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I'm not. My husband's not. The kids are not. And our decorator, who's a decade older than any of us, is not. We all exercise daily, and we all watch what goes into our bodies, very carefully. None of us has ever been on anything more than a course of antibiotics, for Strep or something. Certainly, nobody has been on any sort of long-term medication, which is what I assume you're referring to.
More recently, we've begun being careful of what we breathe, too. The epidemic of 'air freshener' devices in public spaces has caused us to re-pattern our lives, in order to avoid what are surely harmful chemicals. I walked out of a big-box grocery without buying anything, last night, because the 'air freshener' was so overpowering.
And we've just moved into a neighborhood of really smart people (Thanks, City-Data, for helping us find our dream-town!!!!), many of whom are 'elderly' and mostly medications-free. Apparently, being smart didn't just make them rich: it also helped shape their lifestyle choices. So, I'm doing Yoga and Tai Chi with seventysomethings who are more youthful than some teenage couch potatoes I've seen. I think two are on preventative meds: but the rest are blissfully independent of the Pharmacy.
I would add that we, and people we hang with, tend to be near-Vegans, non-drinkers, non-smokers, and extremely intolerant of illegal recreational substances. In our crowd, Volvo and Saab were the usual car, as long as they were Swedish-made and super-safe. As the last 'real' ones wear out, the trend seems to be to replace them with Lexus, because they're so quiet (noise and vibrations have a negative health impact).
But yes! It appears that in most cases, our bodies can regulate themselves without medications, if we give them what they need (rest, exercise, and good nutrition).
Great thread, by the way. Let's be sure to give the OP rep points!
I envy all of you that have not had some major illness, or do not need prescription drugs to live on this earth. I have exercised my entire life always watching my diet and have never been overweight. Still I had to deal with Diabetes by age 24 an Thyroid disease by age 40. Same as my parents did. So that means insulin and Meds for me, or I would not get the privledge of being into exercise and fitness or anything else. Without the Meds I would have died years ago.
Consider yourselves lucky and I hope people remain healthy and drug free for many years.
Something a lot of people don't know is drinking fluoridated water will cause hypothyroidism. Years ago fluoride pills were given to people who have hyperthyroidism in order to slow their thyroid down. That's one thing I loved about where I used to live is they didn't put fluoride in the water. Oh and it also causes arthritis. Big industry tries to poison us all to death one way or another.
I envy all of you that have not had some major illness, or do not need prescription drugs to live on this earth. I have exercised my entire life always watching my diet and have never been overweight. Still I had to deal with Diabetes by age 24 an Thyroid disease by age 40. Same as my parents did. So that means insulin and Meds for me, or I would not get the privledge of being into exercise and fitness or anything else. Without the Meds I would have died years ago.
Consider yourselves lucky and I hope people remain healthy and drug free for many years.
Hey, I am on your side here; I am not totally drug-free myself and I have said that you cannot exercise away some health conditions. I realize your conditions are not your fault. Type 1 diabetes and thyroid problems just...happen. Even type 2 diabetes, which is strongly correlated to lifestyle, also tends to run in families...so despite someone's best efforts, they may still fall prey to it.
Flouridated water does not cause hypothyrodism. In order to even get a stomach ache from fluoride toxicity, you have to ingest have at -least- 1 mg of flouride. That would be sucking down a full 5-ounce tube of toothpaste in 1 sitting - that's how much fluoride a tube contains.
I put a bit of blame on drug company commercials. They'll list common symptoms of a plain old hard day and give it a name. The newest one seems to be "shift-work disorder." Get this, turns out if you have a job that constantly changes shifts from day to night to mid-day, you might experience a few days of tiredness while readjusting. Good news, though, they have a pill for that now! All of a sudden "oh no, I have that... I better go to the doctor and demand that medicine." Medicines shouldn't have commercials.
I put the blame on the medical community and the way they look at disease. A person has symptoms A, B, and C. Researchers don't know what the exact cause is, but since they see a lot of people exhibiting these symptoms together, they bundle them all up and call it Disease X. Then a drug company comes along and says they have a family of drugs that can treat Disease X. So your doctor puts you on Drug 1. Doesn't work or causes bad side effects? OK, we'll give you drug 2 from the same family of drugs. Or we'll give you another drug to deal with the side effects of Drug 1. But all of these drugs are just treating the symptoms, not the root cause. Anti-depressants are a perfect example of this paradigm at work. No one knows the exact cause of depression. But at least we can treat it. And best of all, it means a nice revenue stream for the doctors and drug companies. And instead of spending money on R&D to actually find the cause of these symptoms, you can spend a much smaller amount of money to tweak the drug just enough to qualify for a new patent and slap a different name on it. And then of course there's the standard industry practice of giving incentives to doctors who prescribe their drugs. Or maybe the doctor is on the board of the company who prescribes that drug and publishes studies showing how effective it is. Think about all this the next time you go to your doctor and he tells you he doesn't know what's making you feel bad, but he knows what medication to take for it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by runningncircles1
I never get sick whether I'm going the healthy route or unhealthy route. The truth is, 80% is genetic, 10% is lifestyle, and 10% is environment in life expectancy, or that's what current data suggests. QoL, OTOH, is different. Environment and lifestyle play a higher role in that.
