The recession is forcing people to look for ways to cut their health care costs.
One unfortunate method is bypassing physician visits and prescription medications in favor less expensive vitamins and supplements.
According to the NY Times, here’s a typical example: “In flusher times, Ms. Parham said, she spent $50 a month on prescriptions for her asthma, allergies and other chronic problems. Now, she pays $6 a month for over-the-counter protein supplements and oregano oil capsules. ‘That’s an important savings for me,’ she said. ‘It means I can rent a movie or make the kids food that they actually like.’”
Vitamins often don’t work they way they’re advertised, and they should never replace something that was prescribed. I suspect much of the so-called effectiveness is due to the placebo effect, which, in itself can be perceived as effective.
The medical profession is not immune to the allure of questionable supplements. Consider the physician assistant cited in the article, eschewing organic fruits and vegetables for cheaper fish oil capsules (which actually does have some data backing up its use) and antioxidants (which, conversely, have no data).
Related posts:
- Does vitamin D reduce the risk of falls in the elderly?
- Cutting back on prescription drugs
- A daily vitamin may do more harm than good
- Placebos routinely prescribed?
- A lawyer questions the concept prescription drugs
- What are the recommended vitamins that patients should take?
- Pharmacists dispensing drugs without a prescription
{ 5 comments }
If the FDA starts regulating supplements, the majority will go under.
One can go into a health food store, buy empty gel capsules for pennies, fill the capsules with powdered herbs or tea powder, and call it some “nirvana” supplement. Unlike pharmaceutical drugs, there are no regulations.
We all know docs who sell these “pseudo-meds” out of their clinics. Some are MDs, some are chiropractors, some are nutritionists, whatever.
All have one thing in common – it’s a cash business.
There is a lot more money in being a quack than in treating patients properly.
It pays to remember WalMart’s generic drugs – $4 for a 30 day supply. For many patients, these drugs could represent a viable alternative to pricey prescription drugs. Furthermore, $4 is usually far cheaper than those so-called supplements found in your neighborhood GNC.
As a Harvard Med School educated doc with an MD and an MPH, the narrow views of our profession sadden me. We idolize pharmaceuticals, despite their side effects (what happened to: First, do no harm?) while completely ignoring the potential benefits of supplementation. Our population is, for the most part, Vit D deficient – with a resultant increase in colon and breast CA, osteomalacia, preeclampsia, and depression. But we ignore this because it is a “vitamin.” As far an no good studies on antioxidants… you should read more… there are good randomized double blind clinical studies:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18628275
http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/nen048v1
But…. this objective data is blasphemy to the religion that we call conventional medicine. To Anonymous @ 12:58AM: Remember … Lister (antisepsis), Marshall and Warren (PUD), and even E.A. Codman (father of evidence based medicine) were called “quacks” by their contemporaries.
Those supplements aren’t exactly cheap…….
Comments on this entry are closed.