June 19, 2016  | Julia Becerra

THE HEALTHY PILL: DOES ONE SIZE FIT ALL?

Health series part I.

I recently saw an article in the Wall Street Journal   (Mind and Matter by Melvin Konner) about the use of the “polypill”. A prescription medicine that may include the following components:

The pill is offered as an experimental preventive approach to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attacks and strokes.

Yes, it may be useful to have such a pill available to treat people with a tendency to deal with cardio vascular disease either because of their genetics or because of their symptomatology.  But how widespread should the use of it be? Some public health advocates recommend that everyone over 50 take one.

With the American philosophy of “one pill fix all” this could be the next hydroxycut for the heart.

I do understand that wishful thinking of one squat for strong legs and one sit-up for six-pack abs.  Who wouldn’t want a pill that taken once a day or once period, would provide you a healthy body free of diseases? But is this true? Is this achievable?

We all know that it is not. And the certainty of a NO answer is based on many reasons, among others:

1- Life is complex: we still need to feed our body, move our body and keep it within a manageable stress level.

2- Side effects: All prescription medicines have some sort of side effects.  At times the side effects may be worst that the actual symptoms they tend to address or worst than the disease they attempt to prevent

3- Bodies are different. What could work out for one person may not work out at all for another.

A better idea than the “polypill” would be for the doctors, teachers, fitness experts etc to:

• Educate the community about the great health benefits of simply eating smaller portion of foods, choosing the type of foods to put on their plates; Avoid junk foods with a lot of pesticides, artificial flavoring and coloring, preservatives and synthetics.
• Promote body moving; whatever that may mean for each person. i.e. walking an extra block or two as often as possible, dancing, jogging, swimming etc
• Use other forms of  preventive medicine i.e. acupressure, acupuncture, etc like what is being offered in NY in places such New Concept Wellness (newconceptwellness.com)
• Take advantage of  information available (i.e http://nutritionfacts.org ) to check the medical literature on the side effects of the components of these prescription medicines. In this case components of the so-called “Polypill” like the statins with listed side effects: muscle pain, liver damage, diabetes.

Knowing what you put into your body creates conscience, that will allow making better choices.

Believing that popping a “Polypill” works better than willpower is setting up the ground to feel sick when the body is still healthy. It is the fastest approach to weaken the mind and propagate this weakness to the next generations.

IF anything the pill may encourage bad habits; putting all the pressure of being healthy on the mightiness of the “polypill”.

Creating health consciousness may not be the fastest remedy but most likely the lasting one; improving human health for generations to come.

Since “the one size fits all” approach does not work for either the “Pollypill” or the “Natural prevention plan” due to the complexity of genetics and personalities, I suggest we do our best to strengthen the mind, fortify the body and share with others our approach that works.

Which one is yours?

Share your story. In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy a refreshing ginger lemonade, while relaxing after a nice acupressure session I just had. Oh ah!!!

 

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