And now, a three-in-one service drugstore

You’re too sick to go to the drugstore and buy your medicine and there’s nobody else in the house to do it. You suddenly develop gas pains (not related to the soaring prices of gasoline) at an ungodly hour and find out you’ve run out of medicine. SOS!

Luckily, now there’s Med Express Drugstore, the first three-in-one service drugstore that offers three distinct services.

Yes, Med Express delivers to your doorstep. If you’re too tired or too sick to get up and drive or commute, all you have to do is to dial the Med Express telephone number and your medicine will be delivered to you by the Med Express Riders.

Med Express boasts a very efficient delivery system. Rush delivery is done within an hour. Provincial delivery can be made within the day.

If you’re not that sick or tired, Med Express also has its  drive-thru and pick-up service lane, where customers on the run need not queue up at a counter for their orders. They may conveniently drive up to the service window and order or pick up their medicines in the comfort of their cars. No parking hassles, no long waits.

Finally, over-the-counter ordering is made easy at Med Express as customers are served by highly trained licensed pharmacists, from order-taking to consultation.

Med Express carries a complete line of medicines, both generic and branded. Among the most popular generic drugs is Rite Med.

Whether branded or generic, the most in demand these days are antibiotics.

What do people prefer, branded or generic?

“It’s the same,” says Lorna Joven, branch manager, Westgate Center.

According to Lorna, Med Express has not encountered emergency cases where the patients are dying and in dire need of medicine. “We’ve handled only mostly maintenance cases. But in case we do receive an emergency call, we will give full assistance.”

Med Express also offers a Med Express Card, which gives customers access to their medication profile through the patient compliance program. In case customers forget names of purchased medicines, all they have to do is access their purchase history records anytime during their visit to Med Express. The card is free of charge and loyalty points are awarded for every purchase, which is convertible to cash discounts on subsequent purchases.

Med Express has tied up with drug companies to bring down the prices of its medicines. For instance, Pfizer offers a 50-percent discount on selected items.

Yes, Med Express honors all major credit cards. The house card earns points that can be exchanged for medicines.

Med Express has five outlets in Metro Manila: Dian St., Makati; Meralco Ave., Ortigas; D. Tuason, Quezon City; Mindanao Avenue, Quezon City; and Westgate Center, Alabang. It has five provincial outlets: Sto. Tomas, Batangas; Urdaneta; Pangasinan; Davao; and Cebu.

Med Express is open daily from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Call 632-3333 for Metro Manila, 7782222 for Batangas, 2255555 for Davao, and 2313000 for Cebu.

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How much is too much?

Here’s more on plant sterols and cholesterol:

Dear Consumerline,

Your article on friendly bacteria was interesting and informative. Likewise, I agree on the importance of eating vegetables and fruits regularly. You’ll never go wrong with that. How much is too much? The recommendation is five servings a day, but more of the vegetables though. University of California, San Diego cancer researcher John P. Pierce PhD reported in the July 18, 2007 issue of The Journal of American Medical Association that eating more than five servings has no added breast cancer survival benefit when they were followed up after seven years. It doesn’t mean you can’t eat more than that, but keep in mind that they have calories, too, and habitually eating a lot will lead to obesity. This would defeat the purpose of eating fruits and vegetables to maintain a healthy body. A serving of vegetable is 1 cup raw (as in salad) or 1/2 cup cooked. A serving of fruit is one small (less than your fist) whole piece of mango, apple, banana etc. or 1/2 cup diced fruit, or 1/4 cup dried fruit. 2-3 servings of fruit have 200 calories just like a fist-size pan de sal. Remember, 1 cup sugar has 800 calories.  

According to Dr. Mary G. Enig in her book Know Your Fats, plant sterols are important structural components of the cell membrane systems, a role which in mammalian cells is played by cholesterol, giving them the proper amount of rigidity. Cholesterol is also a critical component of some protein receptors that bind specific chemicals to enhance their uptake into the cell. Chris Masterjohn in his website cholesterol-and-health.com notes: Cholesterol boosts memory and mental performance, helps in digestion as it is used by the liver to make bile acids, builds strong bones as it is the precursor of vitamin D, and repairs damaged tissue. In addition, all steroid hormones are derived from cholesterol. These are mineralocorticoids that regulate sodium and blood pressure, glucocorticoids that regulate blood sugar, and sex hormones (progesterone, estrogen, testosterone) that maintain athletic performance, libido, muscle mass and more.    

Why would the American Heart Association, Food and Drug Administration, British Heart Foundation, American Diabetes Association, and National Cholesterol Education Program ATP III endorse taking plant sterols to lower cholesterol then? This is a long story dating back to the 1950s when vegetable oils first became commercially available in liquid form. The only sure way to market their new product, of course, is to say something against their competition which at that time were the traditional fats lard, butter, cream, and tropical oils (like coconut and palm oil). You can read more of this at the Westonaprice.org website titled “The Oiling of America.”

By the way, plant sterols lower cholesterol by inhibiting the incorporation of cholesterol into micelles in the gastrointestinal tract, hence decreasing the overall amount of cholesterol absorbed, according to the Wikipedia.  

