http://ilenarose.blogspot.com
Health Lover
Note from Ilena Rosenthal: Mad Terry Polevoy (aka Vera Teasdale) has
waged a campaign against Truehope & this product for years. Who pays
him to attack natural remedies? He is the opposite of a skeptic ... he
wrote in a Pharmaceutical Rag a few years ago, "natural medicine
equals quackery."
www.BreastImplantAwareness.org/polevoy.htm
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Living/922436.html
Published: 2007-10-02
Madness to wellness
Vitamin supplement a controversial ‘cure,’ but author’s personal
struggle promise of hope to bipolar sufferers
By LOIS LEGGE Features Writer
FOR YEARS, Autumn Stringam’s mind struggled through a maze of misery.
At 10, she thought about killing herself.
As a teenager, the suicidal thoughts grew even louder.
So did the other voices in her head and the characteristic highs and
lows of bipolar disorder — a disease shared by her maternal
grandfather and her mother.
Both of them eventually committed suicide.
By the time she reached her late teens, Stringam grappled with her own
extreme periods of mania and depression, while battling "demonic"
hallucinations and paranoia.
She eventually became psychotic, slapping herself and tearing at her
own skin, convinced the man she married at age 18 was trying to kill
her.
These days, the author from Coaldale, Alta., figures she’s as much at
peace as anyone.
"I think I feel normal, if I could figure out what normal felt like,"
she says during a recent telephone interview, in advance of a book
promotion stop in Halifax. "I mean, I still experience PMS-type
symptoms at about the right time. . . . I think I’m just a normal
woman."
But the road to normal has been long and tortured for the 34-year-old,
a struggle outlined in A Promise of Hope (The Astoni****ng True Story
of a Woman Afflicted with Bipolar Disorder and the Miraculous
Treatment That Cured Her).
The so-called "miraculous" treatment, however, isn’t without
controversy. And although "cure" is part of the book’s title, the
mother-of-four hesitates to call it that.
But the author claims the vitamin-rich supplement Empowerplus —
co-developed by her father Anthony Stephan out of "desperation" to
help her, and once banned by Health Canada — has made all the
difference.
She says the concoction of 36 vitamins and minerals (everything from
vitamins A, C, B, D and E, to grape seed extract) has lowered her
highs and lifted her lows in a way no psychiatric drugs were able to
do.
Health Canada, however, has serious concerns about use of the product
— actually adapted from a vitamin mix used in the animal feed industry
to keep pigs from attacking each other or themselves in the pen.
The federal agency took her father’s company, Truehope Nutritional
Sup****t Ltd., to court in 2003, alleging it was selling Empowerplus
without the necessary drug identification number. The federal
department later lost the case, but still warns consumers about
potential side effects.
In fact, a Health Canada advisory last February says the agency has
received nine case re****ts of serious adverse reactions to the
supplement.
"Most of the adverse reactions relate to worsening of psychiatric
symptoms in those patients with serious underlying mental health
problems, such as bipolar disorder and depression," it warns.
"The worsening of these symptoms could be related to taking the
product and discontinuing prescription medications, or taking the
product in conjunction with prescribed medications. As a result,
Health Canada is advising consumers with these serious conditions that
there is a potential risk to health associated with the use of the
product Empowerplus."
The agency is also concerned about how the product is being promoted,
"including unauthorized health claims," the advisory states. And it
says unqualified staff at Truehope Nutritional Sup****t Ltd. has been
giving patients medical advice, including advice to discontinue
prescribed medications.
"This may result in serious adverse health consequences," the advisory
says. "It is im****tant to discuss the treatment of serious medical
conditions with a medically qualified practitioner."
But Stringam says staff with the company’s non-profit sup****t program
is vigilant about advising patients to consult a doctor before going
off their medications.
"That is a concern but I feel like it’s been adequately addressed,
because in order for them to get the supplement at all, they have to
go through the sup****t program where they get really good information
and . . . the (people) who do the sup****t program work with people’s
physicians. I feel like we have it covered in the book, because I was
concerned about telling a story that seemed too hopeful and having
people do things that were dangerous."
Despite repeated requests, Health Canada didn’t provide anyone to
directly answer questions about what it considers dangerous about the
supplement (made in the United States), or its current status.
But spokesman Alastair Sinclair said via e-mail that in order to
receive a licence for a natural health product, companies must apply
to Health Canada and prove "the safety, efficacy and quality of the
product under the recommended conditions of use."
He goes on to say that the agency can’t confirm if a company has
submitted a product licence application, since it keeps such matters
confidential.
"To date, the product has not been issued a product licence by Health
Canada," he says in the e-mail.
So then, how can it legally be sold?
In a follow-up e-mail, Sinclair says individuals are allowed to im****t
a 90-day supply of non-prescription drugs and natural health products
for their personal use, or "another individual in that person’s care
or guardian****p."
What that means for Truehope isn’t entirely clear, although Stringam
says selling the product is perfectly legal, since the company won the
court case and that Truehope and Health Canada are currently working
out the proper labelling for the product.
Stringam also stresses that she’s not against psychiatric drugs for
people with bipolar disorder or other mental illnesses.
"I think that they saved my life until I found another answer," she
says. "If I had been left raw without any intervention, I’m certain I
would have been dead."
She credits her father’s tenacity with keeping her alive and says both
chance and faith also played a role. Given the death of his wife and
the diagnoses of Stringam and her younger brother with bipolar
disorder, her father was desperate for help, she says.
That’s when he met animal feed specialist David Hardy who told him
about a feed supplement that helped calm anxious or violent pigs with
so-called "ear and tail biting syndrome." The pair started working on
a human version of the supplement.
Stringam says her disorder has been stabilized since 1996, when she
stopped taking drugs and started using only the supplement.
"I know it says right on the front cover of the book ‘the thing that
cured her’ and that’s kind of funny, because I think I’m about as
cured of bipolar as we all are of scurvy," she says. "If we stop
taking vitamin C completely, all of us will eventually get scurvy. . .
.. It’s a deficiency disease and I really believe in my heart . . .
that my bipolar disease was a deficiency disease.
"I don’t know if every bipolar person would have the same response,"
she adds. "In fact, I’m quite certain that every bipolar (person)
wouldn’t. But . . . if there was a core message, it’s that there is
hope and we’re not done looking for answers and that (people with the
disease) don’t have to die."
( llegge@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
)
‘I think I’m about as cured of bipolar as we all are of scurvy. If we
stop taking vitamin C completely, all of us will eventually get
scurvy. . . . It’s a deficiency disease and I really believe in my
heart . . . that my bipolar disease was a deficiency disease.’
‘This may result in serious adverse health consequences. It is
im****tant to discuss the treatment of serious medical conditions with
a medically qualified practitioner.’
AUTUMN STRINGAMhealth canadaAuthorAdvisory for Empowerplus
© 2007 The Halifax Herald Limited
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