Prescription Drugs… Are You Gambling With Your Health

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Are Prescription Drugs Destroying Your Health Understanding The Problem By Russell J. Martino, Ph.D.  The Voice Of Health

I’m shocked with the situation so many people find themselves in as a result of the pervasive, drug-dependent approach to medicine and the mistaken belief that taking pills, (prescription or over the counter), will ever heal or cure anything.

Before I proceed, I want you to know that I hold medical doctors in the highest possible esteem. On the rare occasion when I feel poorly, I am quick to visit my doctor and I always follow his advice.

As a PhD nutritionist and a person well versed in health and alternative medicine my first and best advice for anyone who is ill or believes they may be ill is: see your medical doctor immediately.

A potentially life-threatening health problem may present as simply as unusual tiredness, unexplained pain, unusual weight gain or loss, an inappropriate cough or cold, or any variety of minor symptoms that manifest with no apparent cause.

The reason to visit your doctor if you experience something out of the ordinary is not because you suspect serious illness; it’s because big problems can start out innocently and a good doctor will not mistake a serious problem for a common ache or pain.

Now for the rest of the story.

First Name The Disease Then  Name The Drug

Medical doctors are trained to diagnose the problem causing a symptom and prescribe a drug to treat the symptom.

Dr. Majid Ali, a prominent physician and past president of The American Academy of Preventive Medicine, calls this practice of naming the disease and naming the drug, N2-D2 Medicine.

Dr. Ali is highly critical of the name the disease-diagnose the drug, N2D2 model of medicine because managing symptoms with drugs has nothing to do with restoring natural, healthy function.

Even though this is blindingly obvious, managing symptoms with drugs is the exclusive treatment protocol used by medical doctors most of the time.

Proper diagnosis is vitally important because you cannot possibly restore health until you find out what’s wrong. But returning to health requires more than good diagnosis and a prescription for pills to manage symptoms.

Symptoms never just appear. Symptoms are the clear evidence that some organ, gland, metabolic process or combination of factors have begun to function outside of the range that produces excellent health.

When everything in your body is working the way it should, all you notice is high energy and good health.

When things in your body stop stop working properly you notice symptoms; tiredness, fatigue, aches and pains, allergies and colds, indigestion, constipation, trouble sleeping, or any number of others.

Managing symptoms with medicines is fine for temporary relief, but managing symptoms with the long-term use of prescription or over-the- counter medications, and not addressing the underlying malfunction or imbalance causing the symptom, cannot possibly return you to health and will eventually create new problems.

Can taking medication long-term really cause serious health problems? 

Here’s a single example that affects millions of people.

Experts estimate that at least 40 million people suffer with osteoarthritis, a degenerative disease that causes swelling and joint pain. Most of those 40 million deal with the swelling and pain by doing nothing more than taking daily doses of anti-inflammatory medications.

Anti-inflammatory drugs reduce inflammation and, reducing inflammation reduces the pain. But anti-inflammatory drugs only manage the symptom, they do nothing to address the underlying cause, which means that if you stop taking the drug, the inflammation comes right back the next day.

If you take prescription or over the counter medication to artificially reduce inflammation, but ignore the cause of the inflammation and fail to do anything to help the body combat inflammation naturally, you are setting tht stage for serious negative side effects that can be far worse than the original problem.

Take A Look At How Anti-Inflammatory Drugs Work

Your body makes two basic types of bio-chemicals.  Those two basic bio- chemicals are used as raw material to make dozens of other bio- chemicals.

These bio-chemicals, (known as prostaglandins or eicosinoids), regulate dozens of things throughout your body including heart, liver and kidney function, blood pressure, inflammatory and anti- inflammatory response and much, much more.

One thing we know for sure is that pain is ALWAYS associated with increased inflammation somewhere in the body.

Because pain is always caused, directly or indirectly, by inflammation, it follows that if pain is present, inflammation is present; and if you can reduce the inflammation, you automatically reduce the pain.

Because internally produced bio-chemicals regulate inflammation, when you block the production of the chemicals that cause inflammation, you automatically reduce the inflammation, resulting in less pain. This is how anti-inflammatory medicines work.

Anti-inflammatory medicines produce relief by blocking certain metabolic pathways and interfering with the production of internally produced chemicals, (prostaglandins), that cause inflammation.

By down-regulating the production of inflammatory prostaglandins the inflammation temporarily subsides and you feel better. This is wonderful for short-term symptom relief, but if you use the medicines long-term, big problems begin to develop.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, (NSAIDS), which include practically all the popular prescription and over-the-counter pain relievers, are NON SELECTIVE in their ability to block prostaglandin production, which means they block ALL prostaglandin production, not just the prostaglandins that cause inflammation.

