How many different kinds of drugs do you take?

My husband takes Acyclovir, L-Lysine and Serc and has the symptoms of Meniere's under control. When he is ready, he plans on just taking the minimum amount of L-Lysine needed for maintenance.

I am happy you are well, John, but this post makes me think of my mother, who is 65 and in excellent health and does not suffer from any of the ailments listed above. As far as I know, she does not take anything more than a multi-vitamin and I am not even sure if she still takes that. Her approach is to eat healthy, drink adequate water and stay active, mentally and physically. She walks each and every day and is always busy. She also sleeps early and wakes up early. She has always taken care of herself and is now reaping the rewards. My point here is that it is possible to maintain health without taking supplements. I actually know a lot of people like my mother but I see a lot of unhealthy people, too. In my observation, this mainly goes back to diet and lifestyle choices. You can't abuse your body in your youth and then expect to fix the damage with a handful of pills later on. If you take care of yourself properly (which I assume you do), do you think you would be any less healthy without all the supplements?

 

I understand that. I think the same applies to herbs etc. Many herbs in their natural form have both effects and side effects. Think digitalis (foxglove to the gardeners). Think any herb because a substance cannot have only 'good' or desired effects. Nothing in nature is moral or immoral, it just is. Most people know next to nothing about nature and have a childlike view that all in nature is benign. Nature is the most powerful force there is. And everything in nature did not evolve to make people healthy. Some things evolved to kill animals like us. There are some amazing chemicals in those plants in your woods. I revere nature and do not treat it like Disneyland. I was chastised for using the hemlock example before but it is but one of many things that grow in my neighborhood that have both pharmaceutical properties and poisonous ones. In fact pharmaceutical can also be poisonous. That is why we only take drugs when we need them. I believe the safest route is to do the same with any substance.

I also have found in my own life, that proper diet and exercise have cured a multitude of problems that dr's would be happy to prescribe drugs for and the GNC (name any purveyor of natural supplements) store would be happy to sell me supplements for. We've become a drug seeking society and when we can't find what we want - or scare ourselves - with pharmaceuticals, we often turn to non prescription drugs soothing ourselves by saying it's 'natural' so it's not drugs. If it can make a change in the body chemistry it is a drug.

I am not opposed to vitamins, minerals, non rx substances, I am just saying ... it's no different from the pharmaceuticals in terms of risk. Buyer beware, it's our body.

I'm no spring chicken either.

 

Jordan, your post made me think about my own parents. My mother turns 75 next week. She plays tennis every Saturday and Sunday morning - three hours straight. She dances (Argentine tango, tap) several times a week also. She is 5"2 and weighs less than 50kg and eats like a bird, except for chocolate and mango sorbet which she inhales. She drinks almost no alcohol (champagne at Christmas) and up until 20 years ago she smoked like a chimney. She takes no supplements and no meds of any kind. She took calcium for a few weeks (on the advice of friends) but then got her bone density checked and she was literally off the chart so gave it up. She's had, and survived, bowel cancer. Her older brother who was a surgeon and mountain climber who had never smoked in his life died from bowel cancer around the time she got it (so he was about 60). She says she is just recently getting some arthritic pain. I expect her to live well into her 90s - her mother died at 96.

My father just turned 69. He shuffles along like an old man with crippling osteoarthritis - it's everywhere. Yet he's managed to avoid knee replacement because of his astounding musculature. He was a fitness instructor and marathon runner up to the age of about 60 when it all started to go south. He used to encourage me to jog now he counsels against it. His diet has been sporadic - vegan one minute, Atkins the next. At his birthday party last week he told me he was surprised to have lived this long given all the alcohol and (recreational) drugs he has taken over the years as well as dangerous activity (adrenalin junkie). He also comes from a pretty shabby gene pool. He takes handfuls of meds each day. He tried supplements and said they did sweet FA for him, but now he says he's getting good results with TCM.

So what do I learn from all this? Genetics probably has a huge amount to do with it. So try and have healthy parents. Other than that eat right, don't smoke and do moderate but low impact exercise. It's not rocket science is it?

 

Genetics for sure. Living in a small town is like living in a lab. Just watching the people around me age, having watched their parents age, you see the same people being born and dying again. And the same people graying at 50 and dying at 70 while others whose lifestyles may not have been as 'healthy' (as we see it today) live to 90 with a full head of dark hair well into old age. (I don't equate dark hair with health, just another genetic expression).

 

But what we attribute directly to genetics may be much more complicated than that.

Untreated celiac disease, for example, can lead to an increased risk of bowel cancer. But someone with that genetic risk who eats the typical American diet of bread or pasta at every single meal plus is likely going to have a very different risk than someone with the same genetic risk who eats a typical Asian diet.

Factor in an undiagnosed candida infection from a high-sugar, high-carb diet and you'll see similar symptoms in everyone in the family.

