Health food store giving medical advice

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I go in a local health food store every once in a while. A friend of mine works in there. I have noticed that people come in and ask the people that work there for medical advice. The cashiers tell them what is wrong with them, what herbs or vitamins to take, and give them their advice on what to do. These people have no medical background. They may know about herbs, but something just doesn't seem right. They have no idea if the person coming in for advice has some kind of medical problems such as diabetes, heart disease ect. What do you all think about this?

I can see both sides. I think it can be relatively frustrating when they adhere to this advice but when something goes wrong they go back to the healthcare providers. On the other hand can I honestly tell someone in these clinics that instead of using garlic for high cholesterol they should use Vytorin or Baycol?

What I have learned is that we really arent as advanced as we think sometimes. Yes the medical community has done wonderful if not miraculous things but there is still more about the human body that we dont know than we do.

I am not big on these alternative treatments, I do think there is some merit to them but also some degree of risk.

Having said that, I probably would put more stock in what one of these health food clerks say than the FDA (today) or drug companies--which isnt really saying a lot.

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Specializes in ER/EHR Trainer.

Alternative medicine is a great thing, however, it's not regulated the way prescription drugs are....this is a good thing and a bad thing.

Cheerios are proven to bring down cholesterol, so do natural supplements. Because they don't cost much....who can prove how much is safe and how much the numbers can be changed. Prescription medications are studied to death, but cost a whole lot more.

Garlic, Omega 3, even cinnamon all have their uses....unfortunately, many doctors don't know enough about them....so how can they counsel their patients in their usage and drug interactions.

I agree with the Commuter, anyone who bases their medical advice on a minimum wage clerk is in for alot of trouble. People are always going to look for the "magic pill" that's not really a pill. The people who do this are the ones who had sugar, hi bp, asthma one time....they don't get it.

Maisy

PS Cinnamon does lower blood sugar, but who knows how much. It can cause hypoglycemia, but again how much is too much?

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When I worked at the grocery store pharmacy, we had a woman who would periodically order a bottle of Lydia Pinkham's Remedy. The first time, she waved her hand and said, "I don't believe in this stuff" and I told her that in some cases, she has a point. The first day of pharmacology, a class we had with medical and PA-C students, the professor placed the following quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes on the overhead: "If the whole of the materia medica were to be dumped to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind, and all the worse for the fishes."

:lol:

Lydia Pinkham's is basically a vitamin supplement with a bit of alcohol - a bit, that is, if you don't drink the whole bottle at once like some people did during Prohibition.

There was a woman who would call us every few months (and I always answered) whose father was on dialysis and was ordering supplements by the dozen from supermarket tabloid ads. I told her that if he wished to use herbs to make his food taste better, that was fine, but the concentrated supplements are not to be used by someone like him.

You people who commented on supplements are right; the amount some people take is mind-boggling. My doctor in my old town told me about a patient of his who had cancer and abandoned traditional therapies for "natural" treatments. I don't have a problem with people managing side effects this way, or using them if traditional treatments have failed, but when they're working? Not a good idea, JMHO.

Anyone ever heard of Jethro Kloss' "Back to Eden", a naturopathic health guide that is still in print? Some of his concepts are valid, but in his day (early 1900s), herbal tea enemas were the treatment of choice because it gave people the illusion that they were doing something about an incurable condition. And this is what was recommended for pretty much everything.

I have no problem with advising customers on herbal remedies and whether or not they might be a candidate for using them. It's within the scope of my license.

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i had a type II diabetic who stopped taking her diabetes medication because she read that cinnamon i repeat cinnamon would "cure" her diabetes. So she went to the health food store and bought cinnamon supplements, which I had never seen before, but they exist I saw the bottle with my own two eyes. Needless to say after 4 liters of IV NS and 3 hours on an insulin drip in the ER she returned to being slightly oriented to person and place, but not time, or situation. DKA is not fun :(

There are plenty of diabetics (and it seems that healthcare workers are the very worst in this regard) who think their diabetes can be "cured" by not taking their meds, eating candy by the pound, smoking, defiantly refusing to exercise, etc.

