Prescription Drugs: Most Are Harmful, Many Are Deadly

Prescription Drugs: Most Are Harmful, Many Are Deadly

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"'The overuse of prescription drugs provides a vacation from personal responsibility".  Bruce Lipton, Ph.D.

   

Michael Grant White July 13, 2020 age 79 (and counting) LOL

FROM MIKE.

I AM NOT ANTI PRESCRIPTION DRUGS. IF EXPOSED TO POISON OK OR IVY, I ALMOST RUN FOR THE STEROIDS.  OTHERWISE MY LIST IS ONE OR LESS.

I am not ANTI VACCINATION. 
I am ANTI UNTESTED UNSAFE VACCINATION.

In 2018, 5.8 billion prescriptions were dispensed in the United States.

"More than 23 percent of Americans took three or more prescription drugs in a 30 days period, according to a 2017 CDC estimate. Furthermore, 39 percent over age 65 take five or more, a number that’s increased three-fold in the last several decades. There are about 1,000 known side effects and 5,000 drugs on the market, making for nearly 125 billion possible side effects between all possible pairs of drugs. Most of these have never been prescribed together, let alone systematically studied, according to the Stanford researchers"    

Killer Profits’: How Big Pharma Hoards Money, Harms Patients

Ref.: Bioinformatics (open access). Source: Stanford University.

Corruption in Global Health Care May Exceed $1 TRILLION 

Corruption in Global Health Is an Open Secret

In a December 7, 2019, article12 in The Lancet, Dr. Patricia Garcia -- affiliate professor of global health at Cayetano Heredia University in Lima-Peru and a former minister of health13 -- points out that "Corruption is embedded in health systems."

In it, she argues that dishonesty and fraud in the health care system as a whole, including its academic and research communities, is "one of the most important barriers to implementing universal health coverage," yet this corruption is rarely if ever discussed, let alone addressed in any meaningful way."

"It is estimated that the world spends more than US$7 trillion on health services, and that at least 10-25% of global spending is lost directly through corruption, representing hundreds of billions of dollars lost each year.

These billions lost to corruption exceed WHO's estimations of the amount needed annually to fill the gap in assuring universal health coverage globally by 2030. However, the true cost of corruption for people is impossible to quantify because it can mean the difference between wellness and illness, and life and death," Garcia writes.

"This equation shows that the more concentrated a supply of a good or service is, the higher the discretionary power of those that control the supply is, and the lower their accountability to others is; therefore the amount of corruption will be higher," Garcia writes.

"Unfortunately, these are the characteristics of health systems. The complexity of the system, high public spending, market uncertainty, information asymmetry, and the presence of many actors (i.e., regulators, payers, providers, consumers and suppliers) interact at different levels, increasing susceptibility to corruption." 

Retracted Publications in Drug Literature

I read that Prescription Drugs are the 4th leading cause of death in America. My opinion is that you disbelieve this at your peril. 

Our society is at risk due to health care corruption, prescription drug and processed foods industries.

Drug Induced Nutrient Depletion

Some clinical studies are great, most are not as they too often parrot the influence of Big Pharma, Big Agri, Dairy, Cattle and Pig industries and too often certain bought and sold employees of the FDA who repeatedly give the FDA a bad reputation. Plus rarely if ever clinical studies include optimal breathing factors.

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers."  Thomas Pynchon

“Disease is usually the result of more than one cause with the principle disturbances being in the most prime elements of life. To ignore the fundamentals is to ignore life and the most basic causes of disease. When an element basic to life goes lacking (becomes deficient) only supplement and treatment with that basic element will suffice. Pharmaceuticals usually have the effect of further depressing basic elements making the patient worse instead of better.”  
Dr. Mark Sircus

I highly recommend subscribing to Worst Pills, Best Pills.

 

FDA 

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/breathing.com/fda-watchdogs-to-lap-dogs.pdf

 turns watchdogs into lap dogs
Search "mass murderers and prescription drugs", "psychiatric drugs and mass shootings" and top-five-psychiatric-drugs-linked-to-violence/


Iatrogenic homicide? 
John Parks Trowbridge MD 
"The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000 and accidental deaths caused by physicians per year are 120,000. Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171. (Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services.) 

What about guns: The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000. (Yes, that's 80 million.) And the number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500. The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .0000188 (Statistics courtesy of FBI).

Therefore doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners. Now think about this fact: Not everyone has a gun, but almost everyone has at least one doctor. This means you are over 9,000 times more likely to be killed by a doctor than by a gun owner! So remember, "Guns don't kill people, doctors do.

"Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand! 
Out of concern for the public at large, statistics on lawyers is withheld for fear the shock would cause people to panic and require medical attention. "

I am baffled how gullible the general public is. I found my mom in a rest home in Bradenton Florida in 2000 on 29 medications. She did not recognize me. I moved her to Waynesville NC where they actually care about senior citizens. 

Over the years I have added links to many deeply informative pages about prescription drug dangers and deaths. Some of these pages simply disappear to sites that are still up and running. Things do change but my suspicion is that the drug industry gets on them and makes them take the page down.

My suggestion is when you find a page that has this critical information that you make a PDF of it. If you have a website, publish the PDF instead of the link. Sadly there are some sites these days such as Mercola.com that seem to thwart making PDFs.

"The whole concept of drug induced disease is much better known that it was 10 or 15 years ago?" Paul Seligman, Director of the FDA's Pharmacoepidemiology and Statistical Services as stated in USA Today March 14, 2005 Section B.  Though some drugs save lives, unfortunately, many drugs create unwanted side-effects aka illnesses, toxicity and death."

"Millions of Americans swallow pills that are supposed to make them feel better — physically or mentally — but covertly wreak havoc with their body and brain. Many older folks are dismissed as senile, when in fact their drugs are causing their memory lapses and confusion."  Dr. Julian Whitacker, MD

The number of drug company lobbyists increased from year 2001 to 2002, along with the amount spent on lobbying activities. In all, the drug industry spent close to $100 million--a record amount.

Just this week The Week Nov 20, 2015 p 20 published  "Prescription drug use soars". These days "Almost 60% of American adults take some form of medication".  the number taking 5 pills doubled for 2000. Obesity seems to be the main reason for the rising number of statin drugs. The cholesterol myth is alive and well.

Drug companies are most interested in influencing issues related to prescription-drug benefits for Medicare recipients, generic drugs, and imported prescription drugs from Canada. I hear that prescription Drug coverage is being dropped from many corporate health plans. Partly due to expense and partly due to drug side effects and addictions.

"Virtually all long-term users surveyed said they were introduced to the drugs by a doctor’s prescription, not by friends or through illicit means, a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll found. But more than 6 in 10 said doctors offered no advice on how or when to stop taking the drugs.