The truth is that genetics is vastly overstated and has become a convenient crutch for people to avoid taking personal responsibility of their own health. Yes, genetics matter. But what's also true is that gene expression is very much a product of lifestyle choices. People are used to thinking of genes as something that only express themselves in one way. But the field of nutrigenomics is showing how what you eat influences how genes express themselves and how easily they can go haywire when you eat the wrong foods.
I am constantly super amazed at how many people post here who are on some type of prescription drugs or have some type of medical issue/ailment/shortcoming.
I dont think Ive ever in my adult life had to be on any prescription meds and cant even remember the last time I was sick. I truly in my heart believe that its because I am constantly doing some type of physical exercise (martial arts, tai chi, yoga, weights, cardio). Even when I was a little kid, I'd go in the backyard and lift rocks trying to imitate Vasilly Alexeyev and jumping over things like Daley Thompson or Carl Lewis. This continued on into my teens and into my adult life. Maybe Ive just been lucky with genes because none of my brothers or sisters have been on meds either, but I HAVE to think its because of being active.
Is there ANYONE else here who is NOT on any prescription meds?
Anyone else NOT dealing with some physical ailment/disease?
Age would be a big part of it is my guess.
Other than a multi-vitamin and the occasional advil....oh wait, I did get in some poison ivy and had to get some steroid cream for it....that's it.
Something a lot of people don't know is drinking fluoridated water will cause hypothyroidism. Years ago fluoride pills were given to people who have hyperthyroidism in order to slow their thyroid down. That's one thing I loved about where I used to live is they didn't put fluoride in the water. Oh and it also causes arthritis. Big industry tries to poison us all to death one way or another.
I've heard rumors that they put tons of H2O in the water around here. Look how many people that chemical killed in Russia over the past few months!
I put the blame on the medical community and the way they look at disease. A person has symptoms A, B, and C. Researchers don't know what the exact cause is, but since they see a lot of people exhibiting these symptoms together, they bundle them all up and call it Disease X. Then a drug company comes along and says they have a family of drugs that can treat Disease X. So your doctor puts you on Drug 1. Doesn't work or causes bad side effects? OK, we'll give you drug 2 from the same family of drugs. Or we'll give you another drug to deal with the side effects of Drug 1. But all of these drugs are just treating the symptoms, not the root cause. Anti-depressants are a perfect example of this paradigm at work. No one knows the exact cause of depression. But at least we can treat it. And best of all, it means a nice revenue stream for the doctors and drug companies. And instead of spending money on R&D to actually find the cause of these symptoms, you can spend a much smaller amount of money to tweak the drug just enough to qualify for a new patent and slap a different name on it. And then of course there's the standard industry practice of giving incentives to doctors who prescribe their drugs. Or maybe the doctor is on the board of the company who prescribes that drug and publishes studies showing how effective it is. Think about all this the next time you go to your doctor and he tells you he doesn't know what's making you feel bad, but he knows what medication to take for it.
The truth is that genetics is vastly overstated and has become a convenient crutch for people to avoid taking personal responsibility of their own health. Yes, genetics matter. But what's also true is that gene expression is very much a product of lifestyle choices. People are used to thinking of genes as something that only express themselves in one way. But the field of nutrigenomics is showing how what you eat influences how genes express themselves and how easily they can go haywire when you eat the wrong foods.
Nutrigenomics is still in its infancy and much of the research is shaky at best. Also, saying "genetics is overstated" shows you don't work in genetic science. Sorry, but genetics plays a larger role than lifestyle and environment when it comes down to the end. Research has shown this time and time again. You can get maybe 5 years more at most with exercise and healthy eating. Aging is primarily influenced by telomere shortening on cells, and not much can be done to prevent this... unless you want cancer, in which case, telomeres will never shorten but will keep replicating and form a tumor.
But there is a time and place for everything and that would be a good time for me to use some drugs! But you are not taking it all the time so its not really the same thing on your system. But you really don't need that painkiller. I don't even have fillings but one cosmetic one I had on the side of a molar. I did not use anything but it was not going into the nerves.
With thyroid, I personally would try the detox and organic food method to try to get rid of the issue. I would avoid all food bad for thyroid like a psycho. If you have not switched to organic yourself, try it. Thyroid is one of those issues though that fall under "can't" in my post above.
How do you know it was from a car wreck? Fluoride in the water has been shown to thin bones and blow you thyroid out. I think its kinda strange that you have both issues. What did they say the thyroid issue came from?
Last edited by elnina; 08-18-2010 at 05:39 PM..
Reason: cut out - orphaned
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