The battle against food supplements

By: Jaime T. Licauco
Philippine Daily Inquirer

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A not-so-silent war has been going on for years between advocates of orthodox, chemical-based, allopathic medicine and those of so-called natural, alternative, holistic or complementary medicine.

The western allopathic approach to medicine, which is the only healing modality officially recognized by the Philippine government, has consistently been against alternative and indigenous healing treatments, regarding them as pseudo-science, if not plain quackery.

On the other hand, the growing number of practitioners in the field of natural healing have struck back with studies of their own, proving their methods to be effective and much better than chemical drugs.

The current battle going on is between orthodox medical doctors, who believe multivitamins and foodsupplements are unnecessary and even useless, and alternative health practitioners (who may or may not be medical doctors) who believe otherwise.

The latest bomb against food supplements was hurled by Time magazine. In its Oct. 10 issue, the US magazine, in a four-page article written by John Cloud, concluded, based merely on his own experience, that most supplements don’t work.

In that article, Cloud said he subjected himself to a regimen of “nutraceuticals” as opposed to pharmaceutical drugs. “I took 22 pills a day, protein bars, power drinks and enough psyllium fiber to regulate an elephant.” At the end of the five-month period, he had his lab tests checked by two doctors and found he was only slightly better off from the time he started the regimen.

Cloud even pointed to the dangers of vitamin and supplement overdose and quoted a certain Dr. Eduardo Marban, director of Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, who allegedly found that “extreme doses of antioxidants can cause genetic mutations in stem cells.” Marban, according to Cloud, virtually never recommends supplements.

On the opposite side of the fence stands the alternative, natural medicine practitioners who cried foul. No in-depth, scientifically controlled studies, according to them, have been conducted proving the dangers of natural and plant-based supplements.

On the other hand, a number of approved drugs, which passed the rigid US Food and Drug Administration’s stringent tests, have been recalled from the market because of deaths resulting from their use by patients.

Last week, I attended a very informative seminar by Jack Tips, a doctor of naturopathy and homeopathy and licensed nutritionist from Texas, who was invited by Beth Acosta-Micaller, head of Comprehensive Iridology Practitioners Association of the Philippines, at Club Filipino.

Destruction of the cell

Tips emphatically defended the value of supplements in the battle against diseases. He said all diseasesbegin with the destruction of the cell membrane, mainly caused by radicals, which the proper nutrients, vitamins and supplements can correct.

Dr. Ray D. Strand, author of the best-selling book “What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About Nutritional Medicine May Be Killing You,” agrees. According to him, “Oxidative stress is the underlying cause of almost all chronic degenerative disease.” Antioxidants neutralize free radicals at the cellular level and can therefore restore the cells’ health. If you have a healthy cell, according to Tips, you have a healthy body.

But what exactly is an antioxidant? According to Strand, “An antioxidant is any substance that has the ability to give up an electron to a free radical and balance out the unpaired electron, which neutralizes the free radical.”

It is true that if we eat the right type of food, which is free of chemical pollutants and whose nutritive elements are not destroyed by processing, we will not need vitamins and supplements.

But where in our modern busy world can we find such nutritious food, which our ancestors used to eat and therefore kept themselves healthy until old age? One can hardly find such a restaurant. And that’s why the right type of vitamins and supplements are necessary for us to maintain our health.

Pharmaceutical companies, seeing their traditional market being swallowed up by nutraceuticals, have been waging a largely losing battle against them.

Any time you read an article condemning natural products and nonchemical supplements, ask yourself the question, “Who stands to gain by this?” The ones paying for it, most likely the pharmaceutical companies, which have the means to order a demolition job. Should we take vitamins and supplements? I would be wary, but I would.

Drugs from India not that safe, says expert

Philippine Daily Inquirer

Philippines—An infectious disease expert has warned against using pharmaceutical drugs from India, whether generic or branded, because their formulations may not be safe.

“Generic drugs are really cheap but we’ve been telling our patients to make sure that the generic drugs they’re taking are not from India because the add-ons or substances of these drugs are not stable,” said Dr. Mario Panaligan, secretary of the Philippine Society of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, and a consultant at the University of the East-Ramon Magsaysay Medical Center (UERMMC).

