The Medicalization of Everyday Life

(from Mercola.com)

The biggest threat to the health of most people is the health-care system itself. More and more people are being drawn into treatment as a result of an astonishing increase in diagnoses, and ever-expanding definitions of what constitutes a disease.

This actually places these "patients" in greater danger than if they were simply left alone.

One problem is the medicalization of everyday life; everyday experiences such as insomnia, sadness, or twitchy legs are now being diagnosed as sleep disorder, depression, or restless leg syndrome. Especially troublesome is the medicalization of childhood, where trouble reading becomes dyslexia and unhappiness is deemed depression.

Another problem is the drive to diagnose disease early. Illnesses are now being identified in those with no symptoms, but who are merely "at risk." However, advanced technologies such as CT scans, ultrasounds, MRI and PET scans can detect subtle flaws that make practically everyone "at risk."

Meanwhile, at the same time, the definitions or diseases are expanding, as experts drop the thresholds for diagnosing diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis and obesity. The level of cholesterol deemed "normal" has dropped several times. Merely because of these changes, more than half the population is now "diseased."


This epidemic of diagnoses has in turn led to an epidemic of treatments. And while not all treatments have benefits, almost all of them have harms. While the harms may outweigh the benefits for the severely ill, they can be far worse than the "disease" for those with only mild symptoms.
New York Times January 2, 2007

Deseret News.com January 2, 2006

Dr. Mercola's Comment:

This interesting essay in the New York Times offers a very critical and somber take on the ridiculously mediocre state of health care from a trio of health experts

Far beyond the errors that physicians make or any threatened plague -- think the avian flu bug that never came -- this epidemic of diagnoses may be one of the biggest threats to your health.

Until very recently, we dealt with physical and emotional issues in far saner ways; but with today's focus on the medicalization of our daily lives, any and every discomfort is an illness that merits a cure, usually in the form of a useless and, often, toxic pill.

A good example: The growing number of outlandish and health-harming reasons to justify prescribing or taking a statin drug.

What's the real reason for this epidemic of artificial diagnoses?

More diagnoses mean more money for drug manufacturers, hospitals, physicians and disease advocacy groups. By far the key contributor is the pharmaceutical industry.

The drug companies are designed to thrive in a state where more people are getting sick, as that means continuing repeat customers for their ever increasing overpriced treatments. Simply changing the definition of what is an illness so it covers the majority of the population is a sneaky, insidious way to achieve this end, which is becoming all too common.

The optimal way to avoid unnecessary drugs and medical procedures starts with a conscious decision by a patient to take better responsibility for his or her own health, ideally by staying clear of the fatally flawed conventional health care paradigm.

Jeff from Stamford, Connecticut offers a sobering story of the greed of the modern medical system on Vital Votes:

"The wonders of modern medicine lay in its wondrous technological abilities in the area of emergency medical care and its ability to save a person's life when they are in a emergency state. When it comes to understanding disease process and the true nature of what a real healing process is, modern medicine sadly lingers in ignorance.

"The pathetic thing is that this ignorance is promoted, fed and maintained by the profit motive. I cannot however agree that this is a problem specific to the pharmaceutical industry, or even corporate greed, even though that is what we conveniently like to focus on as the cause of such problems.

The real culprit is humanity's lust for the false security that financial profit offers, which gives rise to a deep set resistance to change and growth.

"I recall speaking with a gentleman some years back who had brought a group of professional practitioners of a form of bodywork healing art into a psychiatric hospital in California.

These healers worked gradually over time to clear stored traumas from the bodyminds of those they worked on in the hospital. By working directly with the muscle fascia tissue and the energy fields of the patients they worked with, patients were getting well and off of their medications.

"The gentleman explained to me that what sadly took place was that as the patients began to heal and become well, the hospital shut down the program and refused to allowed the work to continue. It was sad to hear but of little surprise to me when I realize that modern medicine is a business and not a healing art.

Health and healing is bad for business."