And 1 in 5 said doctors provided insufficient information about the risk of side effects, including addiction." Read - “One-third of long-term users say they’re hooked on prescription opioids”


Letters From Generation Rx. Amazon Prime documentary

Most recent   PDFCannabis and the opioid crisis

How Opioid painkillers significantly impact any aspect of life or living today:

  1. It has brought an increasing rate of Americans into fatal overdose as these medications are caused by physicians who recommend highly addictive opioid prescriptions like Vicodin, Percocet and OxyContin to patients with even minor ailments and aches.

  2. Doctors prescribe these opioids due to the claims of Dr. Russell Portenoy and a major pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma that there is said to be less chances of becoming addicted to the drug as referenced to a 1986 study of only 38 patients.

  3. Purdue Pharma's reason for this claim is linked to their marketing of a new, powerful time-release opioid called OxyContin. They marketed it as having no real risks and only benefits in its usage. But in 2007, Purdue pleaded guilty to criminal charges that it misled regulators, doctors, and patients about the addictive qualities of the said drug.

  4. Opioids are dangerous as they produce a powerful sense of euphoria in many users that leaves them feeling numb and carefree. At two weeks of treatment the drug can produce drug tolerance in some patients which means they need larger doses to get the same effect. In larger doses, prescription painkillers can slow down the respiratory system so much that the person stops breathing.

  5. As studies show that family doctors and internists are the vast majority who write opioid prescriptions, most states have now set up databases that keep track of who has received prescriptions for addictive painkillers, so physicians can check if a patient is doctor shopping and getting pills at multiple locations.

  6. It is suggested that to stem the epidemic doctors have to be cautious in writing opioids to people especially the ones who have already overdosed. According to drug addiction expert David Courtright as told in the Pacific Standard, "The problem is that, for some, opioids are just fine, and for others, they will ruin their lives and possibly kill them. Essentially, we are playing Russian roulette with prescriptions."

Marijuana is being appreciated for its ability to reduce pain killers.

Prescription Drug Addictions

Unintentional Poisoning Deaths --- United States, 1999--2004 - more about

A Canadian judge ruled that Prozac was the cause that led a teenage high school student-- with no prior history of violence--to inexplicably murder his friend by stabbing him with a single wound to the chest.  Peter Breggin, MD testified. This will open the gates for more cases like this. This is fantastic!  Read the full article here: 

Women at Greater Risk of Drug Reactions
Taking more than one medication at a time is always a risky business, since it increases the likelihood of an adverse drug reaction (ADR) - a harmful, unintended, or unwanted effect of a medication. In the United States, ADRs are a leading cause of illness and account for as many as 106,000 deaths annually.

Prescription Drugs Anyone?
by
Raymond Francis
Optimal Breathing.com FAQ Medical Advisory Panel Member.
Prescription drugs are one of America’s leading causes of disease and death. The problem with prescription drugs is very simple…they do nothing to cure disease.

All they do is suppress the symptoms of disease by disrupting normal cellular functions. Abnormal cell function is the very definition of disease, and since prescription drugs cause our cells to malfunction, then…

Yes, drugs cause disease, but we obscure this fact by calling these diseases "side effects." Ironically, the "side effects" are often more dangerous than the disease being treated in the first place.

A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that in one year over two million hospitalized patients suffered serious drug reactions, resulting in 106,000 deaths. Some side effects! But this is only the tip of the iceberg. Too many adverse reactions cause public concern and scrutiny, so just imagine a hospital’s incentive to understate them.

Another article in JAMA estimated that only 1 in 20 reactions are reported. In truth, tens of millions are injured and an estimated 400,000 are killed every year by these dangerous poisons.  Anyone taking a prescription drug will be harmed to some degree by these drug-caused diseases.

Consider that disrupting even one cell function will ultimately have a negative effect on the entire body. A single prescription drug can disrupt multiple cell functions causing thousands of biochemical changes.

Introducing a second drug can cause tens of thousands of changes, and a third can produce hundreds of thousands. Since the average patient over 60 is on four drugs, you can begin to comprehend the extent of the biochemical chaos being created. This is not healthy!

Very often a second drug is prescribed to suppress the problems caused by the first, and then a third drug to suppress the symptoms caused by the first two, and so on.

Statistics show that prescriptions for antibiotics are still on the rise, despite medical journals warning doctors to cut down on them. Excessive antibiotic use has bred "superbugs" that the strongest antibiotics cannot kill. Right now, there are people sick with infections that are immune to all known antibiotics.

Another commonly ignored "side effect" of antibiotics is that they also destroy normal gut flora, leading to maldigestion, malnutrition, and cellular toxicity. The damage antibiotics can do is scary, often permanent, and getting worse as doctors continue to over prescribe them.

Nobel Prize winning chemist Linus Pauling predicted that the use of toxic chemicals to suppress disease symptoms, which he called a toximolecular approach, was a blind alley that would lead nowhere.

Where it has led is to a catastrophically expensive and ineffective disease-care system, where people are killed and injured daily, where they remain chronically ill, and where the costs are projected to double in the next ten years.

When someone is sick, they are already in toxic overload. Why compound their problems by giving them more toxins? Pauling proposed an orthomolecular approach where one provides molecules that are natural and helpful in supporting and restoring normal cell functions, allowing the body to heal and restore itself to health.

If you are now on prescription drugs, recognize that you are choosing to take them, and that there are safer, more natural, and more effective alternatives. You may want to find yourself another doctor, one practicing orthomolecular or preventive medicine, who will address the causes of your problem and help you get well, rather than prescribing poison to suppress your symptoms.

To make a sick person well, you have give their cells all the things they need to function normally, and keep them away from the things that disrupt normal function. Prescription drugs disrupt normal cell function. When cell function is normalized, you cannot be sick. This is what the orthomolecular approach is all about.

It's using vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and natural remedies to rebalance the body and make it well again. The obsolete approach of using toxic prescription drugs to suppress symptoms is guaranteed to make and keep people sick—yet pharmaceutical companies grow as sales go up every year. Go figure!

Raymond Francis is an M.I.T.-trained scientist and an internationally recognized leader in the emerging field of optimal health maintenance.

   prescr1

more about

Drugs for anxiety? According to Dr. Patricia Gerbarg they slow down the SNS but do nothing to the PNS which is what is most needed.

Antipsychotic Drug Dangers In Children (2019)

DRUGS, DRUGS, DRUGS

From the Wall Street Journal June 22 2001. in italics

"In 1999,the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported more than 600,000 hospital admissions and 700,000 emergency-room visits resulting from medications that were correctly administered but nonetheless produced side effects - from intestinal bleeding to seizures to even death."  

