Laverne

There's a growing number of physicians who are very concerned about the detrimental effects of combining medications, both prescription and over-the-counter. And you should be concerned too. Unfortunately, this problem has escaped the scrutiny of the general medical establishment.

Pharmaceutical companies and the U.S. Federal Drug Administration have led us to believe that prescription drugs are evaluated and regulated by the government and are safe to be taken when under the care of a physician. However, even if we assume that taking one drug is safe, we must ask ourselves how might that safety change if we take multiple drugs?

There are very few drugs that include warnings that they should not be taken with other specified drugs. Warnings are not given because no research was done to determine which drugs have adverse results when taken with other drugs. And if it is done by the drug manufacturer, the information is not revealed to the general public unless it is immediately life-threatening. For safety and effectiveness, proper testing should be done for every possible drug combination. If we take Prozac and Tylenol, for example, we should be told all the adverse effects that may occur so that we can make an educated decision as to whether we really want to take them together. The same caveat applies if we are advised to take Paxil with Viagra or Interferon with Lipitor.

To understand the impossibility of testing all the possible combinations, consider the following: To test all combinations of 3 drugs, it takes 4 separate tests; 4 drugs present 10 combinations to test. However, with millions of drugs on the market, the number of combinations of any two of them is roughly equal to the number of miles in 14,200 round trips from earth to Mars, rendering complete testing impossible. Therefore, even if you take only two medications, it is highly unlikely that their combination was adequately tested, if, in fact it was tested at all.

But we could eliminate the risk of having to take multiple drugs simply by taking care of ourselves. With few exceptions, it is our lifestyle, diet and stress that cause most of our health problems. We can alleviate most of these problems if we make a few minor changes in our eating habits and lifestyle. Nevertheless, we repeatedly abuse our bodies, which become diseased and malfunction and then we expect to be cured with drugs.

Drugs are not designed to cure disease; they are designed to treat the symptoms of disease. Eventually the body loses its ability to function under the stress of disease and drugs.

Much more can be done to insure good health by eating a balanced diet of fresh, natural and uncontaminated foods, drinking at least 64 ounces of uncontaminated water, getting at least 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night, staying active, and taking supplements to obtain the nutrients missing in your diet than resorting to the millions of drugs at our disposal.

Syble James is currently the president of Alpha Health Source, a retailer of natural and organic products including vitamins, supplements, specialty foods, over-the-counter remedies, and personal care. She also researches and writes for online publications and conducts telephone consultations with organizations and individuals on subjects within the food, beverage, vitamins, minerals, supplements, weight loss, and personal care industries. She has strong knowledge of product sourcing, product ingredients, consumer and industry trends, sales, distribution and marketing strategy. Ms. James also has experience and knowledge of the network marketing industry. Previously, Ms. James held executive and management positions in consumer and business services companies.