for getting tested regularly for STBBIs, screened for chronic diseases as he aged, and mental health supports. We have all, in fact, come a long way since the days before harm reduction. Watching, from Calgary, the defunding of central Alberta's resource hub, I fear for other similar centres — places like Alpha House in Calgary and George Spady in Edmonton. What is to become of the places that have always, as the evidence guides, provided low-barrier, wraparound care? That are doing what studies show is safest, healthiest, and most cost-effective. They have not only their clients' and patients' best interests in mind, but also the public's. By shuttering low-barrier and harm-reduction services, we are going backwards, not forwards. As citizens, we must object to the UCP's misguided and regressive restructuring and fight for places like Turning Point, Alpha House, and George Spady. History and science have shown that these are the places doing the work that helps us all. Dr. Bonnie Larson is a clinical assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Calgary. Letters welcome We invite you to write letters to the editor. A maximum of 150 words is preferred. Letters must carry a first and last name, or two initials and a last name, and include an address and daytime telephone number. All letters are subject to editing. We don't publish letters addressed to others or sent to other publications. Email: letters@ Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don't miss the news you need to know — add and to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here. You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal |The Edmonton Sun.
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Seed oils are toxic, says Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – but it's not so simple
Before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Trump Administration, he joined a whole host of health influencers in proclaiming that widely used cooking oils such as canola oil and soybean oil are toxic. T-shirts sold by his 'Make America Healthy Again' campaign now include the slogan, 'make frying oil tallow again' – a reference to the traditional use of rendered beef fat for cooking. Seed oils have become a mainstay of the American diet because unlike beef tallow, which is comprised of saturated fats that increase cholesterol levels, seed oils contain unsaturated fats that can decrease cholesterol levels. In theory, that means they should reduce the risk of heart disease. But research shows that different seed oils have varying effects on risk for heart disease. Furthermore, seed oils have also been shown to increase risk for migraines. This is likely due to their high levels of omega-6 fatty acids. These fats can increase inflammation, a heightened and potentially harmful state of immune system activation. As a family physician with a Ph.D. in nutrition, I translate the latest nutrition science into dietary recommendations for my patients. When it comes to seed oils, the research shows that their health effects are more nuanced than headlines and social media posts suggest. Seed oils — often confusingly referred to as 'vegetable oils' — are, as the name implies, oils extracted from the seeds of plants. This is unlike olive oil and coconut oil, which are derived from fruits. People decrying their widespread use often refer to the 'hateful eight' top seed oil offenders: canola, corn, soybean, cottonseed, grapeseed, sunflower, safflower and rice bran oil. These oils entered the human diet at unprecedented levels after the invention of the mechanical screw press in 1888 enabled the extraction of oil from seeds in quantities that were never before possible. Between 1909 and 1999, U.S. consumption of soybean oil increased 1,000 times. This shift fundamentally changed our biological makeup. Due to increased seed oil intake, in the past 50 years the concentration of omega-6 fatty acids that Americans carry around in their fatty tissue has increased by 136%. Omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids are essential nutrients that control inflammation. While omega-6s tend to produce molecules that boost it, omega-3s tend to produce molecules that tone it down. Until recently, people generally ate equal amounts of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. However, over the past century, this ratio has changed. Today, people consume 15 times more omega-6s than omega-3s, partly due to increased consumption of seed oils. In theory, seed oils can cause health problems because they contain a high absolute amount of omega-6 fatty acids, as well as a high omega-6 to omega-3 ratio. Studies have linked an increased omega-6 to omega-3 ratio to a wide range of conditions, including mood disorders, knee pain, back pain, menstrual pain and even preterm birth. Omega-6 fatty acids have also been implicated in the processes that drive colon cancer. However, the absolute omega-6 level and the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio in different seed oils vary tremendously. For example, safflower oil and sunflower oil have ratios of 125:1 and 91:1. Corn oil's ratio is 50:1. Meanwhile, soybean oil and canola oil have lower ratios, at 8:1 and 2:1, respectively. Scientists have used genetic modification to create seed oils like high oleic acid canola oil that have a lower omega-6 to 3 ratio. However, the health benefit of these bioengineered oils is still being studied. Part of the controversy surrounding seed oils is that studies investigating their inflammatory effect have yielded mixed results. One meta-analysis synthesizing the effects of seed oils on 11 inflammatory markers largely showed no effects – with the exception of one inflammatory signal, which was significantly elevated in people with the highest omega-6 intakes. To complicate things further, genetics also plays a role in seed oils' inflammatory potential. People of African, Indigenous and Latino descent tend to metabolize omega-6 fatty acids faster, which can increase the inflammatory effect of consuming seed oils. Scientists still don't fully understand how genetics and other factors may influence the health effects of these oils. A review of seven randomized controlled trials showed that the effect of seed oils on risk of heart attacks varies depending on the type of seed oil. This was corroborated by data resurrected from tapes dug up in the basement of a researcher who in the 1970s conducted the largest and most rigorously executed dietary trial to date investigating the replacement of saturated fat with seed oils. In that work, replacing saturated fats such as beef tallow with seed oils always lowers cholesterol, but it does not always lower risk of death from heart disease. Taken together, these studies show that when saturated fats such as beef tallow are replaced with seed oils that have lower omega-6 to omega-3 ratios, such as soybean oil, the risk of heart attacks and death from heart disease falls. However, when saturated fats are replaced with seed oils with a higher omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, such as corn oil, risk of death from heart disease rises. Interestingly, the most highly purchased seed oil in the United States is soybean oil, which has a more favorable omega-6 to 3 ratio of 8:1 – and studies show that it does lower the risk of heart disease. However, seed oils with less favorable ratios, such as corn oil and safflower oil, can be found in countless processed foods, including potato chips, frozen dinners and packaged desserts. Nevertheless, other aspects of these foods, in addition to their seed oil content, also make them unhealthy. A rigorous randomized controlled trial – the gold standard for clinical evidence – showed that diets high in omega-3 fatty acids and low in omega-6 fatty acids, hence low in seed oils, significantly reduced the risk of migraines In the study, people who stepped up their consumption of omega-3 fatty acids by eating fatty fish such as salmon experienced an average of two fewer migraines per month than usual, even if they did not change their omega-6 consumption. However, if they reduced their omega-6 intake by switching out corn oil for olive oil, while simultaneously increasing their omega-3 intake, they experienced four fewer migraines per month. That's a noteworthy difference, considering that the latest migraine medications reduce migraine frequency by approximately two days per month, compared to a placebo. Thus, for migraine sufferers — 1 in 6 Americans — decreasing seed oils, along with increasing omega-3 intake, may be even more effective than currently available medications. Overall, the drastic way in which omega-6 fatty acids have entered the food supply and fundamentally changed our biological composition makes this an important area of study. But the question of whether seed oils are good or bad is not black and white. There is no basis to conclude that Americans would be healthier if we started frying everything in beef tallow again, but there is an argument for a more careful consideration of the nuance surrounding these oils and their potential effects. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Mary J. Scourboutakos, University of Toronto Read more: Ultraprocessed foods – like cookies, chips, frozen meals and fast food – may contribute to cognitive decline How Crisco toppled lard – and made Americans believers in industrial food Migraine sufferers have treatment choices – a neurologist explains options beyond just pain medication Mary J. Scourboutakos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