Allow me to comment on some of these organizations based on my research. According to a press release by Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD on January 23, 2006, the American Heart Association recommended that soy be included in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol in 2000. This recommendation concurred with the FDA’s approval of a health claim that 25 grams per day of soy protein in such a diet would prevent heart disease. The soybean industry is a very strong and powerful industry and their lobbyists are well trained and equipped financially to hurdle whatever obstacles  would come their way. The main plant sterol in soy is genistein, a type of phytoestrogen. For all other plants, these are beta-sitosterol, campesterol, and stigmasterol, all estrogen-like compounds. What followed next was a meteoric rise in sales of soy and other products laced with sterols. As for the expert panel commissioned by the National Cholesterol Education Program, it was composed mainly of 12 private physicians and other members that included a pharmacist and dietitian. It was led by Dr. Scott M. Grundy who has received honoraria from five pharmaceutical companies. The other five doctors (Drs. Donald B. Hunninghake, Patrick McBride, Richard C. Pasternak, Neil J. Stone, and Dr. Schwartz)  also received grants from drug companies manufacturing cholesterol-lowering medications. Their conclusion was to reduce cholesterol by all means (and that includes taking plant sterols and cholesterol lowering medications, probably as an act of gratitude to their mentor drug companies).

Are you still with me? What I am trying to say is that consumers should not just swallow a recommendation just because the powers that be say so. They could be right, but they are not correct all the time. Check if their research was funded by self-interest groups. Verify information from independent watchdogs not funded by the vegetable oil, dairy, or meat industry. I have always relied on the Westonaprice.org website. They can say anything as they don’t receive grants from any of the above industries. 

Yes, it is okay to eat fruits and vegetables not because they have sterols but because of the array of vitamins and minerals they offer to optimize our health. The beta-carotenes or pro-vitamin A are good antioxidants. Same with vitamin C and E. Sally Fallon and Dr. Enig in their article “Wise Choices, Healthy Bodies: Diet for the Prevention of Women’s Diseases” said: “Most popular writings on nutrition create the impression that the body’s requirements for vitamin A can be met exclusively with plant foods like carrots, squash, green leafy vegetables, and orange-colored fruits. But true vitamin A is found only in animal foods, a fact confirmed by none other than the Merck Manual. Carotenes found in plant foods are not true vitamin A but are the precursors or pro-vitamin A. You need at least six molecules of carotene to convert it to a unit of vitamin A which takes place in the upper intestine by the action of bile salts and fat-splitting enzymes. Diabetics and those with poor thyroid function cannot make the conversion. Strenuous physical exercise, excessive consumption of alcohol, excessive consumption of iron, some drugs, excessive consumption of polyunsaturated fatty acids (vegetable oils), zinc deficiency, and even cold weather can hinder the conversion of carotenes to vitamin A. Furthermore, carotenes cannot be converted with a low-fat diet because the conversion takes place in the presence of bile acids and bile is excreted only when fat is consumed. What does vitamin A do anyway? This fat-soluble nutrient is necessary for the utilization of proteins and minerals, ensures good reproductive health, protects against birth defects, strengthens the immune system, and contributes to healthy eyes, skin, bones, and blood. The best sources of true or preformed vitamin A are cod liver oil, liver, and other organ meats, fish, shellfish, and eggs (the yolk), butter, and cream from grass-fed animals. Aside from vitamin A, vitamins D, E, and K are dependent also on fat for their absorption. You can eat all the vegetables and fruits to your heart’s content, but you won’t absorb any of the vitamins A, D, E, and K without fat in your gut. You’ll get the fiber and vitamin C as consolation prize.” 

Before I forget, did you know that the American Heart Association withdrew its support for soy isoflavones (phytosterols) in 2006? The AHA announced its findings in the January 17 issue of its journal Circulation that the soy sterols have little effect on cholesterol and are unlikely to prevent heart disease. The Wikipedia likewise says: Many products are now enriched with phytosterols and marketed towards people wishing to lower their cholesterol levels. However, caution about phytosterols is warranted. Evidence does not exist that lowering blood cholesterol by any means is healthy. There are no large clinical trials which verify the efficacy of phytosterols in reducing heart attack rates and there is some evidence that phytosterols promote atherosclerosis, at least for some individuals (Patel MD and Thompson PD, Atherosclerosis, 2006 May).       

Cholesterol is one of the risk factors for cardiovascular disease. True? Only if your level is above 350 mg., according to Dr. Mary Enig. Cholesterol has been associated with heart attacks and strokes. True? Only if they are oxidized. Dr. Enig likens them to firefighters, they come out to put out the fire but not necessarily the cause of the fire. Dr. Uffe Ravnskov says, association and causation are two very different things. As Dr. Malcolm Kendrick of UK says, “There is yet to be a single study to prove that cholesterol causes heart attack or stroke.”

In my personal experience while reviewing charts of stroke or heart attack patients at the Hawaii Medical Center-West, most of the patients’ cholesterol levels were below 150mg/dl. I was baffled, too, when a patient had a cholesterol level of 295 and triglyceride over 2,000 yet on cardiac catheterization showed patent coronary arteries!

Angel S. Respicio, Jr. MD

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