There have been two recent articles in the Bangor Daily News that I read with mixed feelings. The first was about how Wal-Mart will be offering $4 generic prescriptions; the second was about a new pharmaceutical school opening in Maine.

I am all in favor of low-cost medications, especially for the elderly, and the article about the new school states there is a shortage of pharmacists. There does not seem to be any limit to Americans’ appetite for prescription medications. According to the book “Worst Pills, Best Pills,” Americans filled an estimated 3.2 billion prescriptions in 2003. We currently consume 25 million pills an hour, every hour, for a staggering total of 600 million pills a day. This reliance on medications has its costs. Every year an estimated 2.2 million people suffer “serious drug-induced diseases.” One and a half million of these people had to be hospitalized due to the seriousness of the reaction, and the 100,000 deaths caused each year from drugs is the fifth leading cause of death in the United States today.

Medications can be lifesaving, but most medications are given for diseases of lifestyle. Lack of exercise, a diet high in processed and “fast” foods, and constant low grade stress are huge contributors to all of the major “diseases of civilization” – heart disease, diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, stroke and cancer. We are conditioned to think we have little or no control over our health, and that we need our medications to help ease the inevitable decline as we age. This is not true, and the research proves it. For example, physical exercise has been shown to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s by 30 to 40 percent, and a separate study showed that a diet high in folate (B vitamin) reduced Alzheimer’s risk by 55 percent. One study took 625 diabetic (type 2) patients, and had them exercise and eat a healthy diet. The results? Seventy-one percent of the diabetics on oral medication to control their blood sugar were improved enough to stop using the drug, and almost 40 percent of those on insulin no longer needed it at the end of the study. Of those who also were on high blood pressure medication, 34 percent no longer needed those meds. Cholesterol dropped an average of 22 percent.

The American public needs to be told that genetics is not destiny and the real reason your relatives had high blood pressure or heart disease or cancer is not just because of their genes, but because of the interaction of genetics and lifestyle. In the area of health, lifestyle usually trumps genetics. Yes, drugs will lower your blood pressure, but for most people so will exercise, diet and stress control. These lifestyle changes are inexpensive and will actually improve your health rather than damage it. So while I’m glad we will be able to get our medications at a lower cost, maybe we should focus more on lifestyle changes, it just might save us some money, as well as our lives.

Michael Noonan is a chiropractor practicing in Old Town. He is currently offering a wellness lecture series that is free and open to the public. Contact Noonan Chiropractic at 827 Noonan Chiropractic at 827-5951 for details.