Opinion: Today’s Medication

Medication is effective in treating what we think we know, and distracts from how much we don’t realize we still need to do.

Your physician informs you of high blood pressure and, despite some effort in changing your lifestyle, the numbers remain high and it’s time to start medical therapy.
Most of the time this leads to nearly instant success and the next time you’re placing the cuff around your arm, its numbers shine with pride.
You’ve earned a badge of courage. Courage for the “fight” in fending off high blood pressure and preventing a stroke or heart attack. Though was it really your fight to claim such victory?

Yes, you walked the prescription to the pharmacy, made sure to fill your pill container and, for the most part, never forgot to take your medicine.

But did you really follow the steps as outlined by the American Heart Association?
Did you cut back on salt?
Did you increase your aerobic exercise?
Did you loose weight?
Did you find ways of minimizing stress?
When your in-laws stop by, are you able to be calmer?

What is more often the case. As the medicine is quick to induce molecular-biological changes, the blood pressure shows an “awe-inspiring” response and resorts towards normal – well before lifestyle changes could have had an impact.
Considering this, one’s mind becomes a bit too sharp and perhaps even subconsciously questions the true need for lifestyle changes as the little magic pill is proving so effective.

And in short time, old habits populate again… But this time, it creates a new problem!
That magical pill is now having a more difficult time working against salt, stress, obesity and sedentary living. Early on, the cardiovascular system was taken by surprise by the onslaught of pharmacological prowess that the pill provided.
But in time, if lifestyle changes aren’t made, those unhealthy habits allow the body to find ways of circling around and the net result is medication refractoriness.
And it doesn’t end there. The patient just thinks that the medication has “lost” its effect and the physician is lassoed in prescribing additional medication.

In my opinion, today’s medicine has become polypharmacy.
Its evolution stems from the irony of just how effective the first medication was in treating the condition, relative to just how ineffective it becomes when we don’t do our part as well. 

If “by the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food,“ was the Bible’s way of sending us out of Eden, let us create a new irony in our favor – “by the sweat of your brow (walking, exercising, Peloton-ing), your blood pressure will be perfect”! And whether you live by that book or not, you will know your own Eden here and now.