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
If you walk into your doctor’s office complaining of depression, the chances are you’ll walk out with a prescription for an antidepressant drug.
Nearly 25 million Americans are on antidepressants such as Prozac, Zoloft, and Effexor. That’s a 60% increase since 2010.[1]
The problem is that antidepressants can have major side effects. They include weight gain, erectile dysfunction, and fatigue.… Read More
For months, Jeopardy host Alex Trebek was plagued by stomach pain. He had no idea what was causing it.
Eventually, he went to the doctor and got a terrible diagnosis: pancreatic cancer. And it had advanced to stage 4, which is considered incurable. Median survival is only three to six months.[1]
The good news is that Trebek has already beat those odds.… Read More
Doctors didn’t know what to make of it. They had never seen it before…
The patient was peeing purple.
A 70-year-old woman had been hospitalized with a stroke. Her doctors reported that the woman’s urine “appeared purple.”
At first, the medical staff was at a loss to explain it.
Urine color is, in fact, a common diagnostic indicator. But none of the doctors had ever heard of purple urine.… Read More
Until recently, mainstream doctors often advised patients against drinking coffee.
They believed the caffeine could cause the heart to speed up and beat irregularly. That myth was finally debunked in a 2016 study in the Journal of the American Heart Association.[1]
Other recent studies have found that coffee actually improves heart health. And it also:
When it comes to prescription drugs, newer is not better.
An international panel of researchers conducted a study in which they looked at 946 new drugs approved after 2002. They concluded that 92% were less effective or worked about the same as older drugs.
Only 8% were an improvement on older drugs. Just two medications out of 946 were true breakthroughs.… Read More