Because the drug cannot distinguish one bio-chemical from another and cannot selectively block the production of one type of prostaglandin while permitting the production of another type of prostaglandin, the drugs block production of all prostaglandins of all types, inflammatory and anti-inflammatory.

The problem is that naturally produced anti-inflammatory prostaglandins are EXACTLY what you need to control inflammation naturally, without the need of medication.

By blocking the natural production of anti-inflammatory prostaglandins, the long-term use of anti-inflammatory drugs specifically undercuts your body’s ability to naturally manage inflammation and makes you dependent on the drug to control inflammation. That’s great for the drug company, but not so good for you.

There’s much more to this story.

Naturally produced anti-inflammatory bio-chemicals are extremely important in maintaining healthy blood pressure. In fact, it is impossible to maintain healthy blood pressure naturally without them.

A study published in a 2003 issue of the Journal of The American Medical Association details the exact metabolic connection between the long-term use of pain relievers and high blood pressure.

In this study researchers concluded that millions of people suffer with high blood pressure and heart disease as a DIRECT RESULT of damage done by the long-term use of anti-inflammatory drugs.

This may seem bizarre but tragically, it’s only the beginning.

Once the symptom of high blood pressure is diagnosed N2D2 is invoked and you’re handed a prescription for a drug to control the blood pressure and force it back into a healthy range.

Drugs are made for the sole purpose of managing symptoms and, with few exceptions, drugs do not and cannot restore natural healthy function.  Blood pressure medication may keep blood pressure artificially under control, but the medication does not restore natural, healthy function.

Managing symptoms with drugs can make you look healthy on paper, but looking good on paper, because symptoms are being artificially managed, most assuradly does not make you healthy.

If taking pills is your only strategy for dealing with high blood pressure, odds are that you’ll be on the pills for life and that opens the door and invites in an entire new set of bad side effects.

Regardless of the cause or high blood pressure, the long-term use of blood pressure medication produces a laundry list of nasty side effects.

Diuretics, commonly prescribed for high blood pressure, deplete your body of minerals, including potassium, magnesium and calcium, which are important for heart health and bone density.

If you take diuretics regularly and do not supplement to replenish the constant loss of these minerals, reduced heart function and thinning bones may turn out to be a problem. In fact, the long-term use of diuretics is a specific cause of osteoporosis in women.

ACE Inhibitors are another type of drug commonly prescribed to manage high blood pressure.

ACE inhibitors, (ACE stands for Angiotensin Converting Enzyme), lower blood pressure by interfering with the production of a chemical known as Angiotensin, which is associated with high blood pressure.

The latest research shows that, while artificially suppressing angiotensin production does reduce blood pressure, it does not significantly slow the progression of arterial plaque build up, which means the drugs do not slow the progression of heart disease.

ACE inhibitors give most regular users a persistent cough, which is usually treated with a powerful cough suppressant, setting up another series of side effects.

Besides all this, ACE inhibitors aggravate liver and kidney problems and produce numerous common side-effects such as headaches, fatigue, chest pain, diarrhea, sexual dysfunction, vision disturbances, taste disturbances and so on.

If you take ACE inhibitor drugs long-term, don’t be surprised if any of these side effects show up and don’t be surprised when you’re given another drug to manage the symptoms.

At some point you have to ask yourslef what does managing a symptom while ignoring the problem have to do with getting healthy and staying healthy. As far as I can tell, the answer is nothing at all.

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Practically ALL DRUGS have undesirable side effects, (some worse than others), and, with few exceptions, the only purpose of the drug is to manage a symptom, not to restore natural, healthy function.

If taking drugs, prescription or over-the-counter, is your only strategy for dealing with a problem, you’re headed down a road with no good end. But do not despair!

There are a number of things you can do to help your body function properly WITHOUT the need of drugs or medicine and you can do those things while following your doctor’s advice to the letter.

In my personal experience I’ve dealt with hundreds of people who have lessened or completely eliminated their need for medication simply by following the diet, nutrition and lifestyle program in my private weight loss consulting sessions and in my 5 Steps to Optimal Health Program.

Doctors are trained to diagnose problems and manage symptoms and generally speaking, they are very good at it.

Your doctor is extraordinarily well educated, but your doctors’ knowledge base is limited primarily to disease, and your doctors’ treatment options are limited primarily to drugs, surgery and radiation.  Doctors are experts in illness and disease. 

What if you’re too healthy to be sick or too sick to be healthy?

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What happens when your doctor get out of crisis but you’re still not brimming over with energy and vitality? What happens if you’re not sick enough to be diagnosed with a disease, but never the less, you’re constantly tired or suffer with aches and pains, allergies and colds, or any variety of other symptoms that reduce your quality of life?

