MarkMincolla.com

Are your med's driving your weight up and your health down?

Are your med's driving your weight up and your health down?

Obesity has become the single highest causal factor for preventable untimely death in America, accounting for 300,000 deaths per year. Currently, 63% of Americans are classified as obese and overweight., and there is no end to this problem in sight  Among our child population ages 6-11, obesity has more than doubled over the last 20 years. For those Americans ages 11-19 obesity rates have more than tripled. The prognosis is not good either. It is estimated that by the year 2030, as much as 86% of America will be overweight, or obese, accounting for $956 billion, or 1 in every 6 health care dollars spent.

It is widely accepted that the two main reasons for our growing obesity problem are: 1. our over consumption of food in general, and fast food in particular, and 2. our sedentary lifestyle (to much time in front of the computer and television and not enough time exercising). In June of 2006, researchers at the University of Alabama Birmingham published what they called: The 10 Additional Reasons for Obesity in America. The sixth causal reason the researchers gave for obesity in America was medicine, specifically: steroid hormones, diabetes drugs, blood pressure medicines and some anti-depressants. I find it an irony that so many of our most serious health care problems are actually caused by our medicines, but suppose I really shouldn't be so surprised.

According to a John Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health study published in the Journal of American Medicine in July of 2000, 106,000 Americans die from non-error negative effects from drugs every year. The study’s lead author Barbara Starfield reported that overall, prescriptive drug related deaths are the 8th leading cause of death in America. Our ‘pill mentality’ might just require a second look.

The ‘sure fire’ solution to the problem is greater ‘self responsibility.’ If more Americans ate healthier, exercised and focused on disease prevention, all the negative numbers would surely go down. I submit that there are only two forms of medicine: intervention and prevention based. At present we have no nationalized system of disease prevention. Only 1% of our nation’s entire health care budget is slotted for prevention. This puts the onus squarely on our shoulders. If we ever hope to truly succeed in the wars against obesity, preventable death and poor health we will surely have to invoke our own personal, disease prevention powers. Regardless of whether we’re talking about the problem of obesity or the medicines that may be contributing to it, the solution is simple ‘addition by subtraction.’