Assuming you’re eating well, sleeping well,
exercising and tending to your relationships, the next
best optimal health step you can take after the age
of fifty is to avoid prescription drugs. All prescription
drugs - without exception - have side effects. The
most common cause of side effects is the simple fact
that prescription drugs are highly concentrated and
usually not found in nature, so they’re hard
on the liver. Once your liver is chronically stressed
by taking a drug every day, any other stress you put
on it, such as exposure to toxins (think car exhaust,
paint fumes, pesticides, excess alcohol etc) can compromise
your health. As we age, the liver loses some of its
efficiency, so prescription drugs add insult to aging.
A new study published in the August 13, 2007 issue
of the Archives of Internal Medicine found that vitamins
E and C, when taken together, result in a significant
reduction in the risk of strokes (31 percent) and heart
attacks (22 percent). The study followed 8,171 women
who were instructed to take relatively small amounts
of these vitamins for more than nine years (600 IU
of vitamin E, 500mg of vitamin C and 50mg of beta carotene
were taken every other day -- a very small dose according
to most modern nutritionists).
On May 3rd, 2007, U.S. Senators voted on an amendment
to the 2007 Prescription Drug User Fee bill that aims
to reform the FDA and enhance drug safety. This amendment,
known as the "Dorgan Amendment No. 990," threatened
to break Big Pharma's monopoly over pharmaceutical
sales and allow U.S. consumers, cities, states and
businesses to purchase their pharmaceuticals from safety-certified
pharmacies located in Canada, Japan, the U.K. and other
nations.
More than four out of five Americans think drug companies
have too much influence over the Food and Drug Administration,
and 84 percent believe that advertisements for prescription
drugs with safety concerns should be outlawed, reveals
a striking new survey from Consumer Reports.
The latest round in conventional medicine's ongoing
attempts to discredit (and ultimately outlaw) nutritional
supplements is found in a highly questionable study
published this week in the Journal of the American
Medical Association, which claims that vitamins actually
increase the risk of death.
Poisoning from prescription drugs has risen to become
the second-largest cause of unintentional deaths in
the United States, according to the federal Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention.
U.S. teens are abusing illegal drugs such as marijuana
less, but abuse of legal prescription drugs is rising,
according to a new study by the National Institute
on Drug Abuse.
Denmark-based company Novo Nordisk's Recombinant Activated
Factor VII was originally designed to coagulate blood
and treat rare forms of hemophilia, but reports say
that it is being used on critically wounded U.S. troops
deployed to Iraq, despite being linked to clots resulting
in strokes, heart attacks and death in other patients.
The prices of brand-name prescription drugs used by
older Americans continue to increase, while generic
drugs used by the same age group remain relatively
unchanged in price, according to the AARP's quarterly
Rx Watchdog Report.
Today, Commercial Alert launched the website StopDrugAds.org
(http://www.stopdrugads.org), devoted to ending direct-to-consumer
prescription drug advertising in the United States.
The purpose of the website is to educate the public
about the dangers of prescription drug advertising,
and to mobilize thousands of Americans to voice their
opposition to the ads. |
