Is your doctor robbing you of your personal energy?

Fatigue is one of the most common complaints among us Americans. And it’s such a vague symptom it could be tied to any number of illnesses. But what if you’re not sick at all and your oppressive fatigue is the result of an over-prescribed medication you really don’t need?

That’s what happens when cookbook medicine is practiced by too many doctors. They dish out prescriptions based on flawed medical recipes that can stick you with medications you don’t need. Plus, you can end up with side effects that nobody warns you about.

Perhaps no medication is more misused today than statins, pharmaceuticals that are designed to lower cholesterol. As Dr. Isaac Eliaz points out, doctors insist that millions of patients who don’t need these chemicals take them anyway when there are better, natural ways, to protect your heart health.

And researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have now shown that many people taking statins are finding their daily energy levels are dropping. One result: when many people taking statins try to exercise (and exercise is a key way to improve your cardiovascular wellness) they are discovering they are suffering debilitating fatigue.

This study looked at statins’ effects on people who didn’t have heart problems but were being given the drugs as a preventive measure.

The researchers warn that even if you take a statin at a fairly low dose, your chances of developing fatigue problems are still significant.

“Side effects of statins generally rise with increasing dose, and these doses (that we studied) were modest by current standards,” says researcher Beatrice Golomb. “Yet occurrence of this problem was not rare – even at these doses, and particularly in women.”

I remember years ago, I was staying over at a friend’s house and discovered that his mother, a healthy, lively woman in her 70s who played tennis every day, was taking statins even though she had no sign of heart disease and she came from a family whose members regularly lived into their 90s and beyond.

I tried to explain to her that her doctor almost certainly was misguided in putting her on statins and in also telling her to never eat eggs. Eggs are not related to heart problems and her statin use was not only unnecessary, but potentially harmful.

But she was determined to do whatever her doctor ordered.

Unfortunately, big pharma is more determined than ever to get everyone on board the statin train. But some doctors — not many, but a few — are starting to understand the folly of putting millions of people on statins unnecessarily when there are better options. If your doctor is not one of them, you should be vigilant and take any directive towards statins with a grain of salt and lots research.

Carl Lowe

By Carl Lowe

has written about health, fitness and nutrition for a wide range of publications including Prevention Magazine, Self Magazine and Time-Life Books. The author of more than a dozen books, he has been gluten-free since 2007.

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