Be Aware Of Common Medications And Their SIDE EFFECTS...

There's only eight root causes of disease. There's only eight root causes of disease. We need to identify the underlying dysfunction that's leading to the symptom instead of what modern medicine does very well, which is they say, well, we're going to name this problem, blame it for what's going on, and then we're going to tame it using a drug or a surgery. The third leading cause of death, it's inarguably in the top 10 causes of death are not just medication errors, but just simply known side effects of medications. I mean, it's horrifying when you really think about it. You simply do not know how your body will fully respond when initiating a medication.

Okay. Lynn, Lindsay, welcome to the show. I am so excited to have you.

You are wonderful.

You are a wealth of information. And Looking at your TikTok Instagram posts are just so much fun. And I just love how eloquent you are about all these unknown tidbits of information that really are crucial to people's health, but very few people actually know. So I know there are many, many subjects we can cover. But, you know, today I think let's talk about drugs. But before we do that, maybe you can share with us a little bit about your journey, what you do and how you got here.

Yeah, absolutely. So My name is Dr. Lindsay Elmore. I have a degree in chemistry. I have a doctorate in pharmacy. I did two years of postdoctoral education, my first year in internal medicine, my second year in ambulatory care, outpatient medic medicine. And I really worked in the chronic diseases of cardiometabolic disease was my bread and butter in my training. So diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, as well as asthma, copd the chronic respiratory conditions. I also worked in psychiatry in addiction for a while. And I finally just came to a point after working with so many people with cardiometabolic disease that was leading to all kinds of other problems in their life, that about eight years ago, I just took a hard left into natural wellness. And it started with my own healthcare challenges. Years before I finally took that hard left, I tore my acl and that ACL injury led me to the chiropractor for the first time, which led me to. To the doctor of Chinese medicine for the first time, which led me down just years and years and years of exploration of ancient forms of medicine. And as I've matured as a pharmacist, because I am still a pharmacist, I'm still licensed to practice, I still am a very proud pharmacist I love the profession of pharmacy. I love the miracles that drugs can cause in. When given under the right set of circumstances. But I've realized there's so much nuance to drugs that are increasingly undervalued. Just yesterday, the American Medical association put out a very scathing letter, and it was basically about how pharmacists do not have the skill sets to take simple lab measures, interpret them within their pharmacy, and use known medications. And they were like. Because this happens all throughout the United States with. With infections, especially where you can do rapid testing. You can test to see do you have the infection? And then you can say, okay, based on my clinical judgment, here is what we have. And so here's a medication to treat that. And just yesterday, you know, the American Medical association is like, we can't entrust pharmacists to. To be able to dispense medications with these complex package inserts. And it's like, wait, wait, slow down. So I'm a very proud pharmacist. I love the profession. I love what we can bring to the table. I just realized there's so much more to bring to the table than just, here, take this drug. Here, take this drug. It really does have to be so, so much more comprehensive and so much more subtle and nuanced. And I truly believe that pharmacists are the type of people that are willing to get down into that nitty gritty of any drug that helps to serve the patient in front of them. So that's a little bit about me. So hard left into natural medicine a few years ago, and here I am today.

Yeah. So I'm sure in this process, you found out more nuances about medicine that was not so pretty and things about the harm it can bring to people.

