Do Prescriptions Really Expire?

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

 

Have you ever wondered if that old prescription sitting in your refrigerator is still any good?  You see the expiration date is well past, but it was expensive and you may need it again, right?

If the expiration date has come and gone, is it safe to keep? And for how long? Will it hurt you if you take it “out of date”?

Let’s start with how medication expiration dates came about. There were no expiration dates on medications until 1979. The FDA started requiring dates to “ensure effectiveness.” The generally accepted minimum standard for potency is a concentration of 90% or better.

Vitamins: Part 2

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

Once we realize that we cannot obtain the essential nutrients we need form food alone, you can then conclude that some sort of supplementation should be added to our diet.

There are good whole food vitamins on the market. I’m not here to sell any of them. Do some research and find them. None of them will be one pill a day. Most will need to have 4 or more capsules taken per day simply because you can’t compress all the ingredients into one pill, it ain’t possible! And that is your first clue to a good supplement. It takes more than one pill to get the needed ingredients.

They must have essential vitamins at levels above the RDA set by the government. The RDA’s, I believe, are bare bones numbers just to stay alive, not for optimum health. Take the 400 iu RDA for Vitamin D, for instance. Vitamin D at that level doesn’t even provide for essential body functions, let alone provide enough to improve your dietary intake. You need 5 to 10,000 iu’s per day from sun and supplements for optimum performance of body systems.

Vitamins Part 1

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

 

Do you take vitamins and supplements? Why do you take them? How did you choose what you currently consume? Price? Ingredients? Availability? Recommendation? Why?

I talk supplements with many people in the office, and most are just winging it, hoping it helps their health. Many people have fallen for the “one a day” advertising. Some buy supplements as cheaply as possible. Others look for certain ingredients, but really have no idea what should be in them. It is hard to know what to look for and how to buy when your knowledge and time are limited.

Sell By vs. Use By Dates

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

 

How many times have the ‘use by’ or ‘sell by’ date on a packaged food caused you to rethink eating or purchasing a product? Does either of those dates say anything about whether the product is safe to eat? Are these dates regulated by the government or backed by any research showing good reason for them?

The average family in America wastes over $1500 worth of food each year. Moldy bread and spoiled produce should be discarded for obvious reasons. Yet many perfectly fine foods are tossed based on the ‘use by/best by’ and ‘sell by’ dates. A recent report from Harvard found that 90% of Americans throw out food prematurely based on a misunderstanding of what these dates really mean.+

Allulose: Another Natural Sweetener

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

 

In the last article we talked about the failures of artificial sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose and saccharin. They are terrible for your health and well being. I’ve written other articles on stevia, which I regularly use, and tastes fine in drinks or sprinkled on foods for extra sweetness. But, you can’t really bake with it without altering a recipe markedly.

I am going to introduce you to an all-natural, actual sugar substitute called Allulose.

This real sugar is found in kiwi, jackfruit, figs, molasses, and raisins. Commercially it is extracted from corn sugars that are altered by a single molecule to become this sugar.  It is a monosaccharide, or simple sugar, and is absorbed by the body, but not metabolized. That is what makes this sugar have zero calories. It is excreted by the kidneys before it is metabolized, leaving you with “effectively zero” calories.

Artificial Sweeteners: Are They Safe?

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

 

Artificial sweeteners have become as common as sugar was 50 years ago. In today’s world of overweight people, some are constantly looking to reduce calorie intake. In a previous article a while back, I detailed how these sweeteners actually cause your body to crave more sugar and more food because they do not satisfy the body’s insulin receptors. This can lead to actual weight gain instead of the intended weight loss.

Artificial sweeteners like Splenda may lower your good gut bacteria, increase your intestinal pH and accumulate in fat cells. It is linked to leukemia. Aspartame (Nutrasweet) is linked to insulin intolerance, leading to diabetic issues.

Eat All the (Dark)Chocolate You Want

Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.

 Chocolate is one of those foods that few people would do without.  In America, we rank about 20^th in the world in pounds eaten per year, at about 9 lbs. per person, per year.  The Swiss rank number one in the world and eat about 20 lbs. per year.  I’m pretty sure I fit in with the Swiss more than most Americans. Chocolate is just a good part of a healthy diet if you choose your chocolate correctly.   

Obviously, most candy is nothing but sugar and generally not what we look to eat regularly or in any serious amounts. Sugar in general is just not healthy and most candy is just that, not healthy.