A "Fleet" of problems
If you've ever had a colonoscopy, you probably know all about Fleet Phospho-soda. This is one of several oral laxatives that a lot of gastroenterologists use to cleanse patients' colons and bowels before the procedure -- and they're a pretty harsh, uncomfortable way to go.
But the several hours you might spend in the bathroom aren't the worst part of these laxatives -- called oral sodium phosphates or OSPs. The FDA recently warned that they could also cause kidney failure, especially in older patients.
Kidney failure happens when your kidneys just can't process and purify blood anymore, making it hard -- or even impossible -- for them to filter out waste.
Using OSPs for bowel cleansing causes dehydration, decreased intravascular volume (a fancy term for a water absorption problem), and an overload of phosphates in your body (a condition called hyperphosphatemia). Having a high concentration of phosphates in your system causes crystals to build up in your kidneys, and can result in some pretty serious damage, including kidney failure.
Elderly patients -- who are already more prone to kidney problems -- face an increased risk, as do people taking medicines like diuretics, ACE inhibitors, and certain NSAID drugs, which all affect kidney function. And if you've ever had kidney problems before, you should make sure you tell your doctor.
But since colonoscopies are so important, you may not be able to get around taking an OSP. So here are some extra precautions you can take, just to be on the safe side.
Make sure you don't exceed the recommended dose, and avoid using any other laxatives with sodium phosphate in them until you finish the process.
Drink plenty of water. This prevents dehydration, which was a problem shared by the patients who suffered from kidney failure after taking OSPs.
Make sure your doctor knows your complete medical history, so that he can decide whether it's safe for you to use an OSP for bowel cleansing.
You might want to consider staying in the hospital and being hooked up to an IV while you're undergoing the bowel cleansing process. It's a more expensive option, so you might want to check with your insurance company to make sure they'll cover it. But if you're in one of the higher-risk groups I mentioned above, it may be worth the extra trouble and cost.
Fruits and veggies for a cancer-free mouth
You already know that eating fruits and vegetables is good for your vision, for your heart, and for your digestive system. But fruits and vegetables also help protect your mouth, especially from oral cancer.
Until recently, doctors had guessed that fruits and vegetables were good for fending off oral cancer, but they didn't know for sure. But last year, a group of researchers started to compare the findings of 16 different studies about the issue.
When they were done, they found that people who eat plenty of fruits reduce their risk of oral cancer by 49 percent. And vegetables did slightly better, reducing risk by 50 percent.
Doctors think that the antioxidants in fruit and vegetables protect your mouth by trapping harmful molecules that can cause cancer.
Of course, it can be difficult trying to figure out how many fruits and vegetables you need to eat to get the best results. The National Cancer Institute suggests eating at least five servings every day (a serving is usually about the size of your fist). I recommend you get at least five servings of vegetables every day, with some extra servings of fruit serving as the icing on the cake, so to speak.
Until next time,
Dr. Alan Inglis
House Calls