Speaking at a forum on “Fever: The Multi-faceted Ally and Foe,” Panaligan said that paracetamol, antibiotics and other medicines from India are not 100 percent effective compared to those manufactured by “innovator” companies.

There are more than a hundred generic companies in India, he said, and even those drugs manufactured by its top 10 companies are not guaranteed to be 100-percent safe.

Add-ons

According to Panaligan, a drug’s efficacy depends on its add-ons during its formulation.

“They have to add more substances to make that particular drug stable,” he explained.

A substance in a particular generic drug could become unstable, meaning they can cause side effects.

“The joke among us is, it’s gawa sa gawgaw (made from cornstarch),” he said.

Told that such a statement could spark a protest from the Indian government, Panaligan said he was a member of a hospital’s therapeutic committee and knew what he was talking about.

He said the committee was shown drugs made by the top 10 pharmaceutical companies of India and told that the products’ efficacy and capability were guaranteed.

Guaranteed, but …

“The problem is, if you say they’re guaranteed, then you have to perform a bio-equivalent study to prove that when compared to the original (drugs made by innovator companies), it will have the same effect on humans. So even if they say that the drugs are made by a top 10 company, it’s hard to believe because there is no bio-equivalent study. Whereas the innovator companies who made the original drugs have done a cycle of studies,” Panaligan said.

Panaligan said he did not want to be accused of promoting branded drugs but stressed that paracetamol under the brand names Tempra and Biogesic have actually been proven to be effective as first-line treatment for fever. Both brands are known to be equivalent in terms of efficacy and capability, he said.

He said the health department’s Food and Drug Administration does not have the infrastructure to evaluate drugs for approval, and merely relies on the reports being submitted by the manufacturers which are usually self-serving. Cynthia D. Balana

Pfizer-Unilab row reaches retail sector

By Abigail L. Ho
Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE patent battle between Pfizer Inc. and United Laboratories Inc. has moved beyond the courtroom and into the drugstore space, with Pfizer threatening legal charges against those that continue to sell Unilab’s Avamax.

Pfizer external legal counsel Esguerra & Blanco Law Offices on Oct. 7 sent letters to various drugstore chains in Metro Manila and the provinces, demanding that these stores stop selling Unilab’s generic version of Pfizer’s popular anticholesterol drug Lipitor.

Among the drugstores that received Pfizer’s demand letter were Watsons Personal Care Stores (Philippines) Inc., South Star Drug Inc., Amesco Drug in Davao City and Rose Pharmacy Inc. in Cebu City.

According to the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Inquirer, Atorvastatin Calcium, the drug Pfizer marketed under the brand Lipitor and which Unilab started selling this month under the name Avamax, was still under patent with Warner Lambert, a company that Pfizer bought in 2004.

The letter said Warner Lambert continued to hold the patent for Atorvastatin Calcium and that Pfizer held its exclusive distribution rights in the Philippines.

“We demand that upon receipt of this letter, you immediately cease and desist from further distributing or selling these generic versions of Atorvastatin Calcium as you and your personnel are contributing to the infringement of valid and existing patent and exclusive distribution rights, thus causing grave and irreparable damage and injury to them,” the letter said.

“We likewise demand that you inform us in writing of your compliance with the foregoing, and of your willingness to execute an undertaking whereby you will forever desist from promoting, advertising, distributing or selling these generic versions of Atorvastatin Calcium within five days from receipt of this letter,” it added.

The letter said drugstores that would continue to carry Unilab’s Avamax would face legal action.

Asked for a response, Watsons senior regulatory affairs manager Belinda Pesayco said the drugstore chain had decided to continue carrying Avamax despite the warning as this provided a cheaper alternative to consumers taking anticholesterol medicine.

“Both Pfizer and Unilab are longstanding partners of ours in the business. But after thoroughly studying the matter, we decided to continue carrying Avamax because it is cheaper. We just want to fulfill what (RA 9502, or the Universally Accessible and Quality Cheaper Medicines Act) aims to do—to make affordable, good quality medicine accessible to as many consumers as possible,” she said in a telephone interview.