Absolutely. I mean, we know that some people say the third leading cause of death. It's inarguably in the top 10 causes of death are not just medication errors, but just simply known side effects of medications. I mean, it's horrifying when you really think about it. You simply do not know how your body will fully respond when initiating a medication. Which is why we as pharmacists are constantly talking about, start low and go slow. So start with the lowest possible dose and. And slowly increase. And there's also a concept in medicine where you push past the effect that you actually need and then pull back, pull back, pull back, pull back. And that pulling back can almost get you to a better dose than, like, pushing, pushing, pushing, and then, oh, no, we've got side Effects, you know, that side effect is talking to you and saying we've got to back down. And the catch 22 in modern medicine is that we have a very industrialized approach, we have a very guidelines based approach where even when I see a patient in telehealth practice, if I am saying to them, if they're coming to me and saying, look, I don't want to start a statin medicine or I don't want to start metformin, or I just really don't want to have to be on this Synthroid for my thyroid if I'm giving advice saying, hey, go back and I want you to try these things to repair these underlying dysfunctions in the body. Because the body is not diseased. The body simply has dysfunctional dysfunction. And we just need to find the root of that dysfunction and give our body what it needs to fix it. You know, in functional medicine there's only eight root causes of disease. There's only eight root causes of disease. Stress, toxins and toxicants, allergens, antigens and adverse food reactions. Then we get into the infrastructure, infections and infestations. This is also where dysbiosis lies. Then we have nutrient excess, AKA eating the standard American diet and nutrient deficiencies, eating the standard American diet which is devoid of all nutrients. And then we get into sleep, sedentaryism or lack of exercise. And then sociogenomics. Where you were born, who your parents were, how you were raised, the whole nature versus nurture fits into that. So listeners, you can remember that just by remembering the acronym stains. If it's not one of those things, it's really not anything. So we need to identify the underlying dysfunction that's leading to the symptom instead of what modern medicine does very well, which is they say, well, we're going to, to name this problem, blame it for what's going on, and then we're going to tame it using a drug or a surgery. We're going to just throw a band aid at it. When it's really like somebody asked me today, they're like, my irritable bowel syndrome, what do I do? What do I do? And I was like, friend, I'm saying this with all love and all kindness and all respect. Irritable bowel syndrome is anxiety. You're just calling it by a different name. So let's get back to the basics. Sleep and stress. How do we help with anxiety? How do we minimize these things? Of course we got to work on our nutrient excesses. If you've got irritable bowel syndrome and you're still continuing to eat dairy and gluten all day. Of course you're going to continue to have problems. So we really want to look at what is the dysfunction that we're actually trying to treat because medications do cause a very serious set of side effects, including microbiome disruption, nutrient depletions and, and there's, there's also just really good evidence that drug research is manipulated in a lot of ways.

That's great. I love to get into the nitty gritty of it. There's so many medications that are freely dispensed by providers and freely taken by patients. Everyone thinks, oh yeah, it's just Motrin. You know, it's just, you know, a little bit Mylanta. You know, like just taking a little bit, you know, just help me a little bit with this, a little bit with that. And they're taking a long term and they think that because the doctor gave it to me and everyone else is taking it, so they thought it must be okay. So I kind of want to go over this. You know, what might people be mistreating, mistreating their own body by doing that? Like, what have they missed and what kind of harm are they causing themselves?

