To take or not to take, that is the question. Pharmacology professors emphasize to medical students that all pharmaceuticals are toxic. Before joining club medication, please consider the conclusions of Robert S. Mendelsohn, M.D., author of Confessions of a Medical Heretic (ISBN 0-8092-4131-5), after many years of practice, research and teaching medicine. He maintains that modern medicine is more religion than art or science, and that doctors study disease, not health.
The medical motto “First do no harm” applies to restraint in prescribing, since all medications have potentially harmful side effects. Pharmacies have reference books on hand that anyone can look at to check side effects. One way to think of the small risks given in the reference books is that one will experience all the side effects a “little bit”, even if not to an overwhelming extent.
If one does suffer from a side effect, further medications may get prescribed to “treat” the side effect. However the risk of very severe side effects may skyrocket when medications are taken in combination, due to synergistic effects amplifying risk and intensity of side effects. Such amplification of risk implies that when taking several medications one is almost certain to experience possibly severe side effects. The irony is that further medications may get prescribed to treat the side effects. Does one really want to be “in the loop”, the feedback loop of medications?
The side effects of many medications are similar to the symptoms or indications that the medication is supposed to eradicate. These medications may partially cause the same symptoms they’re intended to resolve. Dosage may get increased in response to the increased problems, creating a feedback loop that locks one into ever-increasing addictive usage unless one is willing to go through a period of withdrawal symptoms from dropping the medication. An example is Valium, with side effects that include anxiety, fatigue, depression, tremors, and hallucinations, all also symptoms that the medication is supposed to eradicate. Valium is the largest selling drug in history, at 60 million prescriptions per year.
Mendelsohn holds that no one pregnant or nursing should be taking medication, even aspirin, since the side effects could prove much worse in the fetus or infant.
“When you hear hoof beats, think horses before zebras” implies considering diet and lifestyle as causes of disorders before considering genes for example. The efficacy of changing to an optimal diet for reversing the course of disorders has not been proven in controlled studies. Such studies haven’t been conducted due to the experimental difficulties mentioned at the beginning of “Reversing advanced clinical disorders”. However, individual anecdotal experiences have been accumulating (www.DrFuhrman.com). Sufficient success has been experienced by changing to an optimal diet so that I for one would greatly prefer to choose emphasizing such changes were I to be challenged with any clinical or developing disorder. I would forego toxic medications. If family and friends were concerned about my foregoing medications, I’d refer them to Confessions of a Medical Heretic (by Robert S. Mendelsohn, M.D. ISBN 0-8092-4131-5).
A SAD diet may worsen side effects of medications. For example, when taking anti-depressive medications (containing monoamine oxidase inhibitors), one may develop severe high blood pressure (hypertension) eating dairy cheese (containing histamine).
Aspirin is a medication with detrimental side effects. While it can help reduce inflammation, pain, and fever, the improvements in diet recommended in this book might help accomplish much more, yet yield none of the detrimental side effects of aspirin. Aspirin (salicylic acid) inhibits COX-1 (cyclooxygenase-1) which protects stomach lining, as well as COX-2. Users of aspirin are more prone to experience ulcers. Inhibiting either COX regulates pain. Inhibitors that focus on COX-2 alone increase probability of clotting, cannot be used to help prevent strokes. Aspirin consumption can worsen or cause hypoglycemia, speed cartilage destruction, block cartilage repair, and make the blood slightly acidotic. “Afanin” is a natural anti-inflammatory extracted from nutritional algae (www.hippocratesinst.com 800-842-2125).
Aspirin decreases blood stickiness. Due to a tendency to thin blood and reduce clotting, neither aspirin, vitamin E, nor possibly enzymes should be taken less than 24 hours before an operation, nor until 2 days afterwards.
Sucrose (table sugar) found in many breakfast cereals and snack foods causes a sharp adrenaline surge that makes people, especially children, start bouncing off the walls. Many children who receive medications such as Ritalin to stabilize them in school might well be better off eliminating sucrose and eating fruit, also taking low-dosage vitamin B complex, instead of taking medications. The glucose and fructose, and even the sucrose in whole fruits do not cause nearly the adrenaline surge of refined sucrose. Omega-3s and especially DHA could also benefit children receiving medication, and all children. (Please see “Attention needed syndrome: ADD/ADHD” and “Outstanding Omegas”.)
