Show V 3 -- A i Section j : tik Tuesday March 26 2002 Pagel The Herald Journal Natural Vitamin Volunteers usher clinic into 11th year By Debbie Lewie E “Mary” a single mother with two young children recently lost her job One of her children was coughing and running a fever all day yet Mary hesitated to visit a doctor because she had no health insurance and very little money Where can members of the community like Mary turn for help? For the past 10 years the Cache Valley Community Health Ginic has been providing free limited medical services for community residents who do not have access to health insurance At first glance the Cache Valley Community Health Ginic looks like other medical offices There is a physician nurses clerks and even a Spanish translator But this is not a typical health clinic' The mix of names and faces of people providing is better By Ed Bloni PtU) DEAR DR am perplexed about the differences between synthetic aid natural vitamins An article by one scientist for example claims dust synthetic vitamin E is just as good as the natural kind and it's cheaper I read anoth- er article by a different scientist who recommends natural vitamin £ which he says is more readily absorbed I want to know what the major differences an between the' synthetic arid natural tablets — JM Charleston NC Dear JM: Thereare definite differences between synthetic and natural vitamin E and two important factors to consider are potency and ease of absorption First here are some facts about vitamin E The main vitamin E compound is tocopherol which comes from the Greek words tokos (offspring) and pherein (to bear) It was so named because it was first thought to be an essential factor in reproduction There are a number of different tocopherols in nature the four most important ones being alpha- - beta- - gamma-- and BL0N7L-- delta-tocopher- ol 1 Alpha-tocopher- The Cache Valley Community Health Clinic is open most Tuesday and Thursday evenings starting at 6 66 Intermountain Health Care and Lorraine were married “Lorraine and Wendell are true examples of caring” said Teri Chase-Dun- ri Logan Regional Hosassistant administrator who pital serves as a liaison between Health Care and the Cache Valley Community Health Clinic “It is absolutely incredible how both of them have gi ven so much of their personal time to the cause of the clinic They are there every night it is open and have even been known to plan trips around clinic hours of and is located at 270 12 N Main in Logan Volunteers staff the clinic including 25 doctors 11 dentists 15 nurses and 24 support staff Other physicians and dentists in the community accept referrals TWo of the clinic’s most stalwart volunteers are Lorraine and Wendell Olsen of Providence In fact Lorraine has been involved with the clinic since it first opened its doors in the spring of 1992 She has donated thousands of hours helping to schedule volunteers and coordinate clinic operations In addition she is a member of the Clinic Advisory Board which works closely with the Logan Regional Hospital Governing Board to make sure the clinic is meeting the needs of the community Wendell began volunteering at the clinic eight years ago soon after he pm “They're there every night it is open and have even been known to plan trips around clinic hours of operation” —Teri Chase-Dun- n care changes each time the doors ' open There are no fees charged for services performed and patients can come without an advance appointment Clinic patients are Cache Valley residents who are temporarily between jobs or who do not have access to health insurance for other reasons Inter-mounta- in a operation” The Cache Valley Community Health Clinic has served thousands of patients in its history Last year the clinic logged 1 733 patient visits and Volunteers collec- -' lively donated over 1500 hours of service IHC the Logan Regional Hospital Foundation physician 10-yt- ar See CLINIC on B2 m0!M DuDro) ol is the one we hear about most because it is the form with the great- - By Lee Bowman Scripps Howard News Service est vitamin activity in the V-human body There are natural and synthetic forms of all the The versions natural tocopherols start with a “d” as in d and synthetics start with “dl” as in Natural vitamin E is die most potent of the vitamin E compounds on a weight basis Vitamin E supplements however are not sold by weight They are typically sold by IU or international units which are a measurer of biological activity This means that 200 IU of synthetic vitamin E has die same potency as 200 IU of the natural vitamin Tb complicate matters scientists have stopped using the IU and now talk about vitamin E in terms of a more precise unit of measure the alpha- -' tocopherol equivalent(alpha-TE- ) One alpha-T- E equals 1 milligram of natural which equals 167 IU Absorption is another factor to consider and some studies have ' shown that natural vitamin E is more easily absorbed The differences however are not significant A final point is that natural vita-min E supplements often contain the beta- - gamma- - and along with the alpha A study in die December 2001 American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that gammatocopherol the most prominent form of vitynin Bin many plant seeds has some unique beneficial qualities And one year earlier in the December 2000 Journal of tfc National Cancer Institute a population study found that those with die highest concentrations of gamma- -' 1 had the lowest risk of 'prostate cancer My advice then is that if price and convenience are important jssues by all means buy the synthetic If you feel that natural is the way to go try to find a supplement that contains mixed tocopherols m ' nUtritlOll Scientists cine “But we still have a way to go before we can confidently use such a screening test in the general population!’ he added Dr Robert Schwartz an editor of the journal commenting on the study in an accompanying perspective article agreed that while tiie work was “technically impressive the method is clearly not ready for clinical application We see it'as a step in the ardu-ous journey toward reliable molecular screening for colorectal cancer” And he noted that otherlypes of tests might end up being more practical Still the new test is believed to be the first to reliably pinpoint ' non-invasi- ve AFC gene mutations from DNA shed into colon cancer-linke- d human waste First identified by Kinzier and Dr Bert Vogeistein' senior author of the study in 1991 the mutations initiate the cascade of molecular and cellular errors that eventually result in ' ' tumor formation “Deaths from colon cancer are totially preventable through early ' detection” raid Vogeistein a Howard Hughes Medical Institute ' investigator “If colon cancers are detected sufficiently early before they spread they are curable through surgical or colono- scopic delta-tocopher- ' SNHS photo courtesy Johns Hopkins Medical Center methods” Colon dancer is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States' affecting some 130000 people each year and killing more than 50000 ' Although the researchers had always suspected that the APC From left to right Dr Bert Vogeistein Dr Kenneth Klnzler arid research student Giovanni Traverso have developed a new stool test to find key genetic markers for colon cancers See GENE on B2 New MR I heart test less invasive By Linda A Johnson Associated Press Writer A new type of imaging technique using an MRI device can detect most diseased coronary arteries and so could spare many heart patients a more invasive expensive and uncomfortable test researchers say MRI or magnetic resonance imaging has been used for the past 10 v years to study very large blood ves-- '' sels such as the aorta Patients must lie inside the MRI machine a giant electromagnet that yields images ' that rinsing and draining canned vegetables reduces their sodium content by as much as 25 percent to ' 30 I have searched through ' percent everything I have (old textbooks lecturenotes etc) arid cannot find a single reference Do you know how V muck the sodium content is reduced when Canned vegetables an rinsed? ' Jordan Minn ' Dear Salt or sodium chlo-ride dissolves easily in water so rinsing canned vegetables tandbeani Will certainly reduce salt(sodium) content As for the exefct formula or ' percent reduction for a particular food it depends on total sodium in the food foe funpunt of added salt and the volume of water exchanged 'There is no specific data that I am -- aware of that works for all foods 3-- D ofthebodyV ‘ Now doctors at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston have adapted the technology fo produce a series of images of the relatively small coronary arteries f Tiro smaller forties found the sy$- tern could spot arteries blocked or narrowed by plaque in patients- already diagnosed with coronary artery disease bythe current “gold standard" test— the “gwgram'’-- -' first to toy the v 'y A new study system at several hospitals and cm previously untested patients -- found it detected every diseased coixmary Dea-con- es high-resoluti- on -1-- ’ J : rlhe ! : artery in 75 percent of the patients " and found tiie most 89 in percent blockages The MRI technique is still not as thorough as an angiogram but it is less invasive "i “This technique is a significant advance” said Dr Valentin Fuster ' director of the Cardiovascular Iosti- tute at New York’s Mount Sinai Med- -' ical Center and past president of the' American Heart Association “In five yens I think it’s going to overtake tire conventional angiogram" By then Fuster expects advances will bring sharper images allowing doctors to spot even tiny lesions that could eventually lead to heart attacks: In an angiogram a catheter is threaded from a groin or arm artery ! upi to ti£ heart The catheter theta injects a dye that can be seen on 'a “movie” helping doctors spot ' - blockages'! ’ - The heart pumpe oxygen-ric- h bkxxl through the aorta to muscles throughout the body! Coronary arteries serve the special function' of routing a tiny fraction of this blood to the heart muscle itself Because these arteries are relatively small screening for disease has required the use of invasive' techniques such as an ' angiogram in which a catheter threaded up to the heart injects a dye that highlights problem areas Lsft coronary' artery (branches off into the left anterior artery and the - 'circumflex ( i ' i Angiograms produce toy clear pic fores but daura complications in about 1 percent of the L2 million patients getting the test each year including a slight chance of artery damage or a :Y '1 heart attack So researchers have been seeking a wry to get similar results without toe ‘ risks or other drawbacks ' The research on the MRI technique was reputed in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine It was led by Dri Warren J Manning head of noninvasive cagiiac imaging at Beth ’ Israel Deaconess The study involved 109 patients at Beth Israel and six other US and European sites where staff had little experience with the new MRI system Each patient first had the MRI tesL followed by an angiogram: The researchers got clear images of only 84 percent of the artery Segments with the MRI test compared with 100 percenf for the uigiograms noted Dr Rohit Arora chief of cardiology and cardiac catheterization at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jusey in Newark “Blockages are still bejng missed” by tite MRI he said ' The four main coronary arteries with an inside diameter tfc only one- eighth ofan inch wrap taround the otide of thq heart and supply tiio muscle Witii blood The arteries’ small size and constant motion nteke it hard ' to captureimages of them - X-r- ay ’ Cprpiiaryarterie3 ! ''! V DEAR DR BLONZ-- I believe! heard at some point in my schooling ' - test that could or a 1 for a newnon-invasiv- e disease at its earliest stages Although the first trial of the test was onfy about 60 percent effective “we are encouraged by the fact that we've detected mutations in a significant fraction of patients with early stage tumors and never in people free of disease” said Kenneth Kinzier a professor of oncology at the Kimmel Cancer Center at The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and of the study published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medi- alpha-toco-pher- ol Jl: a new technique have been able to marker for colon cancer in stool samples Using V:’' L ! in ' V't Caniaevelne cany oxygen back to the hearfS chambers SOURCE UERCK Manual orMMctf Ari a |