Well, just the first two drugs that you mentioned. Oh, it's just ibuprofen. You mean that commonly used over the counter kidney toxin? Oh, it's just Mylanta. You mean that, that medication that's increasing your risk of infections and dysbiosis and mineral deficiencies? We have to take a clear look at drugs because just remember this, one of my professors taught me this when I was in pharmacy school. You show me a drug that doesn't have a side effect and I'll show you a drug that doesn't work. All drugs have side effects because they work on the body in a very targeted manner. They work on the body in a very targeted manner. And so, you know, you think about, you think about your, your NSAID medications, right? Those work on your prostaglandin systems, they work on your COX enzymes. And we know from history of Vioxx and Bextra and many of the selective COX2 inhibitors of days gone by, you think, oh well, let's just eliminate Cox 2 so that we eliminate the production of pro inflammatory mediators that are causing pain. Well, nobody stopped to look the other direction and go like, but wait, then there's unmitigated COX one that's probably going to be more likely to cause cardiovascular disease. So we can't piecemeal the body in this way. So let me give you just a couple of really down to earth examples because I want people to walk away today feeling like they've gotten something that they can put into action. Like, let's talk about some of the most common medications out there and some of the nutrient depletions that they cause. Probably the biggest soapbox that I can get on is the cholesterol lowering medicines known as statins. So cholesterol medicines known as statins, they are so well known to deplete Coq10. Which listeners, if you don't know what Coq10 is, Coq10 is absolutely critical to your metabolic health, your anti aging health, your, your very mitochondrial function is dependent on the cleanup mechanism that is CoQ10. Statins deplete CoQ10. So well known, well documented, that in Japan it is mandated by law that every prescription that goes out of the pharmacy, the pharmacist must also send them home with Coq10. The problem with Coq10 and the problem with statins is that one of the most well known side effects of statins is muscle weakness, muscle pain, and ultimately the most severe side effect is called rhabdomyolysis, where your urine turns brown. And that is because the very myoglobin of your muscles is being excreted in your urine. And so listeners, if you're like, what did she just say? I want you to think about, I want you to think about a piece of steak. You know how people cut into steak and some people like it bloody and some people like it not bloody at all. That's not blood, that's myoglobin. That is myoglobin that is being broken down because you are breaking down that piece of flesh. The same thing can happen in your body because of statin medications. The biggest problem is CoQ10 deficiency also causes muscle weakness, muscle pain, muscle cramping. And we do not know and do not have it fully elucidated yet just how much of muscle weakness, muscle cramp, cramping, all of that is related to CoQ10 deficiency. And so we have to be able to put those two things together. We also know that cholesterol lowering medicines, they, they lower all. I mean this stands to reason. Listen to how reasonable this sounds. You're lowering the fat in your body by lowering cholesterol. Guess what? You're also eliminating and lowering most of your fat soluble vitamins. So vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin D. So important for us is all being lowered by the statin medications. Diuretic drugs just get Rid of all of your minerals. Thiazide diuretic specifically. Also lower CoQ10. Another huge class of medicines are acid blocking medicines. Like, please, friends, I have a highlight on my Instagram reel of me walking through the pharmacy just being like, this drug's all right. Ooh, look at that. Homeopathy. I've never seen that. Then there's the whole, like, please just don't even go down that aisle of medicines that I have. And that is the acid lowering medicines, the proton pump inhibitors, the Prilosecs of the world, the H2RAs, your histamine 2 receptor antagonists, those are your Zantacs and your Tagamets of the world Tums, all of the direct calciums, the Mylanta that we started our conversation with today, all of those acid lowering medicines are allowing more bad bacteria to get through your stomach down into your intestines, which is disrupting your microbiome. We also know that acid lowering medicines cause profound magnesium deficiencies. And these profound magnesium deficiencies can lead to anxiety, can lead to insomnia, can lead to muscle twitches and cramps. We also know that we're lowering both vitamin B12 and iron, both of which are known causes of anemia. And anemia, especially in women, can be an absolutely debilitating stimulus state to live in of feeling chronically just exhausted. Vitamin C, calcium, the list just goes on and on. You know, oral contraceptives, we see problems with nutrient depletions. We also see antidepressant medicines lowering calcium and vitamin D levels, cholesterol, I'm sorry, excuse me. Steroid medications also lower some really key micronutrients for the management of diabetes, things like chromium. And we also know steroids increase sodium. So now we're putting ourselves at risk for high blood pressure. The list simply goes on and on and on.

Listening to you, I'm sure when people hear all this horrific statistics, they're wondering, you know, what should I do? Am I, should I just stay away from all these drugs, you know, with a 5ft pole or, you know, what do I do? When is an okay, when is it okay to use them and when is it, you know, that we need to completely just, you know, walk away?

