HEALTH NEWS YOU CAN USE  
Part 1 of a 2 Part series.

Part 1 explains the types of problems that can develop by relying too heavily on prescription or over-the-counter medication.  Part 2 discusses things you can do to restore natural function and reduce or eliminate the need to take medicine.

Are Prescription Drugs Destroying Your Health
Part 1 - Understanding The Problem
By Russell J. Martino, Ph.D.

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 doctors in very high esteem. On the rare occasion when I feel poorly, I am quick to visit my doctor and 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 . . .

The Modern Medical Model = Name the Disease & Prescribe the Drug

Medical doctors are trained to diagnose the problem causing the symptom and then 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 problem and then naming the drug, N2-D2 Medicine.

Dr. Ali is highly critical of the N2D2 model of medicine because managing symptoms with drugs has nothing to do with restoring natural, healthy function.  Yet, managing symptoms with drugs is the exclusive treatment protocol used by medical doctors most of the time.

Proper diagnosis is extremely 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 stop functioning properly you notice symptoms; tiredness, fatigue, aches and pains, allergies and colds, indigestion, constipation, trouble
sleeping, or any number of others.

Can taking medication long-term really cause serious health problems? Consider this specific 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.

Anyone taking drugs, (prescription or over the counter), that artificially reduce inflammation, while ignoring the cause of the inflammation and failing to
do anything to help the body combat inflammation naturally, sets themselves up for some serious negative side effects that can be far worse than the original
problem.

Here is how anti-inflammatory drugs work.

Your body makes two basic types of bio-chemicals.  Those two 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 about pain 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 will automatically reduce the pain.

Because internally produced bio-chemicals regulate inflammation, if 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.

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 can 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.

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

Once the symptom of high blood pressure is diagnosed N2D2 is invoked and you are somewhat automatically prescribed a drug to control the blood pressure and force it back into a healthy range.

Drugs are made to manage symptoms and with few exceptions drugs do not and cannot restore natural healthy function.

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

If taking medication is your only strategy for dealing with high blood pressure, odds are that you’ll be on the pills for life, opening the door to another 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.

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

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 are 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 have dealt with hundreds of people who have lessened or completely eliminated their need for prescription medication simply by following the diet, nutrition and lifestyle program advocated in my 5 Steps to Optimal Health Program.

In Part 2 of this newsletter I will detail a number of simple steps you can take that may reduce or eliminate your dependence on many types of medications.

Doctors are trained to diagnose problems and manage symptoms. 

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

What happens when you get out of crisis? What happens if you are 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 do not suffer with immediately life-threatening problems, but everyone who visits the doctor is screened for disease, (which is good), and practically everyone is given a drug to manage bothersome symptoms, which is N2D2 at it’s finest!

Diagnosing the problem and prescribing the drug 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 is no real problem with taking medication for a week or two and then being done with it.

But real problems can and frequently do develop when 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 Is Like Keeping The Beast 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 iron bars of the cage are the only thing keeping you at the top of the food chain.

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 simply eat the guy for dinner. But as long as the whip cracks and the chair is thrust, the big cats 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 and high cholesterol from devouring you; but are you really healthier for taking the drugs?

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, eventually your medicine cabinet will be full and you’ll have more health problems than ever.

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

The drugs and medicines may manage the symptoms, but is symptom management with drugs what you really want?  Or is NORMAL HEALTHY FUNCTION WITHOUT DRUGS OR MEDICINE what you want?  

There is overwhelming proof that people taking prescription or over-the-counter medication for long-term symptom management are often creating problems they would have never experienced otherwise.  

Are they better off or worse off than they would be without drugs?

What does 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? Or, are the numbers in the healthy range because your body is working the way it should?

Managing symptoms with drugs does not produce health because drugs do not restore natural-healthy function.  Drugs FORCE the body to function in a certain way; drugs hold the beast at bay.

Cholesterol medication is another startling example of how managing symptoms with drugs may create more problems than it solves.

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

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

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. Get the sugar and high carbohydrate foods out of your diet and your
cholesterol and your triglycerides will go down quickly and sharply.

Factor in resistance exercise and include vegetables, beans, fresh fruit and salads in your diet and your cholesterol will drop quickly, naturally and dramatically.

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.

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.

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!

If you personally examine the research on cholesterol medication you will be shocked.

First you will discover 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 will 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.

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

These products all have nasty long-term side effects and do NOTHING to correct the underlying problem that is causing the symptom to occur. In my opinion,
taking any of these products long-term is sheer folly.

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

All these questions and more will be answered in Part 2 of this series, which will be in the next edition of Health News You Can Use.

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Copyright 2008 Russell J. Martino, Ph.D.