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I don't understand how advertisements get off with all these claims that their product "detoxifies" the body. If your body has toxins in it, you'd be dead!

Whatever happend to just eating healthy foods and drinking regular water.

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My hair dresser keeps trying to get me to use all these different herbal suppliments for ANYTHINGthat is wrong with me.

Stomach issue - Aelo vara suplamints and pepermint

my tumors - I forget what but there was something she was pushing on me saying it ALWAYS works.

and multiple others.

I think since I am on multiple meds and have an extensive medical history that it is not the best idea unless my doc tells me to.

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Specializes in Perinatal, Education.

I am a big South Park fan. Yes, it can be very vulgar, but they are more often very right on with their targets for satire. The show takes place in Colorado where there are a lot of back to nature types. They had a show about just this topic. One of the kids was in renal failure and his mom took him to a natural supplement store run by a woman named, "Miss Information". Enough said.:icon_roll

I used to teach a patient ed class on hypertension and would counsel my students to speak with their pharmacists about EVERYTHING they are taking, "natural" or not. A lot of supplements can interfere with or adversely effect their prescribed medications and the cashier isn't going to know that.

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Specializes in oncology,psych,homehealth, med/surg,ED.

Prehaps the reason people go to the health food store for advice is because they are sick and tired of being sick and tired and the medical profession is only giving them poisionous bandaids in the form of toxic medications. It would be better of course if they went to a Natural Health Care Professional. Most people don't realize that wanting to return to health by only taking supplements won't work--it takes much more than that. I have reversed my own hypothyroid naturally, I assisted a friend to completly reverse her stage 1 colon ca in two weeks naturally--it was complex, but nothing odd and relatively low cost--most of it didn't cost a dime, and yes, she was under a doctor's care and did not take any meds. I have also assisted many friends and family with advice on natural remedies---but---I ask many questions to get a better idea of what may be going on. I have been an RN for over 20 years and have been working with natural remedies for over 15 years. I would never suggest a person stop taking their prescription meds--that is between them and their doctor--and yes I do check out the possible interactions , but until the medical profession in this country stops supporting Big Pharma and gets a clue that meds are not the answer 99% of the time and actually learns what the body needs to be healthy--which is not the bazillion toxins in most of our food and water--- we will continue to see people who go to these unqualified others for health advice and only get a fraction of the info they need and as a result, not only NOT get well, but in many cases, worse. But to treat them as nuts or stupid only shows your own ignorance when it comes to health--I'm not talking about the absence of dis-ease, but true health. No, I'm not a fan of the medical profession as a whole--I do, however, accknowlege that allopathic medicine excels when it come to emergency medicine. And before anyone starts screaming that of course they are knowlegable about health--what was the last thing you had to eat or drink? How many toxins, how much sugar, white flour, additives, preservatives, neurotoxins, etc. were in what you last had to eat or drink? How many toxins are in that wonderful scent you just sprayed to cover up odors? As nurses, we are here for our patients, not to support Big Pharma. We need to educate ourselves on true health, not just be lemmings. Okay, let the battering begin!!

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I have seen some pretty wild natural remedies as a child in the hills, and modern science has only recently found a bases for those remedies.

However, like anything, there is a fine balance that has to be achieved between natural/modern/scientific/medicinal....

And so far, there hasn't appeared to be a pat answer, as no one is living forever!

But we keep searching and hoping, don't we?