Most people who visit the doctor have no immediately life-threatening problem, but everyone who visits the doctor is screened for disease, (which is good), and practically everyone is given a drug to manage symptoms, which is N2D2 at it’s finest!

Diagnosing a problem and prescribing a drug to manage a symptom does nothing specific to CORRECT THE UNDERLYING PROBLEM that caused the symptom in the first place.

While I personally believe many prescriptions are unnecessary, I have no particular criticism with the short-term use of medication. There’s no real problem with taking medication for a week or two to manage a symptom until your immune system kicks in and heals the condition.

But real problems can and frequently do develop if you rely on drugs to control symptoms in the long-term and fail to address the underlying problem that caused the symptom to occur.

Managing Symptoms With Drugs Is Like A Lion Tamer Keeping The Beasts At Bay

Ever been to a circus?  I love the lions.  Those giant cats are awesome, perched on platforms in the center ring. Their mighty roar reminds you that at that moment the only thing keeping you at the top of the food chain are the iron bars on the big cats cage.

I’m fascinated when the lion tamer strides into the cage, armed with nothing more than a whip and a wooden chair; constantly pacing, turning from cat to cat, popping the whip and facing the animals down.

If not for the whip and chair I suspect the lions would eat the guy for dinner. But as long as the whip cracks and the chair is thrust, the lions just growl and paw and stay put while the lion tamer struts around and holds them at bay.

With few exceptions, drugs are like a lion tamer.  They crack the whip on pain and inflammation and keep the beasts of high blood pressure or high cholesterol or high or low something else from devouring you. But does taking the drug really make you healthy?

Symptoms Under Control Does Not Equal Health

It’s nice to have a pill to manage symptoms, but the real issue is not the symptom, the real issue is figuring out what caused the symptom to develop in the first place.

Why do the muscles ache, why do the joints hurt?  Why does cholesterol or blood pressure climb too high?

Why is there indigestion, constipation, heartburn, headache, fatigue, coughs and colds, anxiety, or insomnia? Why, why, why?

What causes thinning bones, gradual weight gain, and the gradual loss of strength and vitality?

What causes all the things that people go to the doctor for and take drugs to control?

Is it even remotely possible that headaches could be caused by a lack of aspirin in your diet?

Could any common health problem or any serious disease realistically be caused because you didn’t take enough medicine?

Of course not!

Managing symptoms with drugs is ok, but if that’s ALL you do, your medicine cabinet will eventually fill up and you’ll have more health problems than ever.

People commonly take drugs in one form or another to manage the symptoms of muscle and joint pain, headaches, heartburn, indigestion, constipation, coughs and colds, cholesterol, blood pressure, and countless other things.

The medicines may manage the symptoms, but is symptom management with drugs what you really want?  Or is normal, healthy function without doctors, drugs and medicine what you want?

The proof is overwhelming that taking prescription or over-the-counter medication for long-term symptom management eventually creates health problems that would have never experienced otherwise.

What do you think it mean to be healthy?

Is good health nothing more than good blood pressure, triglyceride and cholesterol numbers?

Are you automatically healthy if your heart rate, body fat percentage, liver function and blood sugar levels are all within a certain range?

Are you healthy because the numbers are in a healthy range, or, are the numbers in the healthy range because your body is working the way it should?

Managing symptoms with drugs does not produce good health because drugs do nothing to restore natural-healthy function.  Drugs force the body to function in a certain way, holding the beast of pain or disease at bay.  Drugs produce "managed health".

Numbers don’t make you healthy. 

Good health produces good numbers naturally.  Managed health produces good numbers artifically.  If you’re not certain about the difference ask yourself this, what’s worth more, a fake diamond or a real one, a fake of Di Vinci’s Mona Lisa or the real one that hangs in the Louvre in Paris?

You can’t be healthy without good numbers, but having good numbers does not automatically mean you’re healthy.  If only it were that simple!

Cholesterol medication is another startling example of how managing symptoms with drugs can, will and ofen does create bigger problems than it solves.

Statin drugs lower cholesterol by down-regulating the production of an enzyme that causes your cells to produce cholesterol inside your cells.

Down-regulating that enzyme turns off the cells ability to make inter- cellular cholesterol. With internal production turned off, the cells have no alternative but to harvest the cholesterol they need directly from the blood, which of course lowers cholesterol.

But is taking the drug really necessary?  Does it really improve your health? For most people, most of the time, the answer is a resounding NO.

Naturally lowering cholesterol is one of the easiest things in the world if you know how. Just get the sugar and high carbohydrate foods out of your diet and your cholesterol and triglycerides will go down quickly, sharply and automatically.

