Health by Pills in a Bottle

Turn on the television for a few minutes, and you will notice something remarkable. Nearly every commercial break now contains an advertisement promising better health through a pill, injection, or supplement.

Lose weight. Lower blood sugar. Improve sleep. Reduce anxiety. Boost energy.

Modern medicine has produced extraordinary treatments, and many drugs genuinely save lives. But something unusual has happened in the past couple of decades. Instead of focusing primarily on removing the causes of illness, we increasingly treat the symptoms with pharmaceuticals. The advertising is always upbeat. You see smiling people hiking through forests, laughing with friends, and enjoying life again. Yet the fine print always tells a different story: nausea, fatigue, digestive problems, dizziness, suicidal thoughts, and more. Now there is a drug to control the random and sometimes uncontrollable movements caused by the drug you take to control your mental state.

Let's look at one example of a very popular medication. GLP-1 drugs were initially produced to help people with type two diabetes. In an almost hysterical side note, the drug's inspiration was a hormone found in the saliva of the Gila monster, a desert lizard native to the American Southwest. So when you are taking Ozempic or Wegovy, you are taking a drug developed from a lizard. Kind of funny, but also strange to think that Gila monsters most likely do not have diabetes.

Once it was discovered that GLP-1 caused people to lose weight, the advertising switched, and it became a great weight loss drug without changing your lifestyle. Unfortunately, there are some long-term problems with using GLP-1 drugs.

First, once you stop using the drug, most people gain most of the weight back. Second, 25 to 40% of the weight loss is lean mass (muscle) unless the person is involved in some strength training and eating enough protein. Losing muscle mass slows metabolism, weakens physical function, and may increase frailty later in life. And of course, it slows the rate at which the stomach empties, which can lead to nausea, vomiting, constipation, and abdominal pain.

Some other medications show their long-term effects on organs, which include liver and kidney damage, heart rhythm problems, and neurological effects. Look at Avandia, which was found to cause heart risk, and Fen-Phen, which caused heart valve damage. Both had been on the market for around ten years before the problems were found.

None of this means medications are bad. Many are lifesaving when truly needed. But the constant message reaching the public is that health is something you obtain from the pharmacy rather than something you build in daily life. While a pill can sometimes help manage a problem, it rarely addresses the underlying reason for the problem.

My next column will look at the other side of the same phenomenon: the booming market for herbal supplements and "natural cures," which promise many of the same results from a different bottle.

The modern sick care industry (it is not healthcare) now has two storefronts. Both deserve a closer look.

Glen Riensche, CLU, RHU, REBC, LUTCF 402-202-2550 [email protected]