For years, doctors treated arthritis patients this way…
First, they would recommend aspirin, ibuprofen or another NSAID medication to ease the pain.
If that didn’t work, they would prescribe something stronger. If the patient had knee or hip arthritis, the choice was often an opioid drug.
Addiction? That wasn’t seen as a problem because doctors believed patients truly in pain did not become addicted. … Read More
Taking prescription drugs has become a roll of the dice…
Some 128,000 Americans a year now die from the effects of medications prescribed to them. This number doesn’t include overdose deaths—only people who took their drugs as prescribed.[1]
Prescription drugs have become the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. They kill more Americans than breast cancer, prostate cancer, homicide, and suicide combined.… Read More
In 1995, OxyContin was approved by the FDA. It was marketed as a safer pain pill by its manufacturer, Purdue Pharma.[1]
No one knew it at the time, but it was the start of perhaps the biggest public health disaster in American history.
Between 1999 and 2017, more than 400,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses. That’s almost two and a half times more than the U.S.… Read More
Antibiotics are a double-edged sword.
They not only kill germs that make you sick, they destroy the good bacteria in your intestines that contribute to your health in a myriad of ways.
Your body is home to about 100 million beneficial bacteria. Together, they are called your microbiome.
And when your microbiome is damaged, you lose the protection it provides against a wide range of serious health problems.… Read More
If you walk into a doctor’s office with high blood pressure, the chances are good that you’ll walk out with a prescription for a hypertension drug.
They are among the most-prescribed medications in the U.S. About one out of every four American adults takes a high blood pressure drug.[1]
There are many different types of hypertension medications, but an alarming new study shows that one of the most common is linked to suicide. … Read More
Doctors have always been mystified about the cause of rheumatoid arthritis.
About 1.3 million Americans suffer with the joint condition. It’s an autoimmune disease in which your body’s own immune system attacks your joints.
Doctors have always suspected that genetics were the main cause. But new research points to a different culprit: antibiotics.
The study was published in the journal BMC Medicine.… Read More