No one likes it when someone takes advantage of them. We spend countless hours researching buying decisions to make sure that we not only get the best deal, but we get what we want. Unfortunately, this is usually not true when it comes to our health care. Yes, some are doing their own research, but most rely on their doctors to help guide them in their health care decision making. We rightfully believe that our doctors have more education in this area, and so are in a better position to make judgements on what we should and should not be doing. But what happens when our doctors are not keeping up on the current research? Or when the research is just being blatantly ignored? In today's world of exploding information, we need to be willing to seek out the truth to protect our health.
I am not one to cry sexist or racist at the drop of a hat. I usually give the benefit of the doubt, but when it comes to organized medicine, we treat women differently; it's blatant sexism, and it's not only ignored, but fostered at the highest levels. Take the case of women's use of cholesterol lowering (specifically statin) drugs. In 2010, both the number one class of prescription medications as well as the number one prescription drug overall were statin drugs. In total, Americans spent $18.7 billion on statin drugs last year, with over 35% of women over 65 and 16% of women between the ages of 45 and 65 taking these medications. This represents about 45-50 million American women. The use in men is even higher, but we'll look at men in a future blog. Medicine has been pounding it into our heads for decades now that we must ALL keep our cholesterol lower, or we'll end up with coronary artery disease, and a heart attack. But, is this really true? Must we all strive to lower our cholesterol to stave off heart disease? Based on the POSCH study published back in 1996, we are told a resounding NO!
The research looked at the overall mortality (death) rates of women in a variety of cholesterol lowering medication trials. In total, they looked at over 7000 women, both on and off medications. In medical research, where we often see a few hundred studied before a medication is released to the public, that's a pretty good number of subjects. After following these women, they found that not only did lowering women's cholesterol not reduce overall mortality rate, in some studies, there were more women on medication who died than those who weren't. The authors' conclusions were fairly vanilla when faced with the astounding data, but they stated "the available clinical trial data fail to demonstrate any overall mortality or other convincing clinical benefits from effective lipid intervention in women." In other words, statin drugs do women absolutely no good. Women waste a tremendous amount of money each and every year following doctor's orders, thinking they are reducing their risk of heart disease, only to be plagued by unwanted side effects like muscle tissue breakdown and liver destruction. In addition, we're increasing the cost of every one's health insurance, because we all know that the majority of the medication cost is picked up by our insurances, and not by those who are actually taking the medication.
We live in a world today that touts to practice "evidence based medicine", where we are supposed to look at all the research and decide what is best for the patient. For thousands of doctors nationwide to ignore the decades old research, continue to subject women to unnecessary medication, and raise the cost of health insurance is unconscionable. If the statistics for statins were the same for men as they were for women, they would be pulled from the market. Instead, they continue to be prescribed for both sexes, even though they are absolutely worthless for women. I further find it interesting that this study has never been cited by another peer reviewed article listed in pubmed (the government's database on health care research), and has not been looked at again since. Perhaps someone is hoping that if it is ignored long enough, it will be forgotten. I surely hope not.
Maybe someday organized medicine will treat women patients as well as men, but it isn't here yet. In the mean time, women have to be even more educated on their health care, because unfortunately, they often can't rely on the doctor's advice. Men and women are different, and in health care, they need to be treated differently. But differently doesn't mean women should be treated worse.
Look for future blogs that will give more information and insights into improving your health with natural health care. You can also visit my website, like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter.
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