AMERICA'S REAL DRUG PROBLEM!?!
Socrates once declared that medicine "acts as both remedy and poison" and that "this charm, this spellbinding virtue, this power of fascination, can be-alternately or simultaneously-beneficent or maleficent." Modern America clearly appreciates the benefits. Today, a full 61 percent of adults use at least one drug to treat a chronic health problem, a nearly 15 percent rise since 2001. More than 1 in 4 seniors gulp down at least five medications daily. The trend has multiple causes: a spike in diabetes, heart disease, and arthritis related to obesity; revised medical guidelines that treat high blood sugar, hypertension, and high cholesterol sooner; and a multibillion-dollar push by pharmaceutical companies to speak directly to consumers about the payoff in trusting our hearts to Lipitor, say, or taking Boniva to help stop bone loss.
Therapeutic advances have, no question, proved lifesaving for many. Heart disease deaths have dropped steadily over the past 15 years, for example, thanks in large part to cholesterol-lowering statins and clot-busting drugs administered during heart attacks and strokes. But a growing chorus of experts worries that one unintended effect of all the pharmacological success is that many people may be blithely taking drugs they don't need, potentially setting themselves up for severe consequences. Clinical trials that prove a medicine safe and effective may demonstrate nothing about long-term risks or whether it benefits elderly folks or people with multiple health issues; usually new drugs are tested for just three or so years in a few thousand middle-age adults with a single particular problem. Given that a drug's serious side effects might show up only after months or years on the market, someone whose dangerous heart disease can't be controlled by existing meds has a much clearer incentive to try a new drug than people with a mild condition. Consider Vioxx, the blockbuster arthritis drug withdrawn from the market in 2004 after researchers estimated that it caused between 88,000 and 139,000 heart attacks during the five years it was prescribed.
"Watching Your Back,"
Yout Health Coach,
Dr. Ross Coccimiglio
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