So drugs can be helpful, but a wholistic approach that gives the body tools to be healthy is much preferred in my opinion.

1) Most drugs fix one thing but they break something else. For example, statins deplete the body of CoQ10 — which is needed for a healthy heart. Prozac is another example — it can help you feel less depressed b/c it helps you get more serotonin. However there are many side effects like weight gain, sexual dysfunction, etc.

And there ARE natural alternatives to Prozac. See Julia Ross’s book, “The Mood Cure”, in which she talks about using natural food-based amino acids to increase serotonin and other feel-good brain chemicals. (Prozac does not actually increase serotonin — it just makes it more accessible.)

2) Many drugs interfere with the body’s natural ability to heal. Whole food nutrition actually helps the body do what it naturally needs to do to heal. But drugs will often mask symptoms and prevent the body from doing what it needs to do. For example, detoxing when it really needs to detox. You have a cold and you take a cold medicine that clears up your stuffy nose and brings you fever down. Your body was TRYING to detox via the mucus and sweating — and you prevent that. The toxins have to go somewhere and they end up staying in the body. Not a good thing.

Re: Armour Thyroid — that is a whole food based supplement. Yes, it requires a prescription but it is made from whole pig thyroid.

Re: breast cancer — PLEASE listen to the mp3s (download on the WAPF site — from 2008 conference) about iodine and breast cancer. Breast cancer is ALWAYS an iodine deficiency.

Re: depression and hypoglycemia — You can hear Julia Ross lecture on these issues and how amino acids help — also on the WAPF site. She has gotten thousands of people off SSRIs. You can also get her book “The Mood Cure”

CHEESESLAVE’s last blog post..My Plans for the Summer

Vin, “The main problem I see is that drugs are used as a first resort instead of a last resort” – great point.

Lindsay, rant here anytime!

Meggan, some are “selectively open-minded” – so true. It reminds me of those who shout for “tolerance” with everything except what they are intolerant of. (What I’m thinking of isn’t related to this topic and I won’t go there.)

But for everyday illness and living, i think that a VERY small portion of modern medicinal care is necessary. There are always exceptions to BOTH sides of the coin. Thank God we “have” the “choice” (kinda lol).

Being a Black American, i was pretty much BORN with a distrust of modern medicine (see: The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment) , despite the fact that im also a female, im more at risk for disease, common ailments and higher mortality rate than anyone else in America due to a ridiculous array of reasons. So im bombarded with images and advice to hail a doctors as God and then also not to trust everything they say. It comes to questioning myself, can i afford NOT to trust modern medicine and everything they tell me to do and need….or can i afford NOT to question and to find a better, more traditional, wholesome/holistic path to heath…so i ride a fine line.

There are a lot of natural-leaning people who are just as closed minded about western medicine as the doctors they call closed minded about natural medicine. Interesting how we can be selectively open minded, eh?

Anyway, my point was thanks, I agree.