Prescription Alternatives:Hundreds of Safe, Natural, Prescription-Free Remedies to Restore and Maintain Your Health, 4th Edition

449 Pages·2009·1.81 MB·English

by  Earl Mindell

Prescription
Alternatives
Hundreds of Safe, Natural, Prescription-Free Remedies
to Restore & Maintain Your Health
Earl l. MindEll, r.Ph., Ph.d.
and Virginia HoPkins, M.a.
New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City
Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto
Copyright © 2009 by Earl L. Mindell and Virginia Hopkins. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright
Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval
system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN: 978-0-07-160032-3
MHID: 0-07-160032-9
The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: ISBN: 978-0-07-160031-6, MHID: 0-07-160031-0.
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C o n t e n t s
Introduction v
Laying the Foundation for
Part 1
Good Health
Chapter 1 Changing the Pill-Popping Mind-Set 3
Chapter 2 How to Avoid Prescription Drug Abuse 13
Chapter 3 Drug Interactions and How Your Body Processes Drugs 27
Chapter 4 How Drugs Interact with Food, Drink, and Supplements 37
Chapter 5 How Drugs Interact with Other Drugs 43
Chapter 6 How to Read Drug Labels and Information Inserts 49
Chapter 7 Surgery, Drugs, and Nutrition: Minimizing the Damage
and Maximizing Your Recovery 57
Chapter 8 How to Avoid Medical Errors in the Hospital 61
Prescription Drugs and Their
Part 2
Natural Alternatives
Chapter 9 Six Core Principles for Optimal Health 67
Chapter 10 Drugs for Heart Disease and Their Natural Alternatives 79
iii
iv  •  Contents
Chapter 11 Drugs for the Digestive Tract and Their Natural
Alternatives 135
Chapter 12 Cold, Cough, Asthma, and Allergy Drugs and
Their Natural Alternatives 155
Chapter 13 Drugs for Pain Relief and Their Natural Alternatives 199
Chapter 14 Antibiotics, Antifungals, and Their Natural Alternatives 227
Chapter 15 Drugs for Insomnia, Anxiety, and Depression and
Their Natural Alternatives 251
Chapter 16 Diabetes Drugs, Obesity Drugs, and Their Natural
Alternatives 283
Chapter 17 Drugs for Eye Diseases and Their Natural Alternatives 307
Chapter 18 Drugs for the Prostate and Their Natural Alternatives 323
Chapter 19 Synthetic Hormones and Their Natural Alternatives 331
Chapter 20 Drugs for Osteoporosis and Their Natural Alternatives 349
Chapter 21 Drugs for Herpes and Their Natural Alternatives 363
Chapter 22 Drugs for Impotence and Their Natural Alternatives 367
Chapter 23 Drugs for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
and Their Natural Alternatives 371
Resources and Recommended Reading 385
References 391
Index 425
I n t r o d uCtIo n
If you have this book, you’re probably taking at least two pre-
scription drugs or you know somebody who is. If you or some-
one you love is taking any type of medication, from an allergy
medicine to a beta-blocker, you’ll want to know how the medicine
affects the body and how to stay healthy while on it. We’ll give
you that information in this book, but we’re also going to tell you
how you can solve your health problems without the drugs. Ulti-
mately we hope that this book inspires you to get off your prescrip-
tion drugs and keep yourself healthy primarily through lifestyle,
wholesome foods, and natural remedies. We have found that
almost everyone taking a long-term prescription drug can wean
him- or herself off drugs and create good health—often vibrant,
radiant good health—using simple, safe, natural remedies with no
side effects.
As a general rule, prescription drugs cause imbalances in the
body, ranging from depletion of vitamins and minerals to consti-
pation and lowered immune function. They can also cause more
serious problems, including death. Prescription Alternatives gives
you a tool for easily and immediately accessing information about
how the drugs you are taking affect your body, the steps you can
take to counteract these imbalances, and what alternative treat-
ments are available.
v
vi  •  IntroduCtIon
Most books sell well for a few years and then companies are also responsible for the expensive,
decline in sales. Sales of this book have increased slick, four-color ads you now see in consumer
over the years, as more and more people realize magazines and newspapers. You are bombarded
the need to find better ways to stay healthy. In with more than $3 billion worth of advertising for
this fourth edition we have added new drugs and prescription and over-the-counter drugs every year.
their side effects, new research about drugs and That should give you an idea of how valuable you
natural remedies, and new natural remedies that are as a drug consumer and how staggering the
have proven themselves over time. In particular profits are that drug companies rake in every year.
you’ll find a lot of helpful new information in For every dollar that drug companies spend
the chapter on heart disease, as research on the on research and development, they spend 50
underlying causes of heart disease has expanded cents on advertisements and promotions. The
greatly over the past few years. There is also a good most heavily promoted drugs are not those that
deal of new information about prostate health represent great breakthroughs in improving your
and impotence drugs, as well as important new health, but the ones that drug companies stand to
research about conventional hormone replace- profit from the most. You’re not the only target of
