All You Need Is Drugs
If it were only that simple.
I heard a crazy commercial on the radio. It started with a disclaimer that the product was not designed to diagnose or treat a disease. It was a product for improving liver function.
What I thought made the commercial crazy was that it is for people who want to live an unhealthy lifestyle. Basically, order our pills to help your liver and you do not have to worry about what you eat. The person in the commercial basically said, thanks to the pills, give me another beer and pass the chips.
Americans have been taking that approach for decades. The food industry makes delicious food that makes us sick. The drug industry convinces us that our problem is not our food. Our problem is our genetics. Our problem is a lack of drugs. Just buy our drugs and you will be fine.
We all want the easiest way out. Why not just take a pill and do whatever we want? That is a great idea.
Every year we spend more on both food and drugs and we are getting sicker and sicker. In fact, the treasury department reported that as of August 2024, Medicare had spent $850 billion so far this year. In addition, another $824 billion was spent on a category called “Health.” Compare that to our “National Defense” expenditure of $798 billion.
We need to change the way we think. We need to move away from the idea that we are victims of our genetics. We need to move away from treating diseases to living a healthy lifestyle.
Many believe we would be healthier if we went back to the way we lived decades ago. They point to processed foods as a major culprit. Pictures of people on the beaches in the 1970s -1980s show many more people who look fit and athletic than pictures of those same beaches today. What has changed?
A lot of things have changed. Certainly, the average American’s diet has changed. It is easy to put the entire blame on that. However, our society has changed. We watch more television. We play more video games. Fewer people earn their living by using their muscles. We have fewer meals as a family. Stressors have changed.
As a chiropractor, I like to point out the importance of the nervous system. I look at friends and relatives who are my age and compare their posture to their health. Those who are sick usually have forward head posture and neck muscles that are visibly tight. Can their drugs improve their spines and the detrimental effect the spine has on their nervous systems? If corrected, would their conditions improve with less need for medication? I thought that was happening with some of my patients. We need research to answer those questions.