I have thought for years that there must be a kickback system for prescribing doctors to profit from all the drugs that are advertised on TV with suggestions to “ask your doctor” about all these new and different names.
In recent years targets for blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar have been lowered and I have long suspected that the real reason was to sell the drugs. A lot of people probably should be on trial for pushing prescription drugs that have done far more harm than good. I have even heard of one doctor who is supposed to have told patients they need to keep their blood sugar between 70 and 100. My personal experience has been that when mine drops below 85 I have trembling, weakness, cold sweats and just general inability to do anything. I think the best range to be in is 90 to 100 but I would much rather be at 140 or even higher than below 85. I suspect that before dropping to 70 I would be laid out flat in an ambulance headed for an emergency room unless I should be unfortunate enough to be alone somewhere and then I would probably pass out. I have been warned by doctors and nurses that low sugar is much quicker in doing damage and even being life threatening than high blood sugar and I have had personal experience with people who become impossible to live with and even violent if their blood sugar drops a little too low, yet I keep hearing lower and lower target recommendations.
As far as cholesterol is concerned I have done some research of my own and I am far more afraid of the medicines prescribed for high cholesterol than I will ever be of my cholesterol. I advise anyone to be very, very, cautious about taking medicines to lower cholesterol. There was even one medicine that was advertised for a time on TV with an on screen disclaimer saying that there was no evidence that it would lower the risk of heart attack, stroke or death.
Everything you said.
I travel often, and widely.
If I need medical care, I take it from doctors I trust. I will not voluntarily submit myself to a system where I don’t know the doctor, unless it’s an emergency.
Regarding cholesterol, there is a theory propounded that cholesterol levels are linked to the body’s requirement to repair blood vessels. Those cholesterol and fat deposits are “scar” tissue intended at healing / patching damage to the blood vessels. Fighting cholesterol, according to this theory, is to impair the body’s repair mechanism whilst ignoring the underlying cause for the damage - inflammation.
The pharmaceutical industry-doctor nexus is less interested in curing ailments, it wants patients to have a subscription model imposed on them - lifelong, if possible. Between that and the “ever greening” of patent-expired drugs, it’s a mafia out there. I have seen this at its worst in psychiatry. They seek to address a “chemical imbalance in the brain” with exotic drug concoctions, whose dosages are based on the prescriber’s whim - they have no scientific quantification of the “imbalance” they claim to exist, and if they did, is not routinely used or implemented. And millions of patients (mostly women, because they are more expressive toward the shrink) get to be experimented with wild, crazy drugs. Check out how many of them balloon in size after getting onto psych meds.
had my 30 something MD suggest these as a preventative...despite my cholesterol being normal - her logic was to avoid vascular dementia and sudden death......having seen more than my share of family and friends wither away in cancer, I asked her what the problem was with sudden death?....she could only respond that it would upset my wife - like cancer wouldn't? seriously?
...the side effects of these statins and damage to your liver are frightening