ment therapy, which has sent millions of women expensive drug company promotions, either: the
to their doctors looking for natural alternatives. doctors who prescribe drugs to you are strongly
We’ll give valuable insights for both men and pressured by drug sales reps to prescribe their lat-
women on how to achieve hormone balance. est products. It’s estimated that drug companies
There is no possible way we could cover spend approximately $9,000 per physician per
every drug available or every problem with every year on these promotional efforts. These efforts
drug. We have tried to cover the most com- are working, too. According to the National Insti-
monly used drugs in detail, but we also urge you tute for Health Care Management, 40 percent
to take responsibility for any drug use by con- of the recent increase in drug sales can be attrib-
sulting with your pharmacist and reading the uted to 25 of the most heavily promoted drugs.
drug insert. Knowledge of the side effects and Drugs have powerful effects on the body, so
interactions of drugs is changing every day. It is please don’t abruptly stop taking any prescrip-
our goal to teach you how to be a knowledgeable tion medication. It’s best to work with a health
and discriminating drug consumer who knows care professional to monitor your health as you
how to ask the right questions and get the neces- switch from drugs to natural alternatives.
sary information to stay healthy. This book is not intended to convey the
The United States and New Zealand are cur- message that all prescription drugs are bad. Used
rently the only countries in the world that allow conservatively—with great care and only when
drug companies to advertise prescription drugs necessary—they can be lifesavers for some peo-
directly to the consumer. It used to be that pre- ple. On the other hand, prescription drugs are
scription drugs could be touted only to physicians. grossly overprescribed and misprescribed in the
But now consumer ads on TV tantalize you with United States, resulting in the death of at least
great promises of health and well-being, skim 160,000 people a year in hospitals alone and in
through the side effects as quickly as possible, and injury to nearly a million.
then suggest you contact your physician or a drug The other bad habit that this book may help
company hotline for more information. The drug you avoid is what we call the “drug treadmill.”
IntroduCtIon  •  vii
People over the age of 50 are the most familiar or effective. There are plenty of schemes, scams,
with this scenario. Here’s how it works: Let’s say and frauds to go around in the world of natural
a fairly healthy 50-year-old named Bob visits his remedies and alternative medicines, not to men-
doctor for an annual checkup and is prescribed tion well-meaning but misguided advice from
the seemingly harmless drug Tagamet (cimeti- people who haven’t done their homework.
dine) for indigestion. The Tagamet causes joint One of the most common deceptions in
pain, but Bob doesn’t know this. So he starts to alternative medicine is the practice of claiming
take Tylenol (acetaminophen) to treat the pain. that a substance has an effect on the body based
Bob likes to have a few cocktails before dinner, on test tube research or a theory that’s backed
but he doesn’t know that combining alcohol and up by a lot of biochemistry babble. These types
Tylenol can cause serious liver damage. (Liver of medicines are usually associated with a lot
damage caused by acetaminophen is one of the of fanfare, exclamation points, extra-bold head-
leading causes of emergency room visits in the lines, and grand claims about how they will
United States.) In addition, the Tagamet is already cure everything from hangnails to cancer. Just
putting stress on Bob’s liver, which is being chron- because a medicine comes from the jungle, a
ically damaged by the combination of drugs and tropical island, or the mountains of Nepal does
alcohol. Because of the constant stress, his liver is not mean it works. It often just means it’s dirt
unable to keep up with the job of detoxifying his cheap and enormous profits are being made.
body, and soon he is coming down with colds and We have seen dozens of so-called miracle cures
getting infections. So his doctor prescribes anti- come and go over the years, and we suggest hav-
biotics, which further compromise his immune ing a wait-and-watch attitude toward them.
system and cause damage to his intestines. Fur- The remedies we recommend in this book are
thermore, Bob now has a chronic sinus infection, backed up by generations of use, as in folk medi-
for which he takes allergy drugs that make him cine, by research, or by both. How do you know
irritable. This is one example of the drug tread- whether it’s worth trying the latest, greatest natu-
mill, and this book is about how to avoid it. ral remedy? Look for human studies published in
peer-reviewed journals or opinions from experts
in the field who don’t have a financial stake in the
a Word about alternatives
product. In the Resources and Recommended
Just because a health remedy is found in a health Reading section at the back of this book, you’ll
food store or on a website with a lot of green, find a list of health newsletters, websites, and
leafy graphics doesn’t mean it’s necessarily safe books by experts whose opinions we respect.
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Laying the
Foundation
1
P a r t
for Good
Health