Grief can lead to health woes if not addressed

I often appreciate Dr. Wilkes inside take on the medical community's blessings and faults in his Inside Medicine column of the Sacramento Bee newspaper. Here is a portion of today's article on complicated grief and the health issues it can lead to. He strongly recommends the medical community sit up and take notice of the risks for recently bereaved individuals to become ill, and to take advantage of the appropriative support services, perhaps even before things get out of hand. In our community these services include bereavement workshops and one-on-one counseling with trained volunteers with Sierra Hospice (530-258-3412); as well as bereavement & health information counseling with myself, Janis Davies, Cert. Whole Health Educator (530-258-0377, #2). One can also seek local services from Plumas County Mental Health, or Kathleen Hughes, LCSW (530-596-4857).

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Inside Medicine: Grief can lead to health woes if not addressed

By Dr. Michael Wilkes -
Published 12:00 am PST Sunday, January 13, 2008

Excerpts from the article published today in the Sunday Scene section of the Sacramento Bee:

Is bereavement – a profound sadness – a disease? While it probably is not, the death of a spouse ranks as one of life's most stressful events.

Research has shown that the period following the loss of a significant loved one is associated with premature death, the onset of other illnesses, intense suffering and a high use of doctor's services.

Such physical and mental ailments are by no means universal, and studies suggest that profound grief reactions (such as suicide) are more common among certain groups based on risk factors.

(The author goes on to list these risk factors.)

Perhaps we need to think about "preventive bereavement" – an attempt by the medical community to reach out early to those at risk for serious reaction to grief.

I do not mean to suggest that all bereavement requires medical attention, because it does not. Grief is a normal reaction after a profound loss. But when bereavement becomes severe, or there is reason to worry that a person is at high risk for mental or physical deterioration, then physicians, social workers, hospice workers, clergy, counselors and even an occasional prescription drug can help ease the suffering.

For doctors, the message is that the loss of a loved one should raise a red flag that there may be a need for close follow-up.

For patients, remember that you don't need to go this alone. Doctors can help you find well-trained experts who can help. (See the resources noted above.)

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Green companies becoming a corporate hot ticket?

I read with interest today in the Business section of the Sacramento Bee an article (culled from the New York Times, written by Louise Story, Jan 6, 2008) about Burt's Bees being sold to Clorox for $913 million. In 2003, AEA Investors, a private equity firm bought 80% of Burt's for 141.6 million. Odd bedfellows indeed. What caught my interest even more was the following list of acquisitions: L'Oreal paid $1.4 billion for the Body Shop; Colgate-Palmolive bought 84% of Tom's of Maine for $100 million. It seems there is a corporate trend toward purchasing "green" companies... to make themselves look better?

Clorox claims they are interested in learning from Burt's Bees socially and environmentally friendly business practices. Still, it causes one to wonder about the destiny of some of our favorite and trusted "small market" homespun brands. What stake does the mega-corporation have in knowing the origin & safety of each and every ingredient? What impact does great financial growth and success have on the end-product? The current chief executive of Burt's Bees, John Replogle, was hired by AEA and came from another household product mega-corporation, Unilever.

Replogle states all of the beeswax used by Burt's is coming from Ethiopia. There is no comment about whether this is fair trade or not. He does mention it has to be shipped across the Atlantic adding to the carbon emissions load the company must buy offsets for to remain "green". Currently, employee bonuses are based partly on how well the company meets energy conservation goals.

This train of thought reminds me of the corporate buyout of IAMS dog foods by Procter & Gamble, taking IAMS from a carefully fostered premium dog food company into the nationally super-sized arena. This kind of growth has it's own inherent risks. Loss of control over product quality remains a top concern, especially with all the recent tainted manufacturing products coming out of China. I am sure there are more companies that have already been sold or are on the verge of being taken over.

Hard to imagine where this will lead. Roxanne Quimby, co-creator of Burt's Bees with Burt Shavitz (who left the company in 1999), took a significant portion of her profits to purchase 100,000 acres of land she will try to restore to its natural state. She sees this as a guilt-free way of giving up control of the company that she helped build up from $3 beeswax candles sold at craft fairs in 1984.

My closing thought here is buyer beware... do we know the corporate history of our favorite trusted brands? Does that homespun identity still represent family values, healthy ingredients, holistic business practices and authenticity? It's worth checking out...

Be well, Janis 01/13/08

Note: the bulk of this article is based on the information provided in the NYTimes article; I apologize for any unforeseen errors that I did not personally research.