cov-canuck

I hope that this question doesn't offend anyone, but I was just curious about the fact that giving growth hormones to kids seems to be getting more frequent. What is the estimated final height of these kids without hormones, and is it really so bad to just let them be short?

I'm speaking as someone with a 5'2" mother, I'm 5'1", and I have one brother who is 5'5", and one who is 6'1". Growth hormones were not common when we were growing up, but personally I wouldn't change my height.

Again, I don't mean to offend, I'm just curious.

Judy in Calgary

This is news to me. Can you cite articles on the topic?

Something that is of concern to me is that cattle that are raised in feedlots in Canada are given synthetic hormones such as zeranol, trenbolone acetate and melengestrol acetate to speed up the animals' growth. When humans consume the beef, they also consume those hormones.

Health Canada has rejected this claim, but some scientists have pointed to potential problems arising from human consumption of growth hormones via meat. For example, some critics of the administration of growth hormones to beef cattle, have claimed that it causes girls to reach puberty earlier and increases their risk of developing breast cancer.

As far as I know, Canada has never allowed the administering of recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) to dairy cows, which the United States allows. So to that extent at least, I consider Canada's milk supply to be safer than that of the U.S.

Mind you the government scientists who were responsible for the rejection of rBGH (Dr. Shiv Chopra, Dr. Margaret Haydon, and others) have been fired. It's a sobering example of what happens to whistle blowers who stand up to the likes of Monsanto. If you want to read about it, you can Google their names.

I'm in my fifties, and I have a first cousin who is a couple of years younger than I am. She was born with a disorder that, if it had gone untreated, would have left her with a child-like body all her life. She would have been very short, she would not have developed breasts, she would not have menstruated, and so on. When she reached the age of what should have been puberty, she received hormones that induced breast growth and menstruation. The hormones only induced secondary effects. She is incapable of having children. The hormones also accelerated her growth in terms of height, although they only helped her to get up to 4' 10" or 4' 11". She never did crack 5'.

I think that in the case of a child who, like my cousin, has a true disorder, hormones probably are justified. I personally would never dream of administering them to a child who was short but normal.

Even in the case of my cousin, doctors were careful to administer hormones during the years when she normally would have been experiencing puberty, and not beyond. Apparently there was a danger of side effects if they had continued the hormones into her adulthood. My understanding is that humans who receive too much growth hormone develop a disease called acromegaly (enlargement of hands, feet, and face).

hot wasabi peas

I don't think I fully understand. Do doctors actually prescribe growth hormones to kids with short parents? Or are you referring to a child with some sort of condition.

ginaf

Sorry to go slightly off topic, I like to buy organic milk and meat, do Canadian supermarkets readily stock these? I would imagine I would use a large city supermarket if that makes any difference.

cov-canuck

I'll be honest, I don't know much about it, why it's prescribed, what it's supposed to do, which is why I asked. I've just seen mention of it on tv shows, a few short news reports and on these forums over the last couple of weeks, but I don't know if it is being given due to an increase in a specific condition (as opposed to general "shortness"!), or to make kids more "average sized", or, perhaps, to counteract some element (such as growth hormones in meat/milk) that is now on the increase?

Basically, I know nothing, I'm just wondering if anyone else knows anything!

SonjaNTony

Hi, My son is currently on growth hormones its not the fact he is small why he has to take them its because he has a smaller than normal pitutiary gland,so doesnt produce enough growth hormones along with other hormones needed, if i had my way he wouldnt take them ,nobody likes to inject their 4 year old everyday at the age of 3 my son was smaller than his 1 year old brother.He has been on treatment since xmas and has grown 11cms and if we are lucky he wont need them when hes an adult, i dont think they prescribe it for being short as its very expensive,my son had to go through numerous tests before being eligble for it.

Any questions i will be happy to answer

Sonja

Judy in Calgary

I don't know which part of Canada you're interested in. I can only speak for Calgary. My nearest supermarket is Safeway. It stocks organic, free-range, grass fed beef, but it costs three times as much as regular beef. Although it does stock the organic beef, the only form in which it comes is frozen, not fresh.

The premium you pay for other organic meats, such as chicken and turkey, is similar.

I have varying degrees of success in finding organic dairy products at my local Safeway. Sometimes I go to a health food store, which is a bit further away, to buy organic dairy products. They too are more expensive than their standard counterparts. Again the ratio is about three to one.

Although organic fruit and vegetables cost more than regular fruit and veg, the price difference is not as dramatic as it is in the case of meat and dairy products. In the case of fruit and veg the premium for organic food sometimes is as little as 50% over the regular price.

My dental hygienist told me about a company that sells chicken and beef directly to the public. I don't think the chicken is strictly speaking organic. I think it would need to be fed organically grown feed in order to qualify as organic. However, the company does advertise that it does not administer antibiotics or hormones to its chickens, and it feeds them only on vegetable matter, not animal by-products. The cattle are raised under similar conditions, i.e., their feed is not organic, but they are given no antibiotics, hormones or animal by-products.

