Desiccated thyroid in a nutritional supplement.

Nutritional or vitamin supplements, which are largely unregulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and are sold in health food stores and through mail-order catalogs, may contain various combinations and doses of vitamins, minerals, herbs, chemicals, and animal tissues. Some of the products marketed as nutritional supplements contain desiccated porcine or bovine thyroid. A patient came to our family practice center with resting tachycardia, amenorrhea, and weight loss.

Drug-nutrient interactions.

Drug-nutrient interactions are a commonly overlooked aspect of the prescribing practices of physicians. As more pharmaceutical agents become available, attention should be focused on interactions of drugs with foods and nutrients. Although drug-nutrient interactions are not as common as drug-drug interactions, they can have an impact on therapeutic outcome.

Teaching and funding nutrition instruction in family practice education.

Nutrition instruction is accepted as an important element of physician education, but is often not a formal part of medical school or residency training. Personnel and funding are often cited as the major factors that limit nutrition instruction. Because family medicine residency programs have been in the forefront of nutrition instruction, a nationwide survey of these programs was conducted to examine the nature, staffing, and funding mechanisms for nutrition education.

Body composition of patients with spinal cord injury.

Body composition of 10 control subjects and 37 spinal cord injured (SCI) patients was measured by dilution of 3H2O and Na2 35SO4. SCI patients were classified into four groups by ascending level of lesion, low and high paraplegics and low and high quadriplegics. The studies show diminishing total body water, intracellular water, lean body mass and body cell mass and increasing fat mass with higher spinal lesions.