Adverse reactions? Because the elderly take the most drugs, they are at the greatest risk. On  average, Americans who are 65 or older take six medications, including prescription and over-the-counter drugs, according to a number of studies. For residents of nursing homes and other long term care facilities, that average rises to eight. One man showed up to a Hebrew home who was taking 42.  

From Mike:
"I have worked with several manic depressives, asthmatics, emphysema and COPD victims. They receive reflexive breathing training, breathing coordination, Optimal Breath Releases (OBR’s) and Strapping Techniques and  over weeks and months many have slowly backed off  their medications, felt their feelings, stopped gasping  and became calm, energized  and optimistic.

Too often the psychiatrist or medical doctor has turned a deaf ear to the patients' concerns about drug side effects. "Learn to live with it" is what the patient most often hears.

I’ve heard that the drug industry has a lock on most of psychiatry.

The overzealous usage of emergency pharmaceuticals that help so many in times of severe challenge has eroded the options of  living without them and their negative side effects.

Two recently published "possible" side effects in the Pill Book stemming from anti depression medicine were "labored breathing" and "shortness of   breath". The client had both.   

THIS is REALLY unfair. The person also had no breathing pauses meaning this person’s "motor" never stops its high revolutions. 

Even while appearing to be resting.  The breaths per minute and pause length should be a clue but no one cares to spend a few minutes to observe this natural feedback information source.  Get the Pill Book by Bantam books and see if your breathing issues might be listed in the side effects of your prescription medicine. 

The medical world needs to learn about healthy breathing.  Use the drugs, but learn to breathe better in conjunction with therapy and watch the need for the drugs reduce and often disappear. "

Gary Null on The War on Health

Deaths in England Due to Medical Errors up 500%

By Sarah Lyall

About 1,200 people died in public hospitals in Britain last year because of mistakes in prescribing and administering medicine, according to a report published by a government watchdog group.

Outlined in a report by the Audit Commission, the errors included administering the wrong medicine - in one case, a breast cancer patient was given the sleeping drug Temazepam instead of the cancer drug Tamoxifen - to giving out the wrong dosage of the right drug, to unknowingly prescribing a drug that caused a fatal reaction.

The death toll was five times higher than that in 1990, according to the report.

In addition, the thousands of patients who survive medicine-related mistakes each year invariably become sicker, requiring more treatment that creates an extra expense for the National Health Service, the report said.

"The health service is probably spending $725 million a year making better people who experienced an adverse incident or errors, and that does not include the human cost to patients," said Nick Mapstone, an author of the report.

"The number of drugs is increasing, the effectiveness - and therefore often the toxicity - of drugs is increasing, the number of people on multiple medications is increasing, and that increases the risk of interaction," Dr. Pickersgill told the BBC.

"We must also remember that one in six pharmacy posts in hospitals are unfilled, and new doctors who are doing the work on the wards are overworked as well," he said.

A number of highly publicized cases of drug-related error in recent months has brought home the problem. In one case, a cancer patient was prescribed and administered a drug at 1,000 times the recommended dose, according to the report.

In another case, at Queen's Medical Center in Nottingham, a teenager, who was a cancer patient in remission, fell into a coma and died after an anticancer drug was mistakenly injected into his spine.

"The recent events at Queen's Medical Center illustrate how day-to-day pressures can lead to acknowledged best practice being ignored," the report said.

Jackie Glatter, a spokeswoman for the Consumers' Association, which lobbies for patients' rights, said: "The report shows there is a strong need for detailed and clear patient information about treatments and medicines - not just in hospitals, but also when people are taking medicine at home."

New York Times December 20, 2001 

Dear friend

Long term affects, even short term, of any and all inhalers is terribly destructive to the human body, I know, I have been on them now for several years.  The medical quacks are well aware of this fact and yet, due to the fact that they don't know anything else that is what they prescribe. 

For the most part the entire medical profession in the good ol' U.S. of A. are drug driven, pill pushers and totally controlled by the pharmaceutical companies.  There are alternatives out there and there are people with the answers, it is for us to dig them up, (the answers) through research.

Nancy, my dear little wife, is on several drugs, one of those drugs alone, the main one for treating her multiple sclerosis, Avonex, costs close to $1,300 per month for four I.M. shots!  The drug business is out of control in this country, many, many billions of dollars a year!!!  They fight alternative medicine tooth and claw.  But there is hope and it lies in the realm of alternative medicine and the gracious hand of a loving and merciful God!!!  for better health, Charles Towne

Recommended program

Ten Medications Withdrawn From The Market Since 1997 Because Of Serious, Often Lethal Side Effects

Rezulin: Given fast-track approval by the FDA, Rezulin was linked to sixty-three confirmed deaths and probably hundreds more. "We have real trouble," an FDA physician wrote in 1997, just a few months after Rezulin's approval (103). The drug wasn't withdrawn until 2000.

Lotronex: Against concerns of one of its own officers, the FDA approved Lotronex in February 2000. By the time it was withdrawn nine months later, the FDA had received reports of ninety-three hospitalizations, multiple emergency bowel surgeries, and five deaths (104).

Propulsid: A top-selling drug many years go, the drug was linked to hundreds of cases of heart arrhythmias and one hundred deaths.

Redux: Taken by millions for weight loss after its approval in April 1996, Redux was soon linked to heart valve damage and a disabling, often lethal pulmonary disorder. Withdrawn in September 1997.

Pondimin: A component of Fen-Phen, the diet fad drug. Approved in 1973, Pondimin's link to heart valve damage and a lethal pulmonary disorder wasn't recognized until shortly before its withdrawal in 1997.

Duract: The painkiller was withdrawn when it was linked to severe, sometimes fatal liver failure.

Seldane: America's and the world's top-selling antihistamine for a decade, it took the FDA five years to recognize that Seldane was causing cardiac arrhythmias, blackouts, hospitalizations, and deaths -- and another eight years to withdraw it.

Hismanal: Approved in 1988 and soon known to cause cardiac arrhythmias, the drug was finally withdrawn in 1999.

Posicor: For treating hypertension, the drug was linked to life-threatening drug interactions and more than one hundred deaths. An expert on the advisory committee said, "Posicor should not have been approved (105)."

Raxar: Linked to cardiac toxicities and deaths.

Baycol - Google it

Viox  Google it

Propulsid  Google it

Palladone Google it

References for above ten medications

Popular medications tied to brain damage. TylenolPM, Benadryl, Claritin, Dimetapp, Paxil, ,Xanax, Lasix, Xanan, Zyrtec, Lasix, Coumatin, belong to a class of drugs as anticholinergics. They work by blocking acetylcholine, a chemical that transmits electrical impulses between nerve cells.