Well, I certainly think that we have to be reasonable, you know, if you're truly living in a state, state where you do have hypothyroidism and, you know, it might take six months of not eating gluten and supplementing with selenium and getting your circadian rhythms intact, if you know that I am not encouraging you to suffer along the way, friend. I also think that it's very important to find a provider who actually cares about you to where you're not just a number like flowing through the system to where if you come in and remember, pharmacists, physicians, we're bound by law to know what is recommended for us to tell you is recommended. That's what guideline based medicine is, which is the primary form of medicine. And if you do not take that into account and say, okay, the patient is here today, their blood pressure is above, you know, the Joint National Committee's recommended blah, blah, blah, blah for their age and their gender, and they're this and they're that, then we have to say, here's what we're going to try instead. And I'll tell you, friends, most people are simply unwilling to do what it truly takes to stay off of medications in a modern industrialized age. Because, look, the studies, and we can debate research, there's a whole nother podcast episode that could go into that. But we do have evidence that lowering your ldl, raising your hdl, keeping your blood pressure down, keeping your vitamin D levels up, up, keeping, you know, we do have evidence that these things can save lives long term. But you don't have to be a part of that system. You simply have to reduce your stress, get all of the toxins and toxicants out of your life, work on your gut health so that your food allergies and so your responses to allergens and antigens is not ramped up. Clear out chronic infections. Gone are the days where we try to pretend like chronic Epstein Barr and chronic Lyme disease is not a thing like, we need to address. I mean, goodness gracious, if Covid has taught us anything, it is that we have so marginalized patients for so many years who have said, no, I really think this Lyme is still here. Like, no, I really think this Epstein Barr is still, still a problem. Now we have all this Covid long hauler syndrome and everybody trying to figure out what's wrong. Let's learn from the lessons of people who have healed from other types of chronic viruses and other types of parasitic infections and even chronic bacterial infections. It's not like we don't think recurrent C. Difficile infections do not exist. Of course chronic viral infections exist, and we need to pay attention to it and realize that viruses jack your cortisol response. And we've got to get that cortisol back in order. We've got to get the circadian rhythms Back in order. The more I learn about functional medicine, the more I believe that basically everything is either a cortisol problem or an insulin problem. You know, you work in anti aging and insulin is so powerfully aging, it just accelerates aging. Cortisol accelerates aging. And so we just need to recognize that we do have the power within us to take control. And look at what are these root causes that I actually have the ability to influence. I do have the ability to have some discipline and go to sleep a little bit earlier and. And have some discipline and drink some more water. We can craft these behaviors. But you know, friends, like I said, most people simply will not do the work that it takes to stay off of the meds.

Yeah, you're right, because I hear that, you know, doctor, just can't you just give me a medicine, just give me a pill to fix it? You know, don't tell me to do this and that, you know, just can't you find a pill? So, yeah, that's one of the challenges for all of us. But that's a great answer, you know, to the dilemma, dilemma of all these medications causing all kinds of problems. You know, should you avoid it or not? Well, the answer is not to take or not is to look at what's causing your problem.

What's causing your problem, and then be willing and determined to change it. Be willing and determined to change it. Because if you're not willing, then here's your prescription and I'll see you in 30 days to check your labs again. And if you're also not determined, you will get discouraged. You know, I think one of the things for me as a practitioner and as a, as a clinician, I just want my peeps to walk away from me encouraged, you know, knowing that, hey, you deserve to be healthy. You deserve to be healthy. And I believe that for you. I want you to believe that for yourself and see that and truly believe that you deserve it.

Yeah. And I want to ask you, before we get into the. Maybe a little bit more about the, the different types of disruption from these drugs is what do you think if, you know, supplements are doing the same very similar things. And it's almost like, you know, you can take metformin or berberine, right? You can. So you can. So people are almost substituting it. What are your thoughts on all that?

Well, that is called the greenwashing of pharmacy. And so just like we have greenwashed labels of cleaning products and personal care products where it's the same crap, just with a prettier, more Organic looking label. Listen, you can out eat, under exercise, under sleep and out stress, any medication your heart desires, any supplement that your heart desires. You can still be lazy and you can still be undriven. You can still lack the determination. You'll do the things, you'll take the supplements, but you're still gonna eat inflammatory food and you're still going to keep toxic relationships around you and you're still going to, you know, not recognize that the five people you surround yourself with are the people you become. You know, you're, you gotta choose like you deserve to live the most amazing life possible. So why would you choose not to do that? Well, we all choose not to do that because I, I truly believe it is the most existential, the most like conflicting thing that's in us as humans is who are we? Why am I here? Why do I matter? And we butt up against that inside of ourselves. You know, we have that person inside of us who is just bent on destruction and we don't know why we hate ourselves without even knowing why. We're never adequate enough, we just don't look good enough in the mirror. We never have enough possessions or money. Like there is that person inside of you, but then there's also a person.

Who.

