If it wasn't so sad I would almost be laughing.
The concept of a "polypill", effectively a magic bullet to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke, is not new. In fact the idea of a miracle pill was first bandied around in the news as early as 2003. Now fresh talk has been triggered by the results of a major trial in India which reveals that for a mere 50p a day, hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved.
What had me shaking my head this morning was the lead-in by one news caster talking of "a new pill (which) could cut heart attacks and strokes in half in healthy people". Sorry ... in healthy people! If people are healthy, why on earth would they need to take a pill with aspirin, a statin (to reduce high cholesterol), three different blood pressure drugs and folic acid thrown in for good measure. It must be cheaper to treat people for diseases they don't even have because they're bound to get them anyway!
Sounds like an excellent way to change a healthy person into a patient!
In fact, this report pretty much exemplifies just how broken the health (and minds) of "developed" nations has become. In my humble opinion, "good health" should not mean an "absence of disease". It should mean "brimming with vitality, mental clarity and positive energy".
Health and Wellness Centres should be places where people can go to exercise and consume organic, whole natural foods ... instead of doctor's offices where tired people go to top-up medical prescriptions and find remedies for their constipation.
The idea of this miracle pill "for everyone over 55" was mooted 5 years ago. Does nobody see the correlation between this paradym for "health" and an increasing burden on the NHS?
Perhaps the most ironic twist to this whole story is that the magic pill will only cost 50p per head to manufacture ... and that's precisely why drug companies aren't tripping over themselves to get on the bandwagon. It's cheap and effective! Or so we're told. Not even any notable side effects. How about that?
A band aid that will delay the inevitable. If people don't stop living the way they do, the next step will be to make it mandatory for all adults to pop stroke prophylactics!
We are losing the plot!
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4 comments:
after reading, then why have eating habits changed so much over the last 50 years, & obesity rates?
what was the average male doing differently in his daily life bewteen 25-50yrs old, with regards to eating, exercise in say the 1960's& 1970,s
once we understand these questions and changes to lifestyle & (wealth of avearge person) can we then propose some common sense solutions to the current weight issues in society??
Hi anonymous
Good question.
What's different is quite simple. We have been eating more artificial foods, hydrogenated fats, refined sugars, processed white flour, sodium chloride (salt)and pasteurized milk ... and more fake beverages laced with sugar or artificial sweeteners.
So ... we bombard our bodies with chemicals it perceives as toxins. These get stored in fat. We consume giant amounts of "empty" calories, so we become even fatter, more mal-nourished and desperate. And we eat meat (and fat) from unhealthy animals pumped full of growth hormones, antibiotics and stress from confinement.
Combine this with lifestyles that are increasingly sedentary ... because we're busier and more exhausted from hormonal imbalance and lack of sleep... and then think where we'll be just 10 years from now.
Food for thought. Type 2 diabetes used to be called "adult onset". That was before kids started becoming type 2 diabetics.
Solution? The short answer. Learn how to treat your body like a temple. And get informed properly so you can protect and educate your kids.
Good luck my friend.
I'm just sitting here shaking my head. Of course, if we are healthy, we should be taking pills. Hello? And the side effects? Studies have shown some nasty side-effects from statins. And even aspirin can lead to perforated ulcers. We all know why we as a society are obese; inactivity, fast foods, food additives, lack of chemical-free cultivation, artificial sweeteners, etc, etc. And a pill is not going to change that.
Hi Jan
Thanks for your comment.
For people out there who want to learn some real interesting stuff, I'd recommend you check out Jan's site at http://betterspines.com.
This is one of the most interesting sites I've come across on the net.
I think it was Joseph Pilates who first got the credit for saying that "you are only as young as your spine" ... but Jan is someone who can take your appreciation of this to a whole new level.
At a time when "health" has come to mean "medical", Jan's message is always refreshing.
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