Is everyone on prescription drugs yet?

The amount of pills people take a day is astounding! It seems everyone over the age of 35 has high blood pressure, or high cholesterol, or some disorder that makes is neccesary to take drugs! Or is it that the Doctors and pharmacy companies want us to believe this? Is it true that 1 in 3 children have ADT or are the makers of Prozac pushing the drug like any common street thug? It would stand to reason with all the drugs abounding there would be less sick people, but the opposite seems to be. Everytime you go to the Doctor it seems something is prescribed. I would love to know the amount of money Doctors, Hospital and Health care workers receive from kick backs! Below is a list of the "200 Top Drugs"and amount in sales from 2003. It seems like a list of best movies or something, but I bet if you look you know people who take at least some of them. Does the pharmacy industry want to turn all of us into addicts?

www.rxlist.com...

The only drug I take is the occassional aspirin for a headache (the fancy stuff just doesn't work for me...)

If I get sick, it's chicken soup and rest for me.... (unless feverish, then I eat almost nothing but lots and lots of meat).

You are so right they prescribe me high blood pressure pill at 35 and even when it was a lowest dosis I started to have dizziness all the time. The doctor wanted me on paxil, and some other pills for life, I took the prescriptions and never used them.

I stooped taking them and the dizziness is gone.

My mother was hook on 9 pills a day, when my sister a radiologist, took her to another doctor and he told my mother that she really did not need but 3 of them to take care of her problem.

There are laws against kickbacks, but the practice continues, at least to some extent.

From a recent edition of Technology Review: "Doctors say they know the score...But knowing that you're the target of a sales job doesn't immunize you from its effect. Consumers know the purpose of TV commercials, too, and yet still go right out and buy the advertised products. Even such innocuous tactics as the ubiquitous pens and pads emblazoned with drug logos can have an impact. Studies have shown that a wide variety of interactions between pharmaceutical companies and doctors--from consulting fees to free pens--do in fact influence physicians' prescribing patterns." [By Erika Jonietz November 16, 2004]

Link: Article

I personally believe much of it is down to the basic approach of conventional medicine: "treat the symptoms". It's easier to prescribe pills than to treat each person individually, holistically. That's not to say that all medicines are bad, far from it, but a far better system would involve a balance of conventional and alternative approaches.

I say treat the cause and not the symptom. Diabetics going on Atkins have been able to get off the insulin, or at the very least reduce the dosage. Obviously this should be done under a doctor's supervision.

Why use cholesterol pills when you can just change your diet and lower it naturally?

I've been on Atkins. It works. It's also thanks to the Atkins diet that I was able to take myself off antidepressants. I'm med-free. And I'm almost 32.

The fun is that there are people who just LOVE to take pills
and are afraid to look at the cause. They'd better swollow a pound of pill a day, supress the symptoms and think they're ok.