We tend to say, oh, that's genetic--but if you totally change the diet and lifestyle, the outcome is very different.

 

Hard to believe but sometimes it's not candida nor celiac - it's just genetic.

 

I'm gonna have to start taking hand notes here! The information is astounding to say the least.

John, I laud your intense study of the supplements you take. I could care less if you took a hundred pills if you know it's the right thing to do for you. It doesn't sound like you have side effects from your medication or supplements (I don't know what to call them). I'm in no place to argue or take exception to how you treat yourself. Everybody's different.

I also believe to a certain extent what June and (read very big extent) INS said. So much of it seems to be related to genetics. For instance on the oppisite side of the coin, my grandfather on my mothers side lived life as a vegatarian, exercised daily, did not smoke or drink and did not take pills. He died of bone cancer. Now the doctors did say they were surprised he lived as long as he did given the advanced nature of his illness but, nontheless, he died from cancer and guess what (?), cancer runs in my family. My mother died of pancreatic cancer in her seventies - healthy, didn't smoke or drink took natural supplements to enhance her health.

Both my Grandfather on my father's side and my father died of dementia (you know what I mean, failure of some part of their bodies given that they had dementia). I say all that to show how much I believe health and long life to be a very big genetic factor.

Wow, from this topic alone it's such a wide an arena between how much and if people take drugs for their illness(es). My big thing is knowing which is causing what 'bad' effect on my (or others) health. I know that a lot of drugs have the same side effects. I know that taking the same drugs can worsen or perhaps counteract the effects as well as side effects of any drug we put into our bodies. But how do I figure out what to get rid of and what to keep?

I know this is a long entry and apologize to those who don't like them. Like, for instance, I'll take an easy one - do I take B12 without changing my current meds to see if it affects me in any manner? Do I go to my doctor and ask him to do a complete work up of all the vitimans and minerals in my body to see where I'm deficient so I can dertermine what, if any drugs/supplements I need to take to balance my system? How does the syndrome verses specific test for - factor into into it?

earshurt (you may be getting double entries because you have two names ). You kinda scare me a little bit. You are very anti toxic in so many of your posts. You seem to have very good knowledge of toxins and really are trying to help people understand. What scares me is that I almost feel like I need to spend all my time figuring out what not to put into my body and what's ok and you're waaay ahead of me on this one (so I'm lazy at heart). It may sound that way because you are so passionate about your beliefs and truly want to make amends.

How would one find a way to stop taking their prescribed drugs and move to a more holistic or alternative way of life without knowing which drug helps and which drug hurts? Also this has to be done in a 'team' effort with your doctor so he can do what's necessary to ensure you are properly 'weened' from your current drugs and the appropriate natural supplement takes its place without the side effects being a factor.


note to Hank: It was gapapentin.

 

Doubtless, eating properly (which I do), getting exercise, and sleeping enough are very, very important and contribute significantly to good health, both in the present and in the last decades of one’s life.

But as a biologist, know that I need to intelligently play the odds. The evidence for the probability of the onset the Modern Big Five, cancers, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and neurodegnerative diseases (Alzheimer’s, et al.), is just plainly overwhelming, especially when learning of the abilities of various VMSs in markedly reducing these probabilities.

Yes, when I’m 75, I might have narrowed, stiff arteries. My mind might be gone, wondering why I walked in this room. I might be way overweight, wondering when I’ve got to inject some insulin (although I forgot to check my blood last hour), only to have all of this terminated by a diagnosis of extensive colon cancer. Any and all of that is possible, as it is for most moderns.

But because of my taking all those VMSs, the chances for any of this for me is a small fraction of the vulnerabilities for those who take no VMSs.

Here’s how I got onto all of this. In 1997 I saw in the science literature a report that 1300 geezers at an Arizona retirement community had been given a either a supplement, selenomethionine, 200 mcg each day, for a number of years, or a placebo, to see if this would reduce their skin cancer rates. This formal double-blind clinical study, in the prevention of skin cancer, was an abject failure. The selenomethionine had no effect on skin cancers induced by the desert sun in Arizona.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/276/24/1957.abstract

But there was a big BUT. In just four years of the study, the rates of lung, colorectal, and prostate cancers were drastically reduced, especially prostate cancer, by a rate of over 60%. Prostate cancer is not one any man wants to get.

And I know that most cancers take many years, often decades to develop. But in this study, prostate cancers were stopped in just four years of selenomethionine supplementation. It was clear to me that this supplement really does intervene in the initiation and progression of sub-clinical cancers, stopping them before they became lethal. Those old fellows in the study had been harboring low-grade, undetectable prostate cancer for years (as with the majority of men past the age of 50), but in just 4 years, the prostate cancers were terminated.

