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Do drugs help our Health?
Health Topics on this page How can Prescription Drugs harm us?
When we visit our doctor with a problem most of us want the doctor to give us a name for what ails us and a prescription for a drug to make it go away. However – this can become a deadly habit.
Too many of us have put our wellbeing completely in the hands of our doctors-and slowly but surely over the years as we have become more convinced that doctors know exactly what is good for us, we have given up our responsibility for looking after it for ourselves. In reality, doctors now see their patients in less and less time, they are inundated with demands for instant treatments and they also have to contend with drug representatives visiting on a regular basis with the latest “cures” for illness, with incentives, financial and otherwise, to prescribe them.
Under these circumstances isn’t it inevitable that the average GP, far from being an infallible being that is never wrong, is really all too human? As well as struggling to cope with their workload, they also have to keep on top of the vast amount of information from drug companies about prescription drugs.
Unfortunately as well, doctors are not trained in nutrition very much and most of them have little knowledge about the effects our lifestyle and environment can force upon us. So we see the picture today of billions being spent on research into drugs – often for minor ailments that a simple change in diet or lifestyle could cure easily.
How can prescription drugs harm us?We should try to keep the use of pharmaceutical drugs to a minimum. Many common remedies like aspirin, and other painkillers contain Salicylic acid, which irritates the stomach and gut, which in turn upsets the ability to get the most nutrients out of food. More about this here Paracetamol does not irritate the gut like aspirin but it's bad news for the health of your liver. Just taking 2 can cause your liver to work overtime getting rid of the toxic effects. In the UK alone 30,000 people a year end up in hospital as a result of taking paracetamol. Antibiotics wipe out the healthy gut bacteria that help to make vitamin B in your body. They also encourage the growth of unfriendly bacteria which increases the risk of infection and stressing your immune system. This can lead to nutrient deficiencies.
What we call "health care" is really "disease care". We have become convinced that everything “wrong” with us is a result of faulty genes or our biochemistry and that there is a pill for every ill to fix the mistake that nature has made. However, for many of us, what is wrong is a direct consequence of an unhealthy lifestyle.
For example, over eating, poor nutrition, lack of exercise, chronic stress, or not enough sleep. These are all choices that WE can do something about. Taking drugs to solve health problems directly caused by an unhealthy lifestyle is not a good strategy for a high quality of life or a long and healthy life.
Some Worrying FactsIn the UK alone, it is estimated that 1.17 million people each year end up in hospital from adverse drug reactions from prescription drugs and around 10,000 people die from them.
If this was a flu epidemic, or a disease involving this many people, you can be sure that there would be millions spent to study this phenomenon, but because we willingly pop pills prescribed for us by GPs there seems to be no widespread concern.
Let me say that I am not in the least denigrating medical science as a whole. In fact, I would be the first to admit there have been a great many advances in medical treatments and health care that has saved many lives.
However, many doctors and medical authorities openly criticise nutritional medicine saying it is "unproven". Natural health treatment is often discouraged or condemned out of hand. This is despite the fact that their record and methods for curing chronic illness has been proven many times to be far better than merely taking drugs. How many people do you think have been killed by taking nutritional supplements and herbs prescribed by alternative practitioners? Zero.
A Case HistoryWhat is the difference between the conventional medical approach and the holistic approach to a health problem? Let’s say that an overweight woman in her forties approaches her doctor with chronic back pain caused by a soft tissue tear injury sustained some time before.
The doctor recommends a mild painkiller and prescribes rest. After a while the painkillers don’t work so well and the pain keeps her awake at night so she goes back to see if there is anything else he can do. The doctor decides that stronger painkillers are the answer and also some anti-inflammatory pills as well.
The doctor is overworked and doesn’t have much time to give any advice about losing some weight (which could only help), or ask about her lifestyle. Let’s also say that in an attempt to alleviate the pain and to cope with a stressful job she is also drinking alcohol at night on a regular basis to help her sleep. So taking the pills and the anti-inflammatory drugs and painkillers are going to be, at best, useless and at worse could cause severe digestive and liver problems.
Sure enough a few months later she is back at the surgery –this time with severe heartburn and irritable bowel syndrome as well as seeking something else for the pain that hasn’t gone away.
She is prescribed an acid blocker, which reduces the digestive symptoms, but then her stomach acid has become much lower as she is not digesting her food properly, thus not getting enough nutrients from her food.
As she is often inactive because of her back problem, she becomes depressed and tends to “comfort” eat sweet on sugary foods which also puts weight on. The IBS also continues unabated despite the anti-spasmodic drugs she is also taking.
The drugs are putting extra stress on her kidneys and so she develops a kidney infection. She is then put on an antibiotic for the infection but this treatment lowers her immune system even more by killing all the beneficial bacteria in her colon, she then develops viral infections one after the other that turn to sinusitis which just won’t go away (more antibiotics) along with constant gas from the colon imbalance.
She starts on decongestants to alleviate her sinus symptoms but this gives her a dry throat and cough. In the meantime the back pain is still causing problems, she is practically addicted to her painkillers which have got stronger and stronger and she has now developed sciatica and walks with a limp.
