Takes Work & Cash. No sweat.... just Pop a Polypill!
Optimum health is not a dream, it is a goal open to almost everyone, except those of us with a serious degenerative disease or those born with an inherited condition. Given the way medical costs and medical insurance premiums are headed, it’s something any responsible person over 30 needs to start considering, and come age fifty-take a serious no-kidology view.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that it takes commitment to achieve optimum health and doesn’t come cheap. First, you have to actually want to be that healthy and be prepared to work at what ‘s involved. Easier said than done. We’re all different and there are thousands of conflicting medical views as to what defines optimum health, quite apart from the legions of semi and unqualified opinion on the subject, not to mention the millions more who don’t give a stuff what’s involved but just want to sell you something. Then, having found out what you need to know, you have to find someone competent to consult and knows how to get you to the desired state. Preferably someone who doesn’t live on another continent. Finally having got there, you have to maintain yourself in said state of grace and pay for it.
The older you get the harder you have to be on yourself, as a lifetime’s wear and tear comes home to roost. Many of us really don’t want to find out or, if we do, prefer to kid ourselves that a ‘little bit of what you fancy never did anyone any harm’ and there are many vested interests and people in the same boat as you to co-confirm you in that view. It’s all very relative, that “little bit” especially. A lot of us take the view that we’d rather enjoy life than sacrifice whatever pleasure in life we have just to gain a few more years. That’s fine, so far as it goes, but do we really mean it? It’s easy to say now, but less so if we don’t snuff it like a light, avoiding the decade or so of pain, decrepitude, diminishing faculties and institutionalisation that’s in store for most of us, as the healthcare juggernaut strips us of any wealth we may have accrued over a lifetime. These are not things on which we like to dwell.
Maybe we should. For starters, most of us haven’t a clue what it feels like to be in optimal health. So you probably don’t actually know how you’d feel after giving up that “little bit of what you fancy”. Besides, if you ever were that healthy, why - you might actually be able to indulge yourself that “little bit” without shortening your life or hastening chronic disease.
That said, if you’re smart or lucky, wit no existing chronic illness, find the right physician to consult and can afford the ante, then I reckon anyone can achieve optimum health in 3 to 6 months. But that’s a lot of ifs. It takes initial weekly consultations after initial tests (n.b. not the usual tests your standard MD will ever think to run). After that it’s up to you to regularly check-in how you’re doing and maintain. I know this for a fact, I’ve done it myself and can tell you its amazing how well a middle-aged body can recoup after even the most misspent youth. However, I also know from experience that it can all disappear horribly quickly if you let things slide, leaving only the dim and distant memory of what it feels like to be really, really well. Then it’s a question whether you have got the cash and the will to do it all over again. In my case, it’s been 17 years and no serious health challenge so far. I’d say on that basis it’s worth the next road check and all that remains is for me to haul ass. At the appropriate moment of course and only problem being my guy (once you’ve found the right one you don’t want to go looking for also-rans) lives and practices in LA.
On the other hand... Heeere’s PolyPill!
Pollywhat? You may well ask. It’s the latest pan-nostrum sweeping the medical and pharmaceutical world and hasn’t been formulated yet. They want to medicate everyone who’s over 50 with a new formulation containing mostly a statin cholesterol reduction drug. The cynical amongst us, knowing that Pfizer’s patent on Lipitor, the most successful statin of all, runs out in 2011, might think, “well they would, wouldn’t they?”. And so far as it goes, you’d be right. Any of you who believes Big Pharma is in the health game for anything else but money I have a business proposition I’d like to discuss with you. Nevertheless, just because the greedy unprincipled bastards stand to make zillions of dollars, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider it.
Here’s why: statins have been shown to cut the risk of heart attacks, even in healthy people, by 30% and the risk of a stroke by 19%. They also reduce the chances of death from all causes by 12%. So says The Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, which carried out the survey in results announced by the British Medical Journal this month. The survey was based on the results of ten large trials involving over 70,000 patients, who did not have heart disease. No significant treatment differences were found between men, women, young or old and those with or without diabetes. There was no raised risk of cancer.
So now guess what? Doctors and politicians are whipping us on to the next step, which is to say that everyone over 50 should be prescribed this powerful drug, plus anyone over 40 with risk factors for heart and other chronic disease. Well it’s obvious isn’t it? We all win, not only millions of lives are saved but billions of dollars in medical costs too, for a pill that could cost as little as US$0.12 cents. What could possibly wrong with a deal like that?
Of course there are those who would rather die themselves, but more to the point have you die too, than let Big Pharma and their shareholders (perhaps that’s you and me, so let’s not forget that) make even more money than they already do. Then again there are those who believe it’s too easy, people should have to work at more natural ways to stay healthy. Yes, that makes sense, so far as it goes. But do you really want Joe over there, who still smokes and gets wasted down the boozer on occasion, to kick the bucket when he might not have to, just because you think he’s irresponsible? If you do, what about Jilly over there with no vices, but just inherited the wrong genes?
We need to be careful what we do and say here. My doctor, mentor, guru (he’s the funniest looking Sikh I ever saw with his pink skin and straggly ginger beard), cautioned me sternly when I questioned a heavy-duty course of antibiotics he was prescribing my wife, “when you have a big problem, you need big medicine”. He is right and more to the point, qualified to say that unlike all too many practitioners of this or that alternative modality. I have seen too many people who have died, rejecting all allopathic treatment on principle. Of course had they not, we do not know if they would have died anyway and in what circumstances. It’s a hard call, but those that still survive have told me, and they include MD’s, they now felt they were wrong to reject conventional medicine totally, that a flexible approach is what is needed.
I’m afraid it’s like climate warming, or buying a second hand car for that matter. You’re never going to know the truth of it. The minute you feel you do, some scientist or doctor or snake oil merchant somewhere is going to show you why you’re wrong. You can of course rely on faith or other honestly held prejudice, or do I mean principle? You certainly don’t have to be religious for that. Just stop questioning. In which case, the best of luck, and I mean that sincerely.
We know it’s a wicked world out there so all we can do, I suggest, is satisfy ourselves as to the bona fides of the information. How independent is this research? Then consider what we do know and decide. We know ourselves, at least some of us do, to some extent at least. Are we really going to find out what a healthy lifestyle is and then go do it? If not, perhaps we shouldn’t kid ourselves and consider the merits of the polypill.
Here’s what we do know so far about the downside of statins beyond the side effects required to be stated in the blurb. They can cause muscle pains and beyond doubt reduce levels of CoQ10 for everyone. CoQ10 is a very important nutrient, particularly as you age. If you take statins you must supplement with high quality CoQ10.
Last of all, we have seen many drugs touted as the best thing ever, only to find out it’s not a few years later. You have only to recall the incredible prevalence of hormonal therapy for women to know that. It worked alright, but it gave women cancer. Yet it took 40 years before the medical establishment were prepared to admit it what many had said all along. On the other hand there’s aspirin. A very powerful and effective over-the -counter-drug introduced by Bayer in the late 19th Century. It costs hardly anything because Bayer lost the patent after WW1. Low dose aspirin has saved countless lives from heart attack. We take it without a thought with huge benefits for mankind and infinitesimal downside.
No rush though, you don’t have to decide right away. The poly pill is on its way right enough, but it’s not formulated yet. There is after all, two years of Pfizer’s statin patent to run.