That was enough for me. I did an extensive examination of selenium toxicity, and found that there are areas in China where the soils and food had no selenium whatsoever, areas where for centuries various cancers are very common. Today, selenium is given to everyone in those areas, and now, the Chinese there have the same cancer rates as people getting normal, sufficient amounts of selenium, which in fact is an essential human micronutrient. The Chinese medical people really parsed out the toxicity of selenium, and it really is a very bad poison—if it’s taken in the pure, elemental form. But when taken in appropriate amounts in the organic, chelated form, as selenomethionine (which is one selenium ion attached to the amino acid methionine), there is no toxicity at any consumable amount.

So, for a few pennies a day, I started popping a daily 200 mcg selenomethionine tablet with breakfast, getting a smirky smile on my face, realizing that the chances of my prostate growing cancerously in the coming, last decades of my life were now greatly reduced, along with reduced chances of getting stomach, colorectal, or lung cancer. For 6-cents a day, it was a gamble I wanted to take.

I have equivalent evidential and efficacy stories for each and every VMS in my big list. I’m playing the biological odds, shifting them strongly in my favor. And my doctor wonders what I’m doing. Every one of my blood tests and physical exams—except for my hypothyroid condition, which began long before my VMS adventure began—are at the rates of a 30-yr old.

Why would anyone buy health insurance? For exactly the same reasons I buy dozens of VMSs, to reduce the odds and be prepared for whatever health problems might happen. I have two health insurance policies, the normal one, and then my self-devised program of VMSs. My odds are far better than those relying only on conventional health insurance, or the mere hopeful thoughts that all the bad health stuff that gets everyone else won’t, just by chance, nail them. For me, hope and bad odds aren’t enough.

–John of Ohio

 

Is that including ..... Contraband

 

Great post Holly.

Personally, I'm not interested in living my life in fear of every allegedlly "toxic" thing which may kill me, nor do I want to spend my time obsessing over the latest health or supplement craze. Life is too short. For example, the message has only just gotten through that too much time in the sun causes skin cancer and now we hear we have to mega dose on Vitamin D. Who can keep up?

On the other hand it would be foolish to 'pooh pooh' all the scary messages - the science is pretty clear for example that smoking causes cancer - it has no good effects (other than mild stimulation from nicotene) and thousands of deadly side effects.

Personally (again I stress this is just me) it doesn't seem right to me that I should be loading up on dozens of pills every day, be they supplements or meds. I'm a basically healthy person. My doctor confirms that. I find it odd that in the quest for a balanced and 'natural' life I would take mega doses of anything - that is, in quantities way above what I would get from a balanced diet of fresh, unprocessed food. I am likely to live a longer, healthier life than generations before me, even as recently as my own parents (they have bad teeth, my teeth are great despite/because of fluoride in the water). I have access to clean water and fresh nutritious food, excellent medical and health care. There are plenty of things I could spend my time worrying about but I'd rather go outside and enjoy the sunshine. With a broad brimmed hat on

 

I'm with you Imno.

I would like to take nothing, but for now, I take:
Prozac - 20 mg
Prilosec - 20 mg
Lipoflavanoids

 

Dyazide, valium, a little meclizine. Would like to take nothing.

 

I don't live in fear of everything allegedly toxic. Far from it. For me personally, if I know something is toxic, I just don't put it into my mouth. Simple equation. I know that the things that go into my body are not nearly as full of poison as the average person.This gives me a great sense of freedom and comfort. It liberates my mind and now I never worry for even a second about the fact that I may be slowly dooming my body so that it turns into a pile of festering misery in my old age. Like John said, I may croak from cancer before the rest of you do, but I am greatly enhancing the odds that my golden years will not be one terribly miserable day after another. Now when I eat I enjoy it thoroughly instead of having a twinge of discomfort knowing that what I am eating is poison. It liberates me mentally, and physically in the long run.

 

?? is there some other kind??

 

Correlation does not equal causation.

 

Valium..as needed
Topamax
ester-c...immunity booster

 

On genetic predisposition:

I believe...


That there is such a thing as genetic predisposition. I also believe that the number of people who are truly genetically predisposed to serious illness in the "pure form", on a percentage/per capita basis, is so low that it is impossible for it to account for the sky rocketing percentage of illness we see in what John referred to as "moderns", which is people who live the lifestyle most of us live today.

Is genetic predisposition 1 per 100, 000? I per 50,000? Who knows for sure. Its low though. Very low.

In my opinion most of what passes for genetic predisposition for disease is actually a lifestyle issue. Yes in families we sometimes see trends in heart attack or other problems. But, people in families tend to have the same habits. They tend to eat similar diets or practically the same diet. And why would they not? They all sat around the same dinner table and learned to do the same things growing up. One family filters their water and so their kids may do the same. Another family does not filter their water so their kids tend to do the same, etc...