Using PET and MRI scans researchers found those taking anticholinergic drugs had smaller brains and lower levels of glucose metabolism, particularly in the hippocampus-a brain region that is involved with memory that is vulnerable to early stage Alzheimer's disease. See your local Naturopath, Osteopath, Clinical Nutritionist, Holistic Chiropractor or Preventive Medicine MD for more about that. See also

Even IF they were good for you which most are not their cost is ridiculous compared to Canada for example.

Prescription Drug

From Hadia Jocelyn Chouinard

Health and Movement Educator of "S.O.S." for the Office

"There is also ample testimony that every young person who shot and murdered their classmates and teachers in the numerous tragic US shooting cases, were all children who had been subscribed Ritalin as a supposed "treatment" for ADD and ADHD.

Even the concept of prescribing a dangerous psychotropic drug to young and innocent children is beyond comprehension and, as such, the physicians and the pharmaceutical companies should be held fully accountable for destroying and ending countless innocent lives.

In fact, the only reason that we all suffer the consequences of physicians' dangerous and irresponsible prescribing of untested and highly dangerous drugs is that the pharmaceutical giants offered massive endowments to the University Medical Faculties - but at the cost of allowing them to dictate the education of the physicians.

The purpose of this blatant 'coup' was to ensure that our MD's primary focus is to ensure a continual flow of massive revenue for the pharmaceutical companies, especially since virtually all prescription drugs are designed to maintain illnesses, not to cure them. 
Our entire "Health" care system, with the exception of critical and emergency care, has become a Sick Care System.

This is especially tragic, especially with the excellent training and powerful, effective treatments offered by countless "Alternative" Health Care Practitioners and MDs, including Osteopathic, Naturopathic and Homeopathic physicians. 
It is past time to wake up and reevaluate!! "

Sydney Morning Herald

August 4, 2003

Women who use Prozac and similar anti-depressants during pregnancy and breastfeeding could expose their babies to withdrawal and toxic effects, a federal government drugs watchdog has warned.

The Adverse Drug Reactions Advisory Committee says it has received 26 reports of infants with withdrawal symptoms. The effects were attributable to mothers taking the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) drugs Aropax, Zoloft, Prozac and citalopram. The babies' symptoms included agitation, poor feeding, stomach upsets, convulsions, tremors, fever and respiratory disorders.

They began within the first four days of birth and lasted two to three days. There were also 13 reports of adverse effects probably resulting from the transfer of SSRIs from breastmilk to the baby. Many of the symptoms of toxicity were similar to those of withdrawal but in two cases involved babies sleeping for prolonged periods.

The watchdog's August bulletin quoted a study published in the Archives of Paediatric Medicine which found that almost one quarter (22 per cent) of newborns who were exposed to paroxetine (marketed in Australia as Aropax) from their mother in the third trimester needed prolonged hospitalisation associated with neonatal complications.

The committee recommends the lowest dosage of the drugs be used during pregnancy and that mothers should consider not breastfeeding. "It is probable that neonatal withdrawal effects would be minimised by using the lowest effective maternal dose," it advises. "Breastmilk transfer can be treated by stopping or reducing the dose of SSRIs or by using formula milk."


Learn more about drug codes and classifications when you study medical billing from home. Another option is to study prescription drug etymology.

Former Shill for Big Pharma Tells the Truth About Drug Testing
Erick Turner, a psychiatry professor at the Oregon State Health and Sciences University, woke up one day and realized that he was acting as a shill for pharmaceutical corporations. Worse, he was promoting drugs that not only provide very... http://www.naturalnews.com/023127.html

 FDA Proposes New User-Friendly Prescription-Drug Labeling

ROCKVILLE, Md.-The FDA says it is taking the confusion out of physician drug-package inserts.

The package inserts will have critical information printed up front with bullet points, in an easy-to-read format. The design is a direct response to the National Academy of Sciences’ assertion that medical errors may be responsible for 100,000 deaths per year and its recommendation that new package standards will “maximize safety.”

The package insert is the critical link in the communication chain between drugmakers and health-care providers. Calling the proposed change “particularly valuable,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Jane E. Henney says it “will make important information available in a clear, consistent, and readable format that is essential to proper prescribing practices.”

The proposed new format should help practitioners quickly find the most important information about a product, thereby decreasing preventable medical errors and improving treatment effectiveness. Nancy Sharp

Every drug is unnatural and toxic to the body. The body has to get rid of them. No drug has any healing or curing power. They can only suppress symptoms and make us weaker. Our bodies do all of the healing despite drugs, and all injured and sick animals and beings have been self-healing throughout history.

See my story at http//www.colitis-crohns.com and see my web site for Living Nutrition Magazine http//www.livingnutrition.com and Healthful Living International http//www.healthfullivingintl.org.

There is a growing legion of people who stopped taking medicines because they knew they were making them sicker, and healed up by changing their diet to fruits and veggies, getting plenty of rest and staying away from medical doctors and medicines.

This route saved my life and many others'. Medicine does not lead to health. My Living Nutrition Magazine has many testimonials about self-healing without drugs. Below is an excerpt for you from my new book, Self Healing Power!. Call me if you'd like to chat.

Sincerely,

Dave Klein

Publisher/Editor Living Nutrition Magazine Healthful Living Consultant Healthful Living International

(707) 829-0462

http://www.naturallifenews.com

https://www.crohnscolitisfoundation.org/ 


Women at Greater Risk of Drug Reactions

Taking more than one medication at a time is always a risky business, since it increases the likelihood of an adverse drug reaction (ADR) - a harmful, unintended, or unwanted effect of a medication. In the United States, ADRs are a leading cause of illness and account for as many as 106,000 deaths annually.

According to the results of a number of recent studies, it's even more of a danger for women, in part because they are more likely to use multiple medications and dietary supplements. Sex -- based differences in metabolism, anatomy, and hormone levels also seem to play a role in why women experience more unwanted effects of drugs.

"Recent findings suggest women are significantly more likely to suffer from adverse drug interactions because of their biology and likelihood of taking more than one medication," said Phyllis Greenberger, president and CEO of the Society for Women's Health Research. "Women should think twice before combining even commonplace products like ibuprofen, St. John's Wort and oral contraceptives with other drugs."

A recent review of 48 studies in the United Kingdom revealed that adverse drug reactions to newly marketed drugs are 60% more common in women than in men. This sex difference was observed across all age groups older than 19 years old. Other studies have found less pronounced, yet significantly higher risks of ADRs among women.

Women need not look further than their own medicine cabinet for potentially problematic combinations, experts warn. For instance, oral contraceptives can fail resulting in pregnancy when taken in combination with the antibiotics rifampin, tetracycline or penicillin.

