2008 Woodie Awards
The Real Deal: Regimen is superior to medicine
Paul McNeill
Issue date: 10/16/07 Section: Opinions
Thomas Edison once said, "The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest her or his patients in the care of the human frame, in a proper diet, and in the cause and prevention of disease."
Even geniuses get things wrong from time to time. Unfortunately, the future that Edison spoke of is not now.
America is a pill-popping culture. Drug commercials saturate the airways. It's hard to flip through a magazine without coming across an advertisement promoting the latest miracle drug, usually a pill designed to treat one ailment yet creating a dozen side effects.
According to a recent study by the National Institutes of Health, 30 percent of American children and adolescents regularly take dietary supplements in an attempt to counter the effects of poor diets. The highest use of supplements was found among four- to eight-year-olds. (Isn't that a little young to already need nutritional enhancement?) Lowest use was among teenagers, putting them at risk for nutritional deficiencies because their diets are some of the worst in the country. Doctors are concerned because calcium, vitamin D, and iron supplements-essential to development and bone growth-are often consumed in lower than recommended amounts. But therein lies the problem. There shouldn't be recommended amounts of supplements for children; there should be a demand for healthy diets. Supplements should be a last resort used only for children with health problems in dire need of nourishment. Supplements are named such for a reason; they are meant to supplement a healthy diet, not replace one.
Today's children are afflicted with diseases children 60 years ago never feared, such as Type II diabetes. Other maladies, such as childhood obesity and asthma, have increased by outrageous amounts. Some point to more effective diagnoses of various diseases-a valid point-yet too few are tracing the problem to the source: unhealthy diets.
A recent report from Duke University shows that regular exercise cures depression as effectively as antidepressants, further proof that we should feel depressed by our increasingly sedentary lifestyles. Yet popping a pill is far easier than running on a treadmill, so many opt for the quick fix. Duke's findings won't be repeated by many doctors or politicians. Doctors lose patients to healthy lifestyle choices; politicians lose votes when they tell voters to get off the couch.
Even geniuses get things wrong from time to time. Unfortunately, the future that Edison spoke of is not now.
America is a pill-popping culture. Drug commercials saturate the airways. It's hard to flip through a magazine without coming across an advertisement promoting the latest miracle drug, usually a pill designed to treat one ailment yet creating a dozen side effects.
According to a recent study by the National Institutes of Health, 30 percent of American children and adolescents regularly take dietary supplements in an attempt to counter the effects of poor diets. The highest use of supplements was found among four- to eight-year-olds. (Isn't that a little young to already need nutritional enhancement?) Lowest use was among teenagers, putting them at risk for nutritional deficiencies because their diets are some of the worst in the country. Doctors are concerned because calcium, vitamin D, and iron supplements-essential to development and bone growth-are often consumed in lower than recommended amounts. But therein lies the problem. There shouldn't be recommended amounts of supplements for children; there should be a demand for healthy diets. Supplements should be a last resort used only for children with health problems in dire need of nourishment. Supplements are named such for a reason; they are meant to supplement a healthy diet, not replace one.
Today's children are afflicted with diseases children 60 years ago never feared, such as Type II diabetes. Other maladies, such as childhood obesity and asthma, have increased by outrageous amounts. Some point to more effective diagnoses of various diseases-a valid point-yet too few are tracing the problem to the source: unhealthy diets.
A recent report from Duke University shows that regular exercise cures depression as effectively as antidepressants, further proof that we should feel depressed by our increasingly sedentary lifestyles. Yet popping a pill is far easier than running on a treadmill, so many opt for the quick fix. Duke's findings won't be repeated by many doctors or politicians. Doctors lose patients to healthy lifestyle choices; politicians lose votes when they tell voters to get off the couch.
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