Many of us have this notion that genetics is this hard coded unchangeable entity that cannot be affected and that life is a roll of the dice and you simply get what you get. That is not true by a long shot. Genetics are affected greatly by what we "do" to those genetics. Genetic code can become temporarily and permanently damaged easier than is realized. The things we do to ourselves greatly affect this seemingly unchangeable iron coded system.

For instance take bisphenol. It is a toxic substance used in the lining of cans. "My mother only eats good healthy fruits and vegetables in her diet but she got cancer, my sister too, so that proves genetics is probably the cause." Nothing could be further from the truth. If they both do the same things.

Families have traditions, and a lot of people are following tradition to the grave. It has become a tradition in this country to put bad things in the body, and a tradition not to seek out the few good things left to put into the body. This is simple. The body is a machine. It runs on a very distinct set of parameters. It runs on a paradigm. When this paradigm is radically altered the machine functions out of its normal range of operation and things break just like a car breaks when you run it low on oil. Symptoms of illness are the warning light on the dash telling us that the body is in duress. Instead of changing the oil (what we put in or don't put in) we just take the bulb out of the dash with a drug and keep running the car until it breaks.

"Our baby is sick, we give him the best infant formula, at his age we know it can't be diet related toxicity because he hasn't been alive long enough to accrue lots of toxins in his diet so its a genetic thing". Really?

The number of people who will get sick, without something bad getting into the body by ingestion, inhalation, through the skin, etc...is incredibly low. Same goes for good things not getting in. Baby formulas are notorious for harboring bad bad bad substances. Most plastic baby bottles endocrine disruptors into the formula also, that is a double whammy for baby.

So we should not fear things "allegedly toxic" to our babies? Nay say I. Nobody said live in "fear". I am saying this is a brutally simple equation. >>> Junk in, problems out." and "not enough good things in, problems out". These are "common sense" rules. Blindly and happily ingesting toxins because you "fear not to ingest them" does not appear as common sense rules to me. But to each his own.

"earshurt is a toxic freak, he needs to broaden his horizons". Maybe. But I don't think so. At the same time though lack of good things going in causes basically the same sorts of problems.

Independent laboratory tests found a toxic food-can lining ingredient associated with birth defects of the male and female reproductive systems in over half of 97 cans of name-brand fruit, vegetables, soda, and other commonly eaten canned goods. The study was spearheaded by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and targeted the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), a plastic and resin ingredient used to line metal food and drink cans. There are no government safety standards limiting the amount of BPA in canned food.
EWG's tests found:
Of all foods tested, chicken soup, infant formula, and ravioli had BPA levels of highest concern. Just one to three servings of foods with these concentrations could expose a woman or child to BPA at levels that caused serious adverse effects in animal tests.
For 1 in 10 cans of all food tested, and 1 in 3 cans of infant formula, a single serving contained enough BPA to expose a woman or infant to BPA levels more than 200 times the government's traditional safe level of exposure for industrial chemicals. The government typically mandates a 1,000- to 3,000-fold margin of safety between human exposures and levels found to harm lab animals, but these servings contained levels of BPA less than 5 times lower than doses that harmed lab animals.

http://www.ewg.org/reports/bisphenola

"yes but those are animal studies and don't apply to us". Wrong. What are we? We are members of the anamalia family of critters ourselves.

Cans are only one of thousands of other problems in the food/drug system. After all, even the Senior Safety Researcher at the FDA stated bluntly that "safety is only 5% of the criteria used to judge food and drugs."

Not difficult to grasp.

 

I think there is a disposition to die after so many years. Since we have to die of something, it seems reasonable that our genes have a good bit to do with which bit of equipment is going to wear out first. That's what genetic disposition means to me.

 

I think maybe we, me included, are making 'opposite end' judgements on some of the things people believe.

earshurt, I won't let myself believe that everything is toxins, toxins, toxins with you because I don't really think you believe it. I mean you're sincere in what you write but my thought is not going to be that you're that guy who's hung up on toxins and how bad they are for you as I won't read the important information you put out.

I also am not going to believe that it doesn't matter what you do, genetics is the only thing that matters though I do believe it plays a strong part. The important thing to believe, for me is that we should weigh the outcome of how we treat our bodies while we do live that life which predisposes the inevitable.

The important thing I want to get to is the medication we accept from our Doctors for what ails us. As well as the self medication we take. Just how much do we trust that the side effects have been looked at with each med and that we are not be heaped with sideshows that encourage our bodies to break down more, breeding more medications.

Oh, and for digesting 'toxins' of which I admittedly know nothing about, some come naturally to me. Things, espically vegetables, taste bad to me when they come from a can; some people love the taste. I will buy some frozen vegetables in a heartbeat though. So, if it tastes bad, I'm probably not going to eat it. ;D