Speculatively, it may be that HIV viral reproduction can be slowed by dietary improvements. If so, one could liberate oneself from some of the anti-HIV medications with their debilitating and dangerous side-effects. (Please see “Acid-alkali balance” and “Chronic fatigue syndrome, HIV/AIDS, and fibromyalgia”.)
Medications can cause B12 deficiency, regardless of diet (pg.337, Conscious Eating by Gabriel Cousens ISBN 1-55643-285-2). (Please see “Vegan B12 bliss? Not.”)
Medications can trigger heartbeat arrhythmias. (Please see “Cardiovascular disorders, enlarged heart, arrhythmia”.)
The studies that condemn older people to osteoporosis unless they take medications are based on people consuming the SAD diet. Instead of taking medications, one could try to ameliorate or reverse the worsening of osteoporosis by minimizing further loss of density, by adopting the changes in “Reversing advanced clinical disorders”. Those changes could allow natural repair and remodeling to continue unimpeded by medications, for increased bone strength. For a further brief discussion of drugs and alternatives for osteoporosis, please see “Outing ouch! Osteoporosis”.
Regarding hepatitis, many possible herbal treatments complementary to the medications being prescribed by one’s doctor are described in “Healing Hepatitis Naturally” from the Doctors’ Prescription for Healthy Living (ISBN: 1-893910-15-6 Pocket paperback 1-800-959-9797).
Placebos are often used in drug testing. The placebo effect is so strong that it may prove more beneficial than the drug being tested.
Of course the mainstream medical system is run by many caring people who want very much to heal. I do visit the emergency room as needed to treat the infrequent injury. In the hospital environment, I remind myself that “Everyone wants to help me”.
However, those who are pregnant whose doctor favors episiotomy or those considering common operations such as tonsillectomy, hysterectomy, umbilical hernia repair, may wish to consider Mendelsohn’s chapter “Ritual Mutilations”, as well as Surgery Electives: What to Know before the Doctor Operates (by John McCabe ISBN 1-884702-22-8). One of the better-written books weighing the pros and cons of surgery is by the surgeon Atul Gawande (Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science ISBN 0-312-42170-2). The chapter “When Good doctors Go Bad” is especially thought-provoking.
Immune cells convert oxygen into an antibacterial weapon. In the case of a badly infected wound, hyperbaric increase of oxygen concentration in tissues may help the immune response turn the tide for healing. Hyperbaric treatment may improve the immune response to many disorders (ibid, pg. 245).
Surgical removal of a tumor or even a preliminary biopsy can mechanically spread cancer cells.
Those who undergo a coronary bypass operation may suffer foggy thinking (cognitive decline), due to inflammation, insufficient oxygen delivery to tissues (hypoxia), lowered blood pressure, irregular heart rhythms, or body temperature that is too cold. If a heart-lung machine is used, the clamping of blood vessels may create tiny particles or bubbles that clog blood vessels including capillaries, starving nearby tissue of oxygen, causing mini strokes (Scientific American July 2003).
Over 2,000,000 infections each year are initiated during medical procedures and hospital visits. More people die from such infections than from auto accidents and homicides combined. Hospital-acquired infections affect about 1 in 20 hospital patients. According to the AMA, doctors’ mistakes cause about 160,000 deaths annually and 1,300,000 injuries.
To avoid surgery on bunions and bone spurs, an adjustable shoe last can be used to make footwear fit comfortably. The shoe last needs to be the largest that will fit into the shoe to get expanded. The lug that comes with the shoe last can be placed exactly where it will expand the shoe as desired, creating a “bubble” in the shoe around the bump on the foot. Longer straps and fasteners can be fitted for greater width.
Antibiotics can inhibit immune function, ironically undercutting the body’s efforts to thwart pathogenic bacteria.
Naturopathic physicians have training in complementary and alternative therapies and nutrition as well as medical training. The American Association of Naturopathic Physicians offers help in locating Naturopaths who attended a naturopathic medical school rather than school by correspondence (www.naturopathic.org 866-538-2267).
A note regarding the MD Mendelsohn’s Confessions of a Medical Heretic: Although it makes for a rabid read against the medical establishment in some passages, otherwise much of the book may ring true to readers of the book, such as the passages cited here.
Less than a quarter of US medical schools require nutrition as a separate course. More than half of patients have tested higher in nutritional knowledge than their physicians (Am.J.Clinical Nutrition 58(1997):319).
MDs in general know a great deal about disorders, but less about promoting health.
“The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.”-Voltaire