Add in a little resistance exercise and include some gresh green vegetables, beans, fresh fruit and salads in your diet and your cholesterol will drop like a rock.

A recent study tested the cholesterol lowering effects of diet and exercise against the cholesterol lowering effects of powerful statin drugs.

The results, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, showed a 31% reduction with the side-effect producing drugs and a 29% reduction over the same period of time with diet and exercise.

The statistical difference between 31% and 29% in this context is insignificant. This study proves that for most people proper diet, combined with exercise lowers cholesterol just as effectively as expensive drugs that are loaded with bad side effects.

Eliminating sugar and carbohydrates lowers cholesterol because sugar and carbohydrates cause your insulin level to surge and insulin activates the enzyme that causes your cells to make cholesterol internally.

By cutting back on sugar and carbohydrate you naturally down- regulate the enzyme and accomplish EXACTLY the same thing your get by taking the drug, minus the cost and the bad side effects.

In my opinion, millions of people have been needlessly and senselessly prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs that artificially control a symptom and completely ignore the real, underlying problem causing the symptom.

A Startling Medical Discovery Most People Ignore

One of the most eye-opening medical studies in recent years documented that people taking prescription cholesterol medication experience the SAME rate of arterial plaque buildup as people with high cholesterol who do nothing what so ever to control it.

In other words, artificially controlling cholesterol with drugs does not stop or even modestly slow the progression of heart disease!

This study is just another example and further proof that artificially controlling symptoms with drugs does not produce health!

Examine the research on cholesterol medication for yourself and you’ll be shocked.

First you’ll learn that the initial studies that started the cholesterol reduction craze are seriously flawed.

Next you’ll discover cholesterol is nowhere near as serious an indicator of disease as you have been lead to believe, the facts simply do not support the much heralded cholesterol-heart disease connection. It’s a myth, an urban legend, a lie; take your pick.

Finally you’ll discover that unless you are in an extreme and immediately life-threatening situation, artificially controlling cholesterol with drugs poses far greater health risks than you can possibly imagine.

By the manufacturers own admission, these drugs are loaded with horrible side effects that include everything from liver disease, cancer and heart disease, to stomach ulcers, emotional imbalances, back pain, sinus infections, alterations in taste, dizziness, memory loss, numbness in the extremities, loss of libido, enlarged thyroid, rashes, cataracts and depression.

Just in general, these drugs are horrible, in fact, cholesterol medication can actually CAUSE heart disease

Statin drugs, commonly prescribed for lowering cholesterol, block the production of an enzyme that causes the cells to produce cholesterol internally.

The exact same metabolic pathways blocked by these drugs are the pathways needed to make a substance called CoQ10, a nutrient that is extremely important to your heart.

A long-term deficiency in CoQ10 directly undercuts heart health, weakens the heart and dramatically increases the risk of heart attack.

You may find this difficult to believe, but every word is true and the drug companies know it. It fact, two drug manufacturers have patented statin drugs with CoQ10 included, however, they refuse to bring the product to market.

The depth of this dependance on prescription tragedy is mind-boggling!

Tens of millions of people take these drugs daily.  Eventually most, if not all of them, will develop one or more of these symptoms. What then? Off to the doctor for another round of N2D2, and the plot thickens with yet another drug added to the daily menu.

I could go on and on for days but I’m sure you get the pont, managing symptoms does not make you healthy.

Anti-acids, laxatives, cough suppressants, diet pills, aspirin, allergy medication and so on are ALL made to manage symptoms.

Every one of these products have nasty long-term side effects and do NOTHING to correct the underlying problem that causes the symptoms they manage.

In my opinion, taking any of these products on any kind of regular basis is 100% sheer folly.

So what’s the solution?  What can you do to help restore natural- healthy function?

How do you deal with symptoms and still follow your doctor’s orders, which by the way, should always be followed.  (If you disagree with your doctor find another one you have more trust in, don’t just ignore the one you’ve got.)

How do you naturally overcome the need for prescription or over-the- counter medications?

All these questions and more are the subject of ongoing investigation and discussion on this Blog and are covered in detail in my 5 Steps To Optimal Health Program. 

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"If all my patients followed the diet, nutrition and lifestyle guidelines in 5 Steps To Optimal Health, my practice would be very small indeed. As an MD highly knowledgeable in the healing power of proper diet and nutrition, I enthusiastically endorse this book and suggest you read it cover to cover."
Stephen Guffanti, M.D., Author, Nutrition Expert

 

 

 

 Copyright 2009 Russell J. Martino, Ph.D.

Written by Dr. Russell J. Martino, Ph.D
The Voice Of Health
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