Some antacids can inactivate fluoroquinolones, drugs often prescribed for urinary tract infections, allowing infections to progress unchecked.

In addition, combining selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) with other types of antidepressants or pain medications can have serious consequences.

Their greater use of multiple drugs is not the only reason women are at an elevated risk of adverse drug reactions. Research points to a number of other possible mechanisms for this sex-based difference.

Variations between men and women in liver and kidney functioning, which affects drug metabolism, as well as anatomy seem to influence the incidence of adverse drug reactions.

On average, women have a lower body weight, smaller organ size, reduced blood flow and a higher proportion of fat compared with men. Overall differences in hormonal activity between the sexes affect the way drugs are processed, absorbed and cleared by the body as well.

Because of these sex-differences, the optimally safe and effective dose of a drug varies between men and women. Research suggests that a significant percentage of adverse drug events among women may be due to unnecessarily high doses of frequently prescribed drugs.

What's more, women should refer to a drug reference book like The Pill Book, if possible, according to Maryann Napoli, associate director of the Center for Medical Consumers in New York City.

Almost all local libraries have a drug reference book in their collection and there are also some reliable sources of drug information on the Internet. Napoli suggests women get in the habit of reading up on every prescription or over-the-counter drug before they start using it.

From Dr. Joe Mercola: "One of the major players at Reuters, the world’s primary source of news information, is also a chairman of drug giant GlaxoSmithKline. It doesn’t take much intelligence to understand that the news service is heavily prejudiced in favor of the drug company. Fortunately, we are leveling the playing field and are getting out the truth about health care and drugs."

Drug-related morbidity and mortality have been estimated to cost more than $136 billion a year in the United States. These estimates are higher than the total cost of cardiovascular care or diabetes care in the United States. A major component of these costs is adverse drug reactions (ADE). Older people use more prescription drugs.

Read Examining Your DoctorA patient's guide in avoiding harmful medical care.  Dr. Timothy McCall

PODCAST

In this fascinating interview, licensed pharmacist Suzy Cohen reveals the dangers of pharmaceuticals and why people should get off prescription drugs whenever possible. (This is from a pharmacist!) Her site is www.DearPharmacist.com Get her book Drug Muggers
The podcast  Wirth Suzy and Mike Adams. VERY long download. Be patient.

MORE

An Unprecedented Demographic Shift The American population is getting older. Each day in this country about 6,000 people turn 65. By 2020, there will be 50 million older Americans and as many as 70 million by 2030. In less than 20 years there will be as many people over 65 as children under 18 in our population.

What are the health care implications of this seismic shift in demographics? To put the aging population in a health care perspective, consider that older Americans currently account for 36% of hospital stays, 49% of all days of hospital care, and 50% of all physician hours. 

The number of physicians with formal training in caring for the elderly are inadequate to care even for today’s older population let alone to care for the coming wave of older Americans.

Today we have only about 9,000 geriatricians (by comparison, there are currently about 34,000 pediatricians!) and that number is expected to drop to 6,000 or so by 2004 as some retire and others leave because of lower Medicare reimbursements. What to do?

A pharmaceutical salesman I spoke with justifies giving drugs to people because they will not take responsibility for taking charge of their own self healing. That patient compliance is hard to come by (which is partly true but that is no reason to poison them with drug side effects).

To me that is a major misunderstanding of the facts. Many would do what was asked of them if there were more examples of successes but the entire issue is cloaked in medical bafflegab and so called "legitimate" clinical studies.

The truth is that most non drug methods are invalidated by physicians as being useless or dangerous with the standard "where is the double blind study?" 

These "harbingers of objectivity" may well know that no natural nutritionals have the money to pay for million dollar studies.  Some physicians know the truth and tell it albeit quietly but at risk for censure within their own medical community. How sad for them.

EXAMPLE OF ELIMINATING PRESCRIPTION DRUGS RELATED TO CROHN'S DISEASE
An increasing number of people are searching for ways to wean themselves off prescribed medications. There is good news for those who have Crohn's disease. A recently released German study successfully used the Chinese herb wormwood (also called Artemisia or "Sweet Annie") to reduce the dose of the steroid prednisone.

There was an almost complete remission in those of the group of Crohn's patients receiving the wormwood compared to none in the placebo group. Review "Ancient Folk Remedy Reduces Steroid Dosageat and determine if this is something you should discuss with your physician.

See also Effects of Prescription Drugs on Nutrition.

10 dangerous prescription drugs This link was later replaced with a benign batch of useless info.

The Town of Allopath 

Tell drug makers that you, your doctor and your family deserve the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about a drug.  Sign our petition to Big Pharma by filling in the form below.

Third leading cause of death in America 

Sources of Medications That May Directly or Indirectly Cause Breathing Difficulties or Hinder Proper Oxygen Utilization 
Naturedoc  Livestrong    Mercola-drugs-breathing  Better Medicine,  Drugs.com - Aspirin

Prescription Drug salesperson's "gifts".

There are increasing numbers of physicians who are daily reducing or eliminating drug usage. This becomes easier when oxygen is added to the equation.  Majid Ali, MD is one of those physicians who integrate oxygen insights into his daily medical practice. 

Eight Drugs your doctor would never take.  This link was later replaced with a benign batch of useless info.

"How “Scientific” is Scientific Medicine?

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or 
authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, 
which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an 
editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” 
—Marcia Angell, New York Review of Books, January 15, 2009

Medical Schools. (a core issue)

Doctor and Patient

Rethinking the Way We Rank Medical Schools

By PAULINE W. CHEN, M.D. Published: June 17, 2010   
During my internship, the first year after graduating from medical school, I took care of a middle-aged woman who began our first conversation with a question that patients still ask me today.

 “So doctor,” she said as I pulled my stethoscope out to listen to her heart, “where did you go to medical school?”

In a social context, I might have considered her question to be polite chatter, a filler during an awkward quiet moment. But on that particular afternoon her words felt more like a dart lobbed at what I had presumed to be a budding and promising patient-doctor relationship.

Trust from this patient, I remember thinking, is not going to depend on my bedside manner or clinical judgment but my medical school.

But even before I had placed my stethoscope bell against my patient’s chest, I realized that I, too, had been culpable of submitting doctors to the same line of questioning.

Although I might have satisfied my curiosity more surreptitiously — searching on the Internet, scanning hospital directories, inconspicuously craning my neck to discern Latinized school names on diplomas — I was just as eager as my patient to learn about the medical schools my doctors had attended.

Once I had the information, I would do what my patient did that afternoon: I would mentally find its place within the medical school hierarchy in my mind.

Like some existential fast forward button, the right answer to this question could raise the trust in any patient-doctor relationship to a whole new level without a second thought, because by virtue of having graduated from a “good” school, that doctor had the ability to address the most pressing needs of all of his or her patients.