Deserves to live healthily and freely and feeling comfortable and at ease in our own skin. So until you have the courage to actually be who you are, all this other stuff is not going to matter because you're still not going to have the motivation to exercise and sleep well and drink more water and just. You can't outsource supplement. This, this is truly, truly. It's not about medicines, it's not about supplementation. It is, it, it's not even really about what we think about as healthy because what we think about as healthy as our body being. Well, I want you to be so at ease with yourself in your body, mind and spirit, spirit that you become unshakable. So that one day, if you know, you find out your fasting insulin has gone from 8 to 10 and you're like, I'm going to take some chromium. Awesome sauce, good job on you. You know, I want people to know that they have power and that you authentically who you are is the most powerful person that you can be. And so I guess, I guess what I'm trying to say is stop piecemealing it out. Stop allowing somebody else to tell you, like, well, don't take that metformin, here's that berberine instead. Just heal yourself from within and you truly do have the power, you know, Marianne Williamson, I think I'm going to mess up her whole quote. But, you know, we're not actually scared of failure. We're scared of being the most, the most actualized person that we can be. Stop being afraid of who you actually are. And all of a sudden stress is just going to fall to the wayside because all of like the toxicity that you've allowed to steal your thunder for a long time is going to fall for the wayside. Your stress level is going to fall, which is going to help you to heal food allergies and heal infections. It's also going to help you not to overeat and not to eat things that you know aren't good for you. It's going to help you go like, you know what, man, do I feel better when I get up and go look at the sun for like five minutes at 7:00 clock or 6:30 or 6:00 clock in the morning. It's going to make you be like, let me go take a walk in nature. Because that I know is truly healing. And it's also going to make you a more globally aware person of your internal and external environment. So learning who you are genetically and how you can work with your genes and also understanding that as crappily as we think our life is going, 95% of people around the world would probably change situations with us in an absolute heartbeat. And we live in a socioeconomic situation that is so blessed compared to so many other people. And so I truly believe when you start getting healthy on the inside, you start caring more about what is happening in the outside. And that is true growth, true health. It is not dependent on a supplement. Because here is the thing, you think you are looking for a supplement. You think you're like, oh, do I take this medicine or not? What you're truly looking for is yourself and the inspired being that you are already inside of you, who knows that you can be healthy, look for that person continually. Some people like to call that God or whatever, but you keep looking for ways that you can be healthier and it's just going to spill over to everybody.

That I think is going to be a lifelong journey for most people.

Absolutely.

That's a lot of self healing and all of us needs, you know, self healing and that is that work never stops. But I want to, you know, give people a little bit something really tangible, which is some people, and a lot of them are unknowingly taking medications, thinking that they are good for them and they were prescribed by doctors. So you mentioned a few general categories of the damages they can do. So I want to kind of talk about those categories and which medications belong to those categories. So you kind of, you talked, you know, quite a bit already, but I kind of want to give people a little bit, maybe something that they can grasp onto. So nutrient depletion was one category you talked about. So which ones are you think, some of the most common but alarming medications?

Well, let's just, let's recap. You know, let's talk about statins and CoQ10. We're going to talk about our acid blocking medicines with magnesium and vitamin B12 and vitamin C and iron are all up in there. The diuretic medicines that are used to treat high blood pressure pressure are also depleting. Magnesium and zinc and CoQ10 antidepressants, decreased calcium and vitamin D, oral contraceptives, magnesium and vitamin B12. And then, you know, one thing that we, we haven't gotten into extensively but that I'll highlight here is the disruptions that happen with our microbiome. So we have the nutrient depletions, but the medicines that decrease our acid in our stomach, the proton pump inhibitors, the H2RAs, those also can reduce our microbiome. We know that metformin changes the gut microbiome and can actually make itself less effective because of the way that it changes our, our gut. So when I think about medicines that really, truly affect the microbiome, I think about anything that causes diarrhea or constipation. So we have to throw the opiates in there. Calcium supplementation, laxatives, anything that causes constipation or diarrhea goes in there. I think of anything that changes blood flow. So aspirin, the nsaids, the advils and naproxen of the world, as well as the antidepressants also have a very, very strong impact on our microbiome because the microbiome is responsible for most of serotonin production. And so if we're manipulating serotonin reception, it's going to affect our serotonin production because that's, that's the way that hormones work. They have to be produced and transported, then they have to be received and then they have to be detoxified. So those are just some big classes of medicines. But listen, I don't want people to walk away feeling like they're at a dead end, you know, because we talk about like, oh, no medicines. And you got to like go on this healing journey for life. Like congratulations to you. That you're even willing to consider that we simply need to take inventory and go, okay, well if I know that I'm on a medicine, you can go to your neighborhood pharmacist and talk to them. And if that pharmacist is too busy to talk to you, you are going to take your prescriptions and you are going to go to an independent pharmacy where people tend to take more time because it's a family owned business instead of a major corporation. Ask your pharmacist, your pharmacist, if they don't know, can at least find this information. And so if you're going to be on medicines, let's at least take them with some cognizance of the fact that they do more to our body than just what we're told at that first 30 second or two minute long information session that you get about the medicine. And I swear these days you can learn a whole lot from social media too. So just follow, follow doctors, follow pharmacists and learn and just make it a lifelong learning opportunity.

