Natural News | September 15 2012
Know anyone taking prescription drugs? The odds are enormous you do. And it’s likely they are taking drugs they don’t need because their doctors are too quick to fall under the influence of Big Pharma’s aggressive drug sales reps.
Consider these statistics: almost half of all Americans are currently diagnosed with a chronic condition and 40 percent of those older than 60 taking five or more medications. Is it really possible that many people in the U.S. have illnesses that need to be treated with multiple drugs?
This question obviously raises issues about the nature of the relationship between the expanding definition of chronic illness and the explosion of prescription drug use in the U.S. — issues Michigan State University anthropologist Linda M. Hunt, PhD., decided to research.
Dr. Hunt looked into dramatic increases in the diagnosis of common, chronic conditions and the use of prescription drugs to treat these health woes . She specifically looked at two conditions which can often be relieved with lifestyle changes — type 2 diabetes and hypertension — that were treated in 44 primary care clinics.
Her research team interviewed 58 clinicians and 70 of their patients, and observed 107 clinical consultations in order to assess the doctors’ treatment strategies and the factors influencing their treatment decisions. They found that doctors usually prescribed at least two or more drugs per condition.
More than half of the patients studied were taking five or more drugs. Interviews with these people showed the cost of the drugs was often a hardship and the patients were often made sicker because of adverse side-effects.