Last updated on January 6th, 2024 at 08:34 am
Do something about excess fat, stupid
Health commercials on television give us tremendous insight into the pharmaceutical industry and also medical care, especially their shortcomings. Have you noticed that just about all persons on these Type 2 TV ads are all overweight, they are very socially active, energetic, happy and are presented as seemingly in good health! One has to give the pharmaceutical industries’ marketing departments an A plus for these commercials, the message being this miracle drug will bring one good health. We are told the drug will substantially decrease our numbers and one of the type 2 cases reports that their A1c is now under 7! Halleluiah! Some ads say the medication will even help you to lose a few pounds! Supposedly these types of prescription ads are allowed on the airwaves because they give patient’s information. Granted these kinds of commercials give information but in reviewing them I believe they give misinformation primarily and ethically they are more on the order of propaganda!
Every physician knows that the best way to prevent or treat Type 2 diabetes is to have and maintain a healthful life style (normal weight, good nutrition, adequate exercise) and the best way to treat it is through positive life style changes such as the above. Twenty years ago the author at an annual aviation physical came up with a blood sugar level of 232 in his urine. When he was diagnosed by his physician as a type 2 diabetic the physician immediately prescribed Metformin as the treatment even though he could see that his patient was 40 pounds overweight! The author declined the treatment and in its place he would lose 40 pounds and start an exercise program. Twenty years later I keep my weight between 171-175 pounds (I am now 5 feet 11.25 inches), I am on no medication for diabetes , I work out 3 days a week at a health club and my most recent A1c is 5.3 (the normal range is 4.1 to 5.6). Physician treatment for the preventive diseases is unfortunately medication as the only tool and not a serious emphasis on life style improvement. Most physicians justify their almost exclusive biological treatment of the preventive diseases by wanting to believe patients will not change their behavior to achieve better health. This is a self-serving belief because physicians unlike psychologists have had no training or expertise in how to assist patients to change their health-injurious behavior. In my 20 years practicing clinical psychology I received many referrals from physicians but never once was the referral for changing the patient’s self-injurious health behavior! Physicians have told me that 80% of diseases are preventable through behavior change. Despite this most physicians continue a pattern of treating these preventable diseases biologically rather than comprehensively with through behavior change. I am not saying that all preventable diseases can be treated effectively with behavior change alone. For example, I had a table tennis buddy who weighed 330 pounds yet his blood sugars, unlike mine at the time, were in the normal range! I don’t know whether or not he developed Type 2 diabetes later in life.
In addition to type 2 diabetes my siblings and I are prone to high blood pressure and if it were not for two hypertensive medications despite my positive life style I would have been dead many years ago without these drugs. I report this because I am not against medication and other biological treatments when they are indeed necessary for one’s good health, or medications/treatments that substantially reduce distressing symptoms over the positive placebo effect. The problem is from my review of the sound research I find that many FDA approved psychiatric and non-psychiatric drugs have little more than marginal clinical value in treating many health problems. For better healthcare at lower cost we are in need of a system that insures and pays for healthcare services that are truly efficacious in treating the health problems.