Which is Worse—the Cost of Drugs or the Side Effects?

A survey by the Harvard School of Public Health and the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that many people do not take their medicine as prescribed(click here to view). 29% did not fill the prescription because of the cost and 23% cut their pills in half to make the prescription last longer. Now we learn from the Archives of Internal Medicine 2008 that longer term common diabetes pills called thiazolidinediones increase the incidence of hip and other fractures by twofold to threefold. Further in the Archives of Internal medicine 2008, Dr. Heckbert reports that alendronate to strengthen the bones, also very common, have a much higher incidence of atrial fibrillation, which in turn can cause strokes. What to do?—Try a more natural approach with lifestyle changes and herbal and nutritional supplements. These are a lot safer and less expensive and in my experience, most of the time they work well.