In order to buy chicken and beef from this company, I would need to place an order. Then I would need to go to a delivery point, the parking lot of a shopping mall that is a fair distance from my home, and pick up my order. The company rotates the locations to which it makes deliveries. It delivers to the location that would be reasonably convenient for me once a month. The minimum size of order that I could place would be large enough that it would not fit into the freezer compartment of our fridge, and we'd need to buy a separate freezer. There might be some merit in investing in a freezer, because this bulk beef and chicken, which is not organic but which seems to me to be healthier than regular beef and chicken, does not cost anywhere near as much as organic beef and chicken.

In another thread I provided names and locations of Calgary health food stores and a farmers' market.

But, as I said before, all this information is relevant to Calgary only.

dbd33

We can walk to Sobey's Dominion and Loblaws, three large supermarkets all of which have an organic section. Prices are as Judy describes. Price Chopper, a food discounter, also has some organic food. There are half a dozen independent green grocers within walking distance, all have some produce labelled organic at lower prices than the chains (not sure about the "organicity" of some of this stuff. The Big Carrot and Alternatives are genuine organic stores, the latter is a chain. There's a organic butcher down the street. Many independent butchers stock organic meat, Rowe Farms is a major brand. There are organic co-ops, that is a group of people purchasing from a wholesaler to achieve lower prices, and organic delivery services. As well, some people here make trips across the border to the big American organic food chain, Whole Foods,

There are some dubious laws in Ontario. For example, food cannot be labelled as "GM free" or "hormone free" so as to protect the interests of the chemical farming industry. Milk must be pasturised before sale, though not if it's cheese. If you really want organic meat and animal derivative products what you can do is to buy a cow, a pig and so on. You don't actually take delivery of the content of Noah's Ark, it's just a paper transaction, if you own the animal and intend to eat it yourself it's exempt from most regulations. It rather amuses me that my ex drives 30 miles round trip to get unpasturised milk, good for her maybe but surely a net loss to the planet.

In short, anything is available in Toronto from organic food to American cigarettes but, whatever you want, it likely costs a lot and requires circumvention of some by-law.

ginaf

Thanks Judy and dbd33,

That seems positive, I do make a point of buying Organic milk as my children drink so much of it. Meat wise I am not as fussed but I am happier to buy an organic cheaper cut of meat than more expensive non organic options.

Thanks for your previous help dbd33, we almost backed out of going to Canada over the six weeks or so due to the excessive London processing times and the whole "Canadian Experience" talk, but are back on track, applying through Sydney and hope to be there as soon as the visas arrive.

hot wasabi peas

There really isn't such a thing as a 'Canadian supermarket' and food buying varies region to region. So it probably depends on where you'll be. A chain of grocery stores (Thrifties) on Vancouver Island stock organic beef, chicken, dairy, etc and so do a couple local butcher shops, health food shops, smaller grocery stores, etc -- but there is a huge market for that sort of thing there.

But what a lot of people do in Canada is buy direct from farms (and not just people who want organics). They just have a deep freeze down in their basement and fill it a couple of times a year with large orders from farms like this:

http://bar7ranch.ca/
http://www.triplecbeef.ca/
http://www.jerseylandorganics.com/

Pretty much any area will have something similar.

And same for fish and seafood. I (when I'm in Victoria) only get salmon from my family or other contacts I have because I know the salmon is wild and caught well.

GRANiTe

I was given growth hormone injections when I was about 16 as I was a late developer and smaller than the rest of my class mates at school. It doesn't affect how tall you will grow but rather speeds up your growth.

Grant

dbd33

I disagree with the first point. I don't know how far west Loblaws/Zehrs/Atlantic Superstore goes but from Ontario east the stores are the same construction and contain the same brands under the same signage. The content of the stores varies only according to the central computer's perception of the neighbourhood.

I often shop at Loblaws at Vic Park and Gerrard in Toronto, that store has every kind of curry powder, twenty or thirty types of rice, salt beef, grains labelled only in French and Arabic, pig feet, weird dried fish, all kinds of food. I also go into the Loblaw's in Port Credit but, since it only has white man food, I just get bread and eggs there. The Atlantic Superstore in New Glasgow NS was indistinguishable from the Port Credit Loblaws, I expect that, outside the three cities the content of the stores is pretty much the same bland stuff.

dbd33

Are you now intending to go to Vancouver or thereabouts ? I saw a question about flying a light plane into the US, that I thought was yours. I refrained from saying that in fifty trips no one has asked us for any sort of documents for fear of being booed and jeered. It's true though, the authorities have always declined to come out and check our passports in either country. It may be that having a US tail number helps.

ginaf

No, we are very much set on Toronto, workwise it seems the best option. The light plane question certainly didn't come from me, I used to work on the big ones and it's left me with a small fear of flying!

ginaf

Completely off topic now, but I know you know Toronto well. The area in Toronto that looks like it would suit us comes up as CO4 on the MLS.ca map but I can't work out what exact area it is, it seems to be behind Rosedale but is obviously not Rosedale as the houses are much cheaper, I still use the Boldts website but I don't think they refer to it, do you know it at all?