The thought process was easy — good school, good doctor; bad school, bad doctor.

Maybe. 
Shaped by magazine lists, friends’ and strangers’ confirmations and professional hearsay, the notion that a medical school’s quality can be ranked and then passed on directly to their graduates has become an integral part of American culture.

But most of these popular rankings reflect a school’s highly specialized research funding and capabilities, not the general quality of its medical school graduates. Criteria like research funding and cutting edge investigations are of course significant, but they more accurately reflect the social needs of the previous century when medicine, backed by scientific investigation, was just starting to make a difference in the health care outcomes of patients.

Thanks to many of those advances, the population as a whole has successfully aged. But the drive to elucidate, for example, the molecular basis of high blood pressure has in turn become less urgent. Instead, other, more social, health care issues have reached critical points: the shortage of primary care physicians; the lack of accessible health care and providers in certain areas of the country; and the yawning disparity between racial and economic backgrounds of those who become doctors and those who are their patients.

Despite the changes in patient needs, many patients, and their doctors, continue to fall back on old rankings, assuming that institutions that succeeded in addressing the needs of the 20th century can still do so in the 21st. But according to a report published this week in The Annals of Internal Medicine, it is time to reexamine that assumption.

Researchers from the George Washington University School of Medicine looked at the more than 60,000 graduates of America’s 141 medical schools — both allopathic and osteopathic — from 1999 to 2001.

Putting the issues of primary care shortage, underserved communities and workforce diversity under the banner of “social mission,” the researchers found that many of the schools that were traditionally ranked highly were also among those least focused and least successful in addressing the most pressing issues facing the country right now.

“The absolute irreducible mission of medical schools is the education and graduation of doctors to care for the country as a whole,” said Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan, lead author of the study and a professor of health policy and pediatrics at the university. “U.S. medical education has drifted over to this highly rarified and specialized focus that has resulted in some major shortfalls.”

The funding system has encouraged this drift toward specialization and hi-tech research. The investigators also found that institutions that received more federally funded grants, in the form of research grants from the National Institutes of Health, also tended to devote fewer efforts to a school’s social mission.

Grant money and the security it affords individuals and institutions drive institutions to emphasize research, sometimes at the expense of other urgent but less lucrative endeavors.

The opportunity to learn from and be mentored by faculty members involved with the latest research can be stimulating for medical students, but the pressure to bring grant money into an institution can draw even the most enthusiastic educator away from students and back to the laboratory bench. “Research is not the same as medical education,” Dr. Mullan observed. “Research is important, but it can overwhelm.”

And when medical schools “are already heavily invested in a mission that is traditional and research oriented,” noted Dr. Mullan, broadening their focus can be slow and difficult, even if they are aware of the growing crises in primary care and the healthcare workforce.

In recent years, some visionary medical educators have left older institutions in an effort to jump-start such changes in new medical schools. Most of these new schools, sometimes referred to as “millennial medical schools,” embrace missions that unabashedly attempt to address some of the ills of the current healthcare system.

The A.T. Still University of Health Sciences School of Osteopathic Medicine in Mesa, Ariz., and the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine at Florida International University in Miami, for example, “embed” students in underserved areas from as early as the first year of medical school.

Other institutions, like the Hofstra-North Shore -LIJ School of Medicine, which is due to begin classes in August 2011, have made it a priority to educate students from diverse, nontraditional backgrounds.

Naysayers warn that this redirection of focus, whether in established medical schools or new ones, will decrease the selectivity of students and produce less competitive and less competent future physicians. But educators like Dr. Mullan counter that traditional selection criteria based on cognitive exams and premedical course grades do not necessarily translate into clinical ability.

“Doctors who have done very well on everything from kindergarten to residency training in terms of getting into prestige places are assumed to have sharp intellects,” Dr. Mullan said. “But none of that correlates in any scientific way with their performance as physicians.

” The more relevant measure of high level competency, Dr. Mullan asserts, is the multiple certification evaluations that take place during medical school, training and licensure. “They have to pass these, otherwise they cannot practice.”

Moreover, Dr. Mullan noted, “If there’s not even a doctor near where you live who can offer services, then the quality a priori is bad.”

“The mission and function of all schools won’t be and shouldn’t be the same,” Dr. Mullan added. “But we all might think about how we could be a little more responsive to the ongoing needs of patients and of our country.

If we continue to produce more doctors in the system we have now, we won’t be able to address the needs, the health outcomes and certainly the populations that are underserved, dying and suffering as a result of it.”

Join the discussion on the Well blog, “Redefining ‘the Best’ Medical Schools.”

In defense of some prescription Drugs.
It is the lack of patient compliance that is the hardest for ANY health professional to overcome.  Drugs can sometimes give you strength and reality and hope so that you can eventually take over. And you do.

The "legal" drug equation is out of balance because either the person is not willing (or sometimes able) to take immediate or eventual charge and the doctor/guide lets them get away with that too long, and/or the overused aspects of drug usage including conflicting, confusing and harmful side effects compromising one's self determinism.

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/breathing.com/federal-health-regulators-bankrupting-america.pdf

 

How Regulation of Medicine is Bankrupting the United States and What Congress Can Do to Stop It
11 page PDF synopsis of his book titled Pharmocracy. His book is also available at amazon.com 
Key premise "Few understand that the underlying purpose of regulations is to provide a government-protected advantage to the group favoring the regulation. It's not about how a regulation will protect the public, but a matter of how it can ~financially benefit a special interest"

Two insightful emails. 

"You have to be very careful talking about how meds don't work with professionals who have seen them work and with patients who insists they are better on the medication. I've come across people who think psych. meds are the devil and others who claim the medication has saved his or her life.

Is it a placebo? Is it due to a chemical change? Well, no one can really know that.  We're probably only scratching at the surface of how powerful the placebo effect is. Still, we can't deny that the medication works for many people, which is why I think the focus should be on their overuse (especially in kids)  the quickness to prescribe them, so little talk therapy and the lack of marketing and education for alternative, safe approaches. 

As much as I'd like to blame doctors and big pharma for the psych. prescription craze, a lot of people come to the doctor's office DEMANDING the drug they saw on a TV commercial. If we could end direct to consumer marketing--that's a start, too... in all areas of medicine. "

"It is an interesting thing how, in different facets of humanity's sufferings, some people just "get it," Rick.  After I founded Safe Harbor in 1998, I was utterly amazed at the array of public and professionals who "get it" about psychiatry and meds. 

I hear from them continuously.  Once you see it, it's like a gong against the side of your head.  There's a whole spectrum, from people who think meds should never be used - which is not practical, in my view - to those who know they are overused but shrug it off.