Do you get the picture? This is an extremely common scenario and I bet that variations on this theme have been the experience for a lot of patients. Now, this woman is exhausted all the time, in chronic long term pain, and is just waiting for her next health problem to come along – as it invariably does.
What is her future? Her quality of life is horrible, she’s no fun to be around any more, and she will cost the medical system (and ultimately the taxpayer) thousands of pounds both in treatment and sick pay.
If nothing changes, there will be more drugs prescribed, more side effects, and more pain. This is no way to live and yet this is how many people are living, caught in a web of an unhealthy lifestyle, conventional medical treatment and prescription drugs.
Now let’s take a look at an alternative scenarioThis lady is so worried about her weight and digestive problems (she has long thought that she will have to learn to live with her back problem) she goes along to a naturopathic therapist referred to her by a friend.
The therapist asks about her diet, exercise habits and medication. He asks her if she is willing to make some healthy changes in her diet and to start getting some mild exercise and she agrees to do that if it’s not too hard. She’s tried diets before, she says and they never work.
The nutritional therapist says that this is would be a permanent lifestyle change and not a temporary diet and she agrees to try it out for 6 months. The therapist also notices she walks with a lop- sided gait, asks about her previous treatment regime and recommends a chiropractic therapist.
The chiropractic treatment involves gentle manipulation treatment to ease the pain and stiffness in the lower back joints. She is also given back strengthening exercises to do at home and told to practice them every day and also to walk at least 30 minutes everyday.
After following the diet and exercise program for around 2 months she is feeling much better and has lost half a stone in weight which in turn helps alleviate her back pain more. After a short while she is able to leave off some drugs as her digestive problems are relieved a great deal by her now healthy eating program.
She is also on probiotics to put back the beneficial bacteria that the antibiotics took out, she is getting far more nutrients into her system and the irritable bowel syndrome eventually becomes a thing of the past. Subsequently, her immune system is strengthened by the extra nutrition she is getting, and as she is feeling a lot better she is determined to stick with the diet and exercise regime for good.
As time goes by, her weight continues to go back to normal and the back pain gets less and less as her back muscles are strengthened by the exercise program so painkillers also become a thing of the past, After a few months of treatment, her lop-sided gait which was causing a misalignment in her spine and was throwing her body out of balance is now readjusted. She reports that she hasn’t felt better in years and her quality of life has improved no end.
What of her future now? She’s happy, healthy, physically fit, emotionally and mentally stable, she’s not on any drugs, her medical costs are minimal and her enjoyment in life is maximal. This scenario is just as real as the one before it – but with a dramatic difference!
What about the future of healthcare?Modern medicine is still wonderful if you have a life-threatening infection that requires antibiotics, if you need urgent surgery, if you break a bone, are involved in an accident, or if you need diagnosis for a disease, but for nearly all other health problems you’re much better off working alongside alternative medicine as well as your doctor’s advice.
By now there are many doctors who recognise that combining safe effective alternative health along with what they learned in medical school is the way of the future, and they give excellent medical care. Unfortunately you are unlikely to find too many of them - yet – but the tide is turning.
Hopefully as time goes on, an overweight out of condition patient consulting their doctor in the not too distant future will be given lifestyle and dietary advice before they precribe drugs. Also it would be a step in the right direction if most GPs would get more educated about alternative medicine instead of discrediting it when patients want to know about healthier alternatives.
Alternative practitioners are always careful to tell their clients to consult their GPs before making any changes to their treatment – so surely it should follow that doctors should encourage their patients to seek alternatives if they do not wish to be treated with drugs.
Holistic healing means choosing the best healthcare options from every discipline and practice and using it to regain your health. It does not mean refusing life saving drugs if you need them or turning down emergency surgery. It may, though, mean thinking twice about so-called routine operations for conditions that can be managed by less intrusive methods.
As we look ahead to medicine in this new century, we all need to remember that there has been a big shift to chronic illness; and conditions like cancer, heart disease and diabetes are all on the increase in the West. These are exactly the kinds of conditions that complementary medicine can work with, alongside medical practice.
We should not turn our backs on 100 years of progress in medical science but neither should we dismiss treatments for which clinical evidence is still scanty simply because we don’t believe what we cannot touch or see.
There are very few clinical trials but a wealth of evidence in alternative nutritional medicine. The proof is all around us when we hear of someone getting cured of cancer without drugs and surgery, and many other conditions being improved or reversed because of diet changes.
Further reading:
How drug companies are trying to limit alternative choices Its happening in the US already - we should be aware of this threat and preserve our rights to take vitamins and minerals for our health.
How can prescription drugs deplete nutrients in our bodies?
How A natural health chemical Found In Broccoli Can Help Prevent Cancer Cells From Spreading By As Much As 90% By far, one of the most exciting developments in health that has taken place in the nutrition and health world A Kernel of hope Many people believe that eating apricot kernels, a food source rich in a vitamin called B17, can protect against and even help to cure cancer
Homeopathy Information Organization - Classical Homeopathy is a safe, non-toxic complete system of medicine that uses one homeopathic remedy to gently support and strengthen your immune system. This simple, single remedy approach prevents illness, helps you heal faster and reduces the number of pills you need to take.
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