Why You Need To Manage Your Health

I recently read a book by Ray D. Strand, M.D. titled Death By Prescription: The Shocking Truth Behind An Overmedicated Nation. This book talks about people dying from drug interactions, and makes the claim that (legal) drugs are the third leading cause of death in the U.S.A.

He discusses medications sensibly and intelligently, making the point of explaining the difference between a therapeutic dose and a toxic dose. He also explains (and this was something that I did not understand prior to reading this book) how our bodies metabolize drugs, and how that can be impacted by taking multiple drugs.

Some of the basic points are that:
1) Nobody has much financial interest in getting you to live a healthy life.
2) Pharmaceutical companies make a lot of money selling medications that could be better managed through lifestyle modification.
3) Testing of new drugs is often performed in healthy, unmedicated people; but problems usually won't show up until they are given to unhealthy people, especially those on other medications.

If you were to look at me before I chose to live a healthier life, you'd have seen an overweight guy on the verge of hypertension, with regular heartburn, and probably on the road to a heart attack (or at least atherosclerosis). So, I could have found myself taking daily doses of blood pressure medicine, anti-heartburn medicine, and anti-cholesterol medicine.

In the interest of getting to bed, I'll truncate this entry and add to it soon.