Medications and Nutritional Deficiency

Your medications may cause vitamin and nutritional deficiencies! learn how to make them safe.

I bet you have heard the idiom, “There is no free lunch”, or  “There is no medication without a side effect”, but did you know that medications that are prescribed by your doctor can have negative effects on your health that are never even discussed with you….so you should protect yourself by replacing the nutrients that your medications  remove from your body, and that must be replaced for you to be healthy.

Statins -→ COQ 10 DEFICIENCY= fatigue and depression

Beta Blockers -→ COQ-10 DEFICIENCY= fatigue and depression

Oral contraceptives and oral estrogen/progestins-→ COQ-10 DEFICIENCY= fatigue and depression

Antidepressants called SSRIs-→ COQ-10 DEFICIENCY= fatigue and depression

Dosage: If you take any of these medications you need to take COQ10 200-400 mg/day every day!

Thiazide Diuretics=HCTZ -→ Magnesium and Zinc Deficiency muscle spasms, prostate issues, constipation

• Take 50 mg of Zinc and 400-600 mg of Magnesium Glycinate a day to replace what is lost.

NSAIDS (Motrin, Advil, Aleve, Ibuprofen, Meloxicam, Naproxen, Indomethecin, Daypro, Mefenamic acid, Voltaren)-→ malabsorption, depression, anxiety, and the vitamin and mineral deficiencies listed:

• Folic Acid Deficiency- Take Methyl- Folate 500 mg
• Iron Deficiency—Take Iron Bisglycinate (Ferrabsorb)
• Vitamin C deficiency—Take Vitamin C 500-1000 mg/day
• Amino acid deficiency—take Arginine +/- Ornithine.

OR change your medication to Celebrex 200-400 BID

 PPIs=Proton Pump Inhibitors (Omeprazole, Prilosec, Pantoprazole, Lansoprazole, Protonix) are taken for stomach ulcers, H. Pylori infection and gastric reflux

PPIs Increase Homocysteine which increases your risk of stroke, MI, and Pulmonary embolism.

 PPIs decrease the absorption of many nutrients.  They actually cause malabsorption of essential nutrients.  

Replace these nutrients with supplements, but much of what you take won’t be absorbed unless you take daily Probiotics: 

• B12 – take methyl B12 1000 mcg/day
• Folate – take as methyl folate 5,000mcg/day
• Vitamin D – take 5,000 IU/day

Note: PPIs can even cause the growth of dangerous gut bacteria causing chronic Hemophilus. If you have chronic vaginitis that smells fishy, it could be your PPIs!

If you have this stop the PPI, take Pepcid instead (histamine receptor blocker) or nothing and take probiotics to repair the damage the PPIs have caused. These nutrients need to be replaced to keep you healthy, however it is better for most patients to only take PPIs for 2 weeks at a time or substitute a histamine receptor blocker like: Pepcid, Zofran.

Surgery

It is not just the medications doctors prescribe for their patients; sometimes surgical procedures can cause chronic diseases through preventing nutritional nutrients to enter your body.

Removal of the gall bladder must be done, yet patients are not told what they can do to be healthy after the surgery.

The gall bladder provides enzymes that help you breakdown foods, primarily fats and absorb fatty vitamins from your food and supplements.  If you have had your gallbladder removed you can become nutritionally deficient in A, D, E fat soluble vitamins, and you will promote the growth of abnormal gut bacteria and are at risk for leaky gut, Celiac disease, autoimmune diseases and malnutrition. Everyone who has their gallbladder removed should take digestive enzymes with every meal and take Probiotics daily.

Bariatric Surgery for Obesity

The last iatrogenic nutritional deficiency that I will discuss is Bariatric surgeries, all kinds that remove part of the stomach, or band the stomach or in any way physically makes the stomach smaller is related to nutritional deficiencies caused by malabsorption of vitamins and minerals.  The way to combat these deficiencies include taking:

• a probiotic daily
• digestive enzymes with every meal
• and all vitamins should be chewable or sublingual to be absorbed from the mucosa of the mouth

 In Conclusion:

Remember I am a physician, and my job is to promote wellness in my patients.  It is sometimes more important and lifesaving to take the above medications or have these surgeries, than to prevent a nutritional deficiency in the future.  We must follow those medical decisions with trouble shooting addition of nutritional supplementation to replace what these necessary medications and surgeries remove.  That is preventive medicine and why supplementation is often needed for our health.