Yeah, I call YouTube my new university. This is my. But you mentioned metformin. I really want to digress because there's such controversy and all these different experts have different opinions. I will love, love to hear what your point of view is. There's some research showing great results for longevity anti cancer properties, but some people are concerned about potential side effects. So I kind of want to just to hear from you, it's even worth it for people to try to take it for longevity purposes. For carbohydrate metabolism enhancements.

Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, basically we are exactly where you say we are. You know, a study that came out late last year basically said, look, there's some good studies to show that it can help with longevity, can help with aging, can help with lifespan, but we really truly don't know because it's not great data. So there's a lot of it. But the article that came out in August of last year basically said there are study protocols that make it really hard. So my thing with medications in general is you show me a medication with no side effects, I'm going to show you a medicine that doesn't work. So what is one of the main side effects of metformin? Well, it's, it's acidosis. It's, it's constantly leading to this lactic acidosis. And if you're not able to get rid of lactic acid in your body, you run the risk of being chronically unable to recover from exercise. So My thing is right now, the jury is still out. You gotta kind of decide for yourself. Certainly if you have liver problems, metformin is not the drug for you. It just, it works at the, it's theorized to work at the level of the liver. We do know that elevated liver enzymes can happen as a side effect of metformin. On the other hand, if you are in the camp where you're like, heck yeah, I really think metformin might be able to extend my life, number one, I would challenge you and be like, so can just maintaining your cardiometabolic health, friend. So can just being cardiometabolically healthy. But if you choose to take metformin, you have to be an empowered owner of your own health and know what are the signs and symptoms of lactic acidosis? Number one, I always used to tell my patients, if you have lactic acidosis, you'll know it because you'll be so sicker than stink. That's how we say it down south. You are going to be very, very sick. You are not going to ignore lactic acidosis. But do we truly know what have been the really long term outcomes from people who have taken metformin for 20 years? Because we do have people who've taken metformin for 20 plus years, but we haven't systematized it, we haven't looked at how do they do compared to their peeps that just took care of themselves throughout life, we don't know. So my encouragement to you is do everything you can to take care of yourself. Because the jury is still out now that said Metformin in the setting of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline, some kind of cancers, Metformin can definitely improve health span. And so if you're facing any of those things, maybe metformin is a great drug for you. But if we take one big step back and go, how does it work? We know that it has an anti hyperglycemic effect, so a blood sugar lowering effect. We know that it helps to increase insulin sensitivity and reduce our oxidative of stress and protect our vasculature. But so does an antioxidant rich diet, so does a phytonutrient rich diet, so does exercise, so does stress reduction, so does sleep, so does nature, so does the cumulative amount of the little tiny things that you will do throughout your day. You know, it is a lifetime pursuit, but a lifetime happens in the moment.

You know, that's a great point. Yeah, good answer. Thank you so much. Thank you for indulging me about metformin sure. Yeah. So you also mentioned something about drug data as far as manipulation, about what drugs do, what they are side effects. So maybe you can share some, share some light.