But when I tell people what I do with Safe Harbor, I have yet to find someone, other than some psychiatrists and NAMI officials, who thinks current practice is a good idea and an ideal situation. 

Types of drug-related deaths

The straight answer is that we do not know exactly how many drug-related deaths there are. This is because it depends on what definition of drug-related deaths is used, which is not a simple question. For example, these could include

  • people who are dependent on drugs and overdose

  • suicides by overdose, of people who have no previous history of using drugs

  • accidental poisoning or overdose

  • ecstasy-related deaths where people have died from overheating through dancing non-stop in hot clubs, rather than from the direct effect of the drugs

  • deaths associated with cigarette smoking

  • deaths from accidents where people are drunk or under the influence of drugs

  • murders and manslaughters where people are drunk or under the influence of drugs

  • deaths from driving while drunk or intoxicated

  • deaths from AIDS among injecting drug users

  • deaths which had nothing to do with the presence of a drug in the body, but were a result of ill-health caused in part by drug use.

  • Cause of death is recorded on death certificates but doctors may not mention drugs, even where drugs might be involved.

  • Deaths from polypharmacy ie: multiple drug interactions.   

Medical Truth? 
Dr. Robert Young

 "How many more medical lies have to be perpetuated before we stand up for the truth? How many more people need to be poisoned with antibiotics, vaccinations and other cancer causing pharmaceuticals until we stand up and say "Enough!"?

  • How many more children's lives need to be destroyed before we take a stand? Please help save a life by passing this information on?

  • Harvard University and National Cancer Research Journals now confirm that ONE Aspirin or Tylenol each day will cause up to an 80% increased risk of Cancer and Heart Disease.

  • Take ONE 50 mg. pill of Vioxx for 5 days? A study undertaken two years ago showed that this increases the chances of getting coronary artery disease by 70%. Lancet Oct 5, 2002

  • A University of Washington study found that if you filled 25 or more prescriptions for antibiotics over 17 years, you double your risk of cancer (TIME, Dec. 6, 2004) This equates into taking less than ONE antibiotic each year, an activity in which almost every American participates.

  • Infants exposed to ONE single round of antibiotics during their first years of life are twice as likely to develop asthma as those who don’t. The more courses of antibiotics, the worse the immunity and the greater the risk of asthma. (Newsday, March 6, 2006)

  • Take ONE Benadryl for your allergies, and here are your possible side-effects: Difficulty breathing, closing of your throat, swelling of your lips, tongue, or face, hives, sleepiness, fatigue, dizziness, headache, dry mouth, difficulty urinating, enlarged prostate and a dramatic reduction in energy.

  • Take ONE aspirin per day? Daily aspirin intake shows a significantly increased risk of pancreatic cancer among women. This cancer is fatal 90% of the time. Source: American Association for Cancer Research, October 27, 2003

  • Take just ONE Crestor pill/day to lower your cholesterol? This drug has been shown to cause 75 times the level of kidney damage than other statin drugs. Public Citizen Oct 29, 2004

  • ONE vaccination can leave your child with brain damage or worse a form of Autism: Children are 27 times more likely to develop autism when exposed to vaccines containing mercury: Lori McIlwain, National Autism Association, (919) 272-8192/ Studies suggest that there is a link between neuro-developmental disorders, such as autism, and mercury exposure from thimerosal-containing childhood vaccines. Centers for Disease Control, Jan. 16, 2004.

  • Taking just ONE pain killer can cause death. There are over 16,500 deaths from NSAIDs (Pain Killers) each year in the hospitals alone. JAMA July 26, 2000 Vol. 284. Just as many die from AIDS each year!

  • Thinking of taking a cough suppressant or giving to your child just ONE time: cough suppressant is linked to Birth Defects: Dextromethorphan, the major ingredient in most OTC cough medicines, has been shown to cause birth defects. Source: Pediatric Research January 1998:43:1-7

  • Taking cold medications like Robitussin, Triaminic, PediaCare, Comtrex, etc. just ONE time can cause stroke, brain bleeding, and seizures. This year the F.D.A. completely banned these cold medications for adults and children, especially under the age of 6.

  • Times states: Antibiotics aren't the answer to treating sinus infections: ?The widespread use of standard antibiotics to treat sinus infections does not help cure patients and taking just ONE round may harm them by increasing their resistance to the drugs.

Below is more truth is it applies to some of the most commonly ingested pharmaceuticals in the world

1. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) use is the number-one reason for acute liver failure in the United States. It is also responsible for 8 percent to 10 percent of the end-stage renal disease in the U.S. The New England Journal of Medicine December 20, 2001; 345:1801-1808. Hepatology Volume 40, Issue 1, Pages 6 ? 9. Published Online: 30 Jun 2004, American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.

2. In 2004, the American Academy of Pediatricians reversed its guidelines, pointing out that in more than 80 percent of the children with ear infections, symptoms would subside on their own, without the need for antibiotics.

3. DO NOT take antibiotics or any of the above drugs without the facts!

4. The flu shot and childhood vaccines can be deadly. We have been told to get flu shots that contain mercury, formaldehyde, aluminum and many other dangerous chemicals! Now according to the Vaccine Journal, they said, flu vaccines offer no protection and have never saved any lives.? *Mercury!!! 2nd most dangerous substance on earth. Destroys the nervous system and immune system.

Associated with Multiple Sclerosis, Central Nervous System Disorders, Autism and Alzheimer's Disease!*Ethylene glycol (antifreeze) Exposure to ethylene glycol can damage the kidneys, heart, and nervous system.

*Phenol (disinfectant) Exposure to phenol can produce skin burns, liver damage, dark urine, irregular heartbeat, and even death.*Formaldehyde (known cancer causing agent) *Neomycin and Streptomycin (antibiotics) *Aluminum is associated with Alzheimer's disease and seizures and also cancer producing in laboratory mice. Is this something you want to inject directly into your blood or your children’s?

5. The flu vaccine is manufactured to fight the flu from 2 years previous, so it is IMPOSSIBLE for this year’s flu vaccine to protect you against this year’s exact strain of circulating flu virus!

6. According to Hugh Fudenburg, MD, one of the world’s premier immunogeneticists, the chance of getting Alzheimer’s is ten times higher if an individual has had 5 consecutive flu shots(this is due to the Mercury). Dr. Fudenburg is the 13th most quoted biologist in the world today.

7. A British Medical Journal shows the medical profession to only be about 4% scientific. http://www.vet-task-force.com/CtiM.htm.

Our drugs don't work.? Dr. Allen Roses, worldwide vice-president of Genetics at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Britain's giant pharmaceutical company, acknowledged at a scientific meeting in London that fewer than half of the patients prescribed some of the most expensive drugs actually derived any benefit from them.

