For the last couple years my wife April and good friends of ours all wake up early on a Sunday morning and drive to Denver. There we participate in an event that I know you are probably familiar with… The Race For The Cure. Each time we leave feeling accomplished for our physical achievement. It is also a great feeling to see people gather and bond in a magnificent way for something meaningful.
However, this time I had a moment that made me ‘sick to my stomach’. Upon completion of the race all participants receive a bag of ‘free goodies’ including water, Sunchips, Power Bars, raisins… and a free sample of Zicam. Zicam… are you kidding me? I am here participating in an event that is supposed to be promoting health instead of disease and they give me a free sample of Zicam?
What is Zicam you say? It is one of the most popular cold remedies on the market. In five years, millions of bottles of Zicam have been sold with the promise that it could shorten the duration of a cold. Now, as a Doctor of Chiropractic I was actually quite offended by this! And here is why...
Look up Zicam on the internet and you might find the following information as I did:
When Ellen Ziegler felt the sniffles coming on last November, she tried Zicam. It stopped her symptoms in three days. But something else stopped, too. “I found over the next week to ten days I had totally lost my sense of smell and taste," Ziegler said.
Zicam contains zinc gluconate, a type of salt. A pump device "splatters" it inside the nostrils.
You put zinc on the olfactory receptor (smell detectors in the brain) and you effectively kill the receptor. It's like pouring acid on an open wound.
Doctors discovered the link to smell loss in the 1930's when they tried to use zinc to prevent polio. It's still widely used to destroy smell in laboratory animals.
If it does this in animals, do we really want to give it to people?
My friend did something that was really quite funny, but was actually more enlightening than funny. She threw the Zicam sample on the ground and screamed, “I don’t need this stuff, I have a Chiropractor”. We all laughed of course, but, looking back now I wonder:
- Why did they put this poison in my bag after I just ran 3 miles to support a good cause?
- Would you recognize this as a mistake/problem as I did?
- Will you come to the same level of understanding as my friend did… choose chiropractic, not drugs?
- Are you scared of a cold or more scared of drug induced side effects? What is worse… a runny nose, cough, and sore throat for 3 days or possibly loosing your sense of taste and smell indefinitely?
Will I Race for the Cure next year? After this incident- I just don’t know why I would. I would rather do a walk-run with each of you in celebration of “better health through chiropractic”. Maybe someday!
Speak up and educate others,
Dr. Craig