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Specializes in UR/PA, Hematology/Oncology, Med Surg, Psych.
Prehaps the reason people go to the health food store for advice is because they are sick and tired of being sick and tired and the medical profession is only giving them poisionous bandaids in the form of toxic medications. It would be better of course if they went to a Natural Health Care Professional. Most people don't realize that wanting to return to health by only taking supplements won't work--it takes much more than that. I have reversed my own hypothyroid naturally, I assisted a friend to completly reverse her stage 1 colon ca in two weeks naturally--it was complex, but nothing odd and relatively low cost--most of it didn't cost a dime, and yes, she was under a doctor's care and did not take any meds. I have also assisted many friends and family with advice on natural remedies---but---I ask many questions to get a better idea of what may be going on. I have been an RN for over 20 years and have been working with natural remedies for over 15 years. I would never suggest a person stop taking their prescription meds--that is between them and their doctor--and yes I do check out the possible interactions , but until the medical profession in this country stops supporting Big Pharma and gets a clue that meds are not the answer 99% of the time and actually learns what the body needs to be healthy--which is not the bazillion toxins in most of our food and water--- we will continue to see people who go to these unqualified others for health advice and only get a fraction of the info they need and as a result, not only NOT get well, but in many cases, worse. But to treat them as nuts or stupid only shows your own ignorance when it comes to health--I'm not talking about the absence of dis-ease, but true health. No, I'm not a fan of the medical profession as a whole--I do, however, accknowlege that allopathic medicine excels when it come to emergency medicine. And before anyone starts screaming that of course they are knowlegable about health--what was the last thing you had to eat or drink? How many toxins, how much sugar, white flour, additives, preservatives, neurotoxins, etc. were in what you last had to eat or drink? How many toxins are in that wonderful scent you just sprayed to cover up odors? As nurses, we are here for our patients, not to support Big Pharma. We need to educate ourselves on true health, not just be lemmings. Okay, let the battering begin!!

No battering here :nuke: and welcome to Allnurses. I agree that natural remedies have there place and can be beneficial at times, but I do have a problem when patients think that they are a cure all and take them without really researching their properties. They as with pharmaceuticals need to be used with care, but many patients seem to feel that if one natural remedy is good, then 10 or 20 is even better without really understanding what they are taking. They should do research and I agree, see a Naturalpathic (is that the right word?) professional. Now on a personal note, I also work with cancer patients and every single one that I have seen forgo ALL mainstream treatment and rely only on natural remedies has worsened (and then returned for treatment) or died. I realize that others may have had different experiences though.

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Did anyone see Suzanne Somers on "Larry King Live" a few weeks ago? Her spiel terrified me because you know people are going to hear what she said, think she knows what she's talking about, and believe what she says.

Her ignorance was frightening.

There's a doctor who has a show on our local Christian/public access station and it's basically an infomercial for supplements. Some of the things he has said as well make me wonder where he went to medical school. He's a licensed D.O. so I know he's trained, but no wonder he's on TV - probably doesn't have a medical practice of his own. :confused:

Has anyone heard of the Hoxsey treatment? It's quite an interesting story and this organization actually had a clinic in Dallas in the 1950s, staffed by licensed physicians and nurses. and then they were shut down but the clinic moved to Tijuana and is still open. Many books have been written about it, and there's even a documentary which aired on PBS in the late 1980s and is available through Netflix. When Harry Hoxsey devised and marketed it, it really WAS the only "cancer treatment" available, but we do have better methods now.

The Hoxsey clinic's director had his licensed revoked by the state of Texas in 1962 for drug addiction, and it's on the licensing website even though this doctor has been dead since 1986.

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This one is a HUGE pet peeve of mine. My mother has literally HUNDREDS of bottles of herbal medicines, vitamin/nutrient supplements, probiotics, medicinal teas, etc. She gets some through mail order catalogs, some from health food stores, some from this "diet doctor" of hers that I'd like to know more about, etc.

I definitely believe that some of these products can be helpful. We all know that many of the drugs we have today originally came from natural sources. We also routinely use some products found in health food stores in the hospital... probiotics for those with c-diff being one example.

The problem arises when people, like my Mom, don't know what they're taking, or why. Or, in my mother's case, when the "research" involves buying a book written by the same person trying to sell the supplements.

She was in a car accident in November, and driving to the hospital all I could think about was that I'd have NO way of telling them what she was taking. Luckily, she came out with just a few bumps and bruises!!!

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