Health Newsletter Tries to Nurture Facts on Role of Nutrition
From Scarsdale to Santa Monica--and most points in between--Americans are eager to learn the role that nutrition plays in helping to maintain a healthy life style.
But often they find themselves whipsawed between traditional health practitioners who downplay diet-related factors and self-anointed experts who tout every new sprout and pill as the magic elixir to a long, disease-free life.
Now come two San Diego County residents who believe they can carve out a middle ground with a monthly newsletter that presents readers with the pros and cons of nutrition controversies and then offers recommendations on what, if anything, to do.
“There’s a glaring need for a way to influence health care positively in the area of nutrition,” Patrick Quillin, a registered dietitian and nutrition consultant who lives in Fallbrook, said in an interview. “We especially want to provide up-to-date, readable and accurate information to people in the health care industry, so they can then use it in starting to make a difference for their patients.”
The Nutrition Times newsletter is the brainstorm of Quillin and Dr. Sheldon Hendler, a San Diego internist and former professor of biochemistry at UC San Diego who is trying to plow a new path in the field of nutrition and dietary supplements. Hendler last year wrote a much-praised book that took hard shots both at health food extremists and doctors who pooh-pooh any supplements.
The newsletter, now in its third month, is being pitched initially to doctors, nurses and others who work directly in health care. The two editors have obtained permission from appropriate medical organizations to offer continuing education credits to doctors, nurses, and osteopaths who subscribe and later pass take-home exams on the material.
The newsletter takes no advertising in an effort to avoid being swayed by either side in the billion-dollar nutrition field. Should circulation revenues rise as hoped, the newsletter will be expanded beyond its present 3,000 distribution and be marketed to general consumers. Stories each month are compiled both from extensive files maintained by Quillin and Hendler as well as from medical information files of more than 4 million volumes available through a computerized national medical network.
“Right now the few industry newsletters that do exist tend to emphasize the negative, to tell people what not to do and carp at the other side . . . they are polarized on either the side of very conservative authorities who always want more evidence or the side of those who promote immune power, or this power, or that power, with no nutritional expertise,” Quillin said.
The key problem, according to Quillin, is that more and more Americans are interested in using nutritional advice to improve their health but often run into a stone wall when they broach the subject to their family doctor. Until recently, nutrition was a largely--if not totally--ignored subject in medical schools and most physicians in practice today have little or no training in the field.
“But since so many people are looking for answers, they then are willing to take answers from the many so-called experts who are more than eager to offer them,” Quillin said, citing potential dangers involved in such cases.
“For example, a patient might go to a doctor and say, ‘I’ve read about a connection between taking vitamin B-6 and relief of premenstrual syndrome in women.’ The doctor says it’s nonsense but doesn’t offer any explanation of why (it is nonsense) or why the connection came about in the first place.
“So the patient goes away, finds some book on the subject, and begins taking 1,000 milligrams a day of B-6. In the newsletter, we look at all the evidence on B-6, conclude that B-6 may be helpful in some cases but warn against taking more than 50 milligrams since there is evidence of nerve damage if larger doses are used.”
Says Quillin, “Since there is an innate interest in nutrition out there, let’s try to educate people and do it right. Broad statements on either side just don’t wash anymore and you don’t want consumers to learn on their own and end up misguided.”
Quillin concedes that he and Hendler have taken on a tall order for themselves, particularly in writing in a popular style both for medical professionals and for lay people. He admits that the nutrition field has been overrun with what Quillin called the “glamour and whistle” style of writing.
Quillin cited the titles of books by himself and Hendler to illustrate the problem of hype. Hendler’s book is in essence a comprehensive guide to all dietary supplements, listing pros and cons based on an exhaustive reviews and research, yet the publisher--after failing to convince Hendler to use the title “Megahealth,” insisted upon “The Complete Guide to Anti-Aging Supplements.” By the same token, Quillin’s book about preventive steps to have a better quality of life was titled “The La Costa Prescription for Longer Life” as a way to trade off the name of the well-known resort in northern San Diego County where Quillin previously served as a consultant.
“So it’s a problem to keep the information from being dry and polysyllabic and at the same time keep it at the level of expertise, with documentation and footnotes, so that professionals will read it,” he said.
A typical issue will focus on the dietary connections to a major disease or illness recently in the news, such as premenstrual syndrome or osteoporosis, Quillin said. Quillin and Hendler review the claims and counter-claims for foods, vitamins and supplements alleged to help cure the illnesses, and make recommendations. They also focus on various foods known to have nutritional benefit as well as providing paragraph-length reviews of 60 or more articles on nutrition culled from the nation’s literature during the past several months.
Quillin said that the Nutrition Times’ articles are reviewed before publication by various experts. “And we’re not looking for sycophants, either,” he said, adding that the articles are changed if the outside reviewer suggests improvements.
Quillin said the goal is to have people live better by using good, well-documented information.
“There are no guarantees,” Quillin said. “It’s like running across the Santa Monica Freeway in Los Angeles. You can do it at 5 p.m. or you can do it at 3 a.m. While there’s risk in both cases, your odds are definitely better at 3 a.m.
“There are no guarantees in nutrition but, like on the freeway, we want to improve the odds.”
