By: Abera Chelvaratnam
When the term “healthy” is seen or heard, automatically associations like “eating only greens”, “nasty taste”, “a trend” comes to mind. It is not obscure for these connections to exist because even as young children growing up in North America, many of the popular television shows that were watched had characters who were disgusted when their parents would serve fruits and vegetables. Common scenes such as feeding nutritious food to the dog, or being treated with only ice cream and many sugary foods as a reward is very influential in a developing child. Surely, after watching so many of these shows children want to indulge themselves with foods that have no nutritional value other than high calorie and fat content. Not only are there social influences, but as a matter of fact the cravings for high fat and high calorie foods are also genetic. Historically, human ancestors were largely herbivores, thus they needed large number of foods to sustain adequate energy for their daily needs. These plant eating ancestors acquired a taste for sweet tasting things because generally speaking sweeter tasting foods is linked to being more calorie dense. Lastly, prescription drugs are clearly prevalent in both technologically and medically advanced society, where they offer fast “solutions” to majority of problems. So obviously why would humans want to be “healthy” if they can pop a pill to stop their illnesses?
Are prescription drugs and over the counter drugs really solutions? Maybe in some cases. Prescription pain killers and is taken widely from once a day to many through a span of sometimes a lifetime. Clearly, it’s a misconception that medicine is a solution, rather many times it’s a treatment that must be taken continuously in order for the body to heal itself temporarily. Being a treatment rather than a solution doesn’t propose any problems to many people since it’s simple to take one pill whenever pain is felt and just carry on with the day. It’s definitely not bothersome to anyone’s lifestyle whatsoever that is until the side effects come into play or even when the drug becomes ineffective. Morphine is usually an effective painkiller that is given to patients post surgery such as after having abdominal surgeries. After surgery, glial cells in the patient’s body get excited and send out pain signals to surrounding nerves causing pain in the patient. Morphine binds to receptors on neurons to dull the pain. However, according to University of Colorado at Boulder, morphine may actually prolong the pain. Normally, morphine should dull the pain, but it can in fact also bind to TLR4 receptors on glial cells to further intensify the pain. In cases such as these, patients are able to assess the effectiveness of the drugs and stop using them if side effects outweigh the treatment. However, sometimes the downsides of drugs are not easily detected. According to Kaiser Permanente, regularly taking prescription painkillers is associated with a higher risk of erectile dysfunction. In the study, 11, 000 men with back pain were studied and more than 19 percent of these men who took high doses of painkillers also took ED prescriptions, while only less than 7 percent of men who didn’t take painkillers received ED prescriptions. Something as simple as taking painkillers for back pain can cause addiction, overdoses that lead to death and is now even associated with erectile dysfunction. A simple “solution” to a problem is capable of producing even more problems in the body, where more treatments might have to be taken.
Although sometimes it’s necessarily to take drugs to subside discomfort levels, many people fail to prevent illnesses from occurring due to lack of time, effort and even lack of information provided to the common community. It’s a shame when people rely heavily on drugs to treat their illnesses, without taking any preventative measures. Sometimes, even a simple change in diet can work better than a drug. Tuberculosis is an infectious airborne disease that typically attacks the lungs and causes chronic coughs, blood tinged sputum’s and fevers. Antibiotics are used to treat this illness, but unfortunately TB in some patients have developed resistance to these drugs. New research conveyed by BBC news indicated vitamin C can kill multidrug resistant TB in labs. This means that vitamin C has potential to work alongside the antibiotics given to TB patients which can reduce the amount of antibiotics they are required to take. In addition to diet, exercise which is another part of being “healthy” is an excellent way of preventing illnesses like heart attacks and obesity. BBC news actually has released research that shows how exercise had a huge influence on dementia levels and that it significantly decreases dementia. Professor Elwood who conducted the study stated “If the men had been urged to adopt just one additional healthy behaviour at the start of the study 35 years ago, and if only half of them complied, then during the ensuing 35 years there would have been a 13% reduction in dementia, a 12% drop in diabetes, 6% less vascular disease and a 5% reduction in death”. The over reliance on drugs to treat diseases whenever problems arise should stop immediately. People need to take more responsibility in adapting a “healthy” lifestyle so they don’t run into complications with their health and thus having a reliance on drugs.
That doesn’t mean one should stop everything they are doing and change one hundred percent. The “give it your all or don’t do nothing” rule doesn’t apply when it comes to adapting a healthy lifestyle. Instagram is a huge photo sharing social media network that has many pages devoted to exercising, eating clean and even motivation blogs. People follow all these pages because they have an interest in living a healthy lifestyle and one day decide “okay I want to be healthy now”. They then feel as if they need to sacrifice good tasting food, non active lifestyles, having less control on what they are able to eat all at once to become healthy. As a result they realize they go through a vicious cycle of being “healthy” for a couple of days, maybe weeks and then they go back to their old habits and go through a slump and repeat the cycle. The problem is instead of focusing on being “healthy”, it is much more realistic to focus on being “healthier”. Being healthy doesn’t entail a person to only eat clean, limit carb intake, cut out all chocolate forever. That is why the term “healthy” is in quotations because it is much easier to think of this term in perspective rather than focusing on the generalizations of what it is supposed to mean. The key to becoming healthier is to start and follow at a pace acceptable to the individual until it becomes a habit. In the words of Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen, “Optimal health is a journey taken one step, one habit, and one day at a time”. Change doesn’t have to be all at once. For someone that’s typically inactive, even getting 30 minutes of physical activity per week is a great improvement. Doing this weekly, will allow the neurons of the individual to encode habitual behaviour in the basal ganglia of the brain until physical activity becomes automatic and no mental activity or thought is required to perform physical activity. Eventually, more and more physical activity can be added weekly. Eventually it won’t even feel as if it’s a chore instead it’s something that is automatically done. Adapting a healthier lifestyle is one of the greatest responsibility and gift a person can have because it is something that the person is in complete control of. To take care of one’s body ensures an even happier, positive life and who wouldn’t want that?
SOURCES
Kaiser Permanente (2013, May 15). Long-term use of prescription painkillers for back pain linked to erectile dysfunction in men. ScienceDaily.
BBC (2013, December 10). Exercise ‘significant role’ in reducing risk of dementia, long-term study finds. BBCNews.
Roberts Michelle (2013, May 22). Vitamin C kills drug-resistant TB in lab tests. BBCNews
University of Colorado at Boulder (2013, November 12). Using morphine after abdominal surgery may prolong pain. ScienceDaily
Tags: Health & Beauty, Speak Out