Drug Induced Nutrient Depletion

"BOTTOM LINE

The only rational answer is to take personal responsibility for your health. Reduce or eliminate need for medical care by avoiding processed, most fast non salad foods  sugarmost grains, pasteurized dairy, non organic red meat, and caffeine. Exercise moderately, and eat plenty of organic raw living foods. AND Develop Your Breathing PLUS use TURBOOXYGEN  ENHANCED EXERCISE.

SUBSCRIBE TO WORST PILLS, BEST PILLS

From Mike Adams.

"Here are the seven facts you need to remember about everything you're seeing today in modern medicine:

Fact #1: 90 percent of all diseases (cancer, diabetes, depression, heart disease, etc.) are easily preventable through diet, nutrition, sunlight and exercise. None of these solutions are ever promoted because they make no money.

Fact #2: Nearly all the consumption of pharmaceuticals today is a direct result of marketing to the public and covertly bribing physicians to write more prescriptions. There is very little drug consumption based on scientific merit.

Fact #3: No pharmaceuticals actually cure or resolve the underlying causes of disease. Even "successful" drugs only manage symptoms, usually at the cost of interfering with other physiological functions that will cause side effects down the road. There is no such thing as a drug without a side effect.

Fact #4: There is no financial incentive for anyone in today's system of medicine (drug companies, hospitals, doctors, etc.) to actually make patients well. Profits are found in continued sickness, not wellness or prevention.

Fact #5: Virtually all the "prevention" programs you see today (such as free mammograms or other screening programs) are little more than cleverly disguised patient recruitment schemes. They use free screenings to scare people into agreeing to expensive and often unnecessary treatments that enrich drug companies. Breast cancer mammography is a complete scam: The machines actually cause cancer!

Fact #6: Doctors know virtually nothing about nutrition and are still not taught nutrition in medical schools. Expecting a doctor to teach you about how to prevent disease is sort of like expecting a car mechanic to show you how to perform brain surgery. Although there are some exceptions (doctors who have taught themselves nutrition), most doctors remain so nutritionally illiterate that they have no familiarity with the natural plant-based medicines found in everyday fruits and vegetables.

Fact #7: Nobody has any interest in your health except you. No corporation, no doctor, and no government has any desire to actually make you well. Keeping you sick makes it easier for them to control and financially exploit you. Healthy, aware individuals are perceived as a threat to the tyrannical institutions now running this country, and they've figured out that the best way to keep a nation controlled and subdued is to drug 'em all and keep the people in a constant state of brain fog from medications and fluoride. The only healthy, aware, critically thinking individuals I know are all 100% free of pharmaceuticals and processed foods (and watch no television, either)."

Scientific literature recognizes that prescription medication can alter the way our bodies use nutrients, therefore, we must find a way to reduce the side effects and counter the negative long-term effects of medications through natural means.

For instance, birth control pills reduce the uptake of folic acid and we know that a folic acid depletion in women of child bearing age can lead to disastrous effects for an unborn child (spina bifida being the most known). To counter this, every woman taking birth control pills should also take a supplement of folic acid. This is now widely accepted.

Another good example is cholesterol lowering drugs. The statins (a class of heart drugs), apart from lowering cholesterol levels, reduce coenzyme Q10 synthesis and coQ10 deficiency is associated with a higher incidence of heart failure. (How strange, to reduce one heart disease risk factor to increase another!) But a supplement of coQ10 could correct this threat.

A last example to prove the point is estrogens, prescribed to relieve menopause symptoms and prevent osteoporosis. But estrogens also affect the uptake of magnesium from the diet! To build strong bones (not to mention relieving nocturnal leg cramps) we need magnesium. How many women on hormones do you know that complain of leg cramps? Those cramps could be prevented by a simple addition of magnesium.

There are many other examples of drug-induced nutritional deficiency being connected with dietary supplements.

If you’re taking drugs be aware of the side effects and counteract them with essential nutrients in supplement form that will help the body heal!

The scientific data concerning drug-induced nutrient depletion has been collected into a book written by two American pharmacists: Ross Pelton and James B. Lavalle. The Nutritional Cost of Prescription Drugs is published by Morton Publishing Co. It’s easy to read and answers all drug and nutrient related questions.

Drug Depletion Chart

 

Drug CategoryNutrients DepletedHealth Risks
Blood PressureCoenzyme Q10,
Magnesium, Vitamin B6
Vitamin C, Zinc

 

Vitamin B1
Potassium*
Calcium*
Folic acid*
Increased risk of heart disease, lower energy
Lowered immunity, slow healing

Depression, memory loss
Heartbeat irregularity, fatigue
Osteoporosis, tooth decay
Birth defects, anemia

Antacids, Upset Stomach, Ulcer and Intestinal Cramps

Vitamin D, Calcium

Vitamin B12

Iron

Folic acid

Zinc

Increased risk of osteoporosis

Increased risk of heart disease

Fatigue, anemia

Birth defects, anemia, heart disease

Lowered immunity, slow wound healing

CholesterolCoenzyme Q10Increased risk of heart disease, low energy, suppressed immune system
Antidepressants

Coenzyme Q10

Vitamin B2

Increased risk of heart disease, fatigue, suppressed immune system
Disorders of the skin, eye and nerves
Antibiotics

Vitamin B1, B2, Niacinamide, B6, B12,
and Biotin

Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium longum, Bifidobacterium bifidum

Vulnerability to physical and emotional stress causing sleep disturbances and skin disorders

Poor digestion and nutrient absorption, diarrhea, suppressed immune system

Arthritis or Pain Relief
(including aspirin and ibuprofen)

Vitamin C, Zinc,
Selenium
Vitamin D, Calcium
Magnesium

Potassium
Folic acid
Iron

Depressed immune system, slow wound healing
Increased risk of osteoporosis
Increased risk of heart disorders, osteoporosis
Irregular heartbeat, fatigue
Birth defects, anemia
Anemia, fatigue

Birth Control

Magnesium

Vitamin B2
Vitamin B6, B12

Vitamin C, Zinc

Folic acid

Increased risk of osteoporosis
and heart disease
Skin, eye and nerve disorders Increased risk of heart disease, fatigue
Lower immunity, slow wound healing
Birth defects, anemia
Estrogen

Vitamin B6

Magnesium

Zinc

Increased risk of cardiovascular disease, depression, sleep disturbances
Cardiovascular problems, increased risk of osteoporosis
Lower immunity, slow wound healing

 

*While some blood pressure prescriptions deplete folic acid, potassium and calcium, it is not advisable to take these nutrients with certain types of blood pressure prescriptions. Therefore, they are not recommended.


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