Yeah, so this is a big concept and I'm going to explain it as quickly as I can. But there is, there is a statistical manipulation that happens in clinical trial research where you can either assess what is called the absolute risk reduction or the relative risk reduction. And the scariest example of how absolute risk reduction and relative risk reduction interact with each other is the first ever ads for Lipitor. And these ads for Lipitor, AKA Atorvastatin, AKA the first of, like the more potent statins. So it got hugely prescribed compared to predecessors of Lovastatin and Pravastatin. Tons of people are on Lipitor. Tons of your listeners right now are on Lipitor. The big clinical trial that got Lipitor approved showed that there was an absolute risk reduction in the two treatment groups. So if you were in the Lipitor group, you had a 98 chance of not having the primary outcome, which was something bad. So we don't want something bad to happen. So 98 chance that nothing bad's gonna happen. If you took placebo, you had a 97 chance that something bad was going to happen. Okay, so that's an absolute absolute risk reduction of 98 minus 97. Right? 1%. Okay. Technically, the number was 1.1%. But then, but then what the drug companies do and what is commonly accepted in drug research is to take that absolute risk reduction and divide it by the baseline risk. Okay, so the placebo group had a 3% risk of something bad happening to them. The Lipitor group had a 98.1% chance, 1.1% over what's our baseline risk, 3% risk. People who took placebo, 97% of them, nothing bad happened. 3% had something bad happen. So if now we put that absolute risk reduction over the baseline and multiply out by 100, that all of a sudden magically turns into a 36% reduction. And relative risk reduction is always, always what is reported on the news. It is what is advertised in magazines. It is what makes direct to consumer advertising so dangerous. And you can even see it. You can go and Google it right now. Dr. Dr. Robert Jarvik, who got paid God only knows amount of money to put his name behind Lipitor. Lipitor reduces the risk of heart attack by 36% is what the ad says. And then you read down below and it says that means in a large clinical study, 1% of people have 1% of people having a sugar pill had a heart attack compared to 2% on Lipitor. Wait, what? And so it is so dastardly what you can do with a simple statistical manipulation called absolute risk reduction versus relative risk reduction. And it is always what is reported in the media.

Yeah. So that can be. I don't even know how they could do that, frankly. You know, it doesn't even make. It doesn't even make it sense.

It doesn't. The argument is among statisticians that if you put it over the baseline risk, it estimates what is the actual risk within the larger population. That's the thought behind it. But then you just go, well, it's a 1% risk versus a 36% risk. Those two things sound dramatically different. And the two things are not equal. And it's something only, only people who have a very sophisticated understanding of drug knowledge really get. And it's, it's frankly a lie that gets perpetuated by, by the industry. And so it's one that I just stand up and say, no, we got to teach people this, and we got to teach it in a way that's understandable. So, you know, one is just the absolute difference between the numbers. The next one you're just dividing by the baseline risk and saying, oh, let's just multiply that and make it seem bigger than what it is.

Yeah. So that's the main manipulation tactic from drug companies.

That's one. But then they also fund the studies, they pay the scientists. There's a revolving door between drug companies and the fda. I mean, it's, it's pathologic at this point. But, you know, I don't want to go down any kind of rabbit holes that people are like, oh, no, this is gone down that rabbit hole. But the fact of the matter is, it is true. People who work for the FDA go back to work for big pharma and vice versa in a revolving door throughout careers. Drug research is primarily almost, you know, it's what, 80%, 70% is all done in men. It's all done in male animals. And so there is an implicit gender bias in drug research. There is also an extraordinary racial bias in drug research where we do not have adequate representation of people from different ethnic backgrounds, different racial backgrounds, to where we can actually see like, you know, blood pressure medicines are a great example. We know that in white people, ACE inhibiting drugs. In whites, Asians, Latinos, ACE inhibiting drugs are these amazing drugs that do great things. According to the literature, African Americans are more at risk for very severe side effects that can be life threatening with the ACE inhibiting drugs. And so it's much more likely to see a black person on a calcium channel blocker versus an ACE inhibitor. And these subtleties need to be valued. They need to matter because the individual taking that medication matters. And so the statistical manipulation, I think, is the one that's most common in the media, but the layers of manipulation and outright destroying drug data and I mean, look, the pharmaceutical industry has paid $80 billion in fines for lying on various reasons for. In Just the past decade. Just the past decade. $80 billion. And the list goes on and on about how about how big pharma values profit over patient care.

Yeah, I think that's probably one of the reasons that functional medicine has become more and more popular is because more and more people have woken up to all these things you were talking about. Not to the extent of the breadth and depth of it, but they're becoming very suspicious and they've seen a lot of problems and they realized it's time to take your health into your own hand. Either treat yourself right with the right lifestyle and also at the same time, find an expert that can help interpret your health in a holistic manner and, and try to address some of the root causes instead of just reaching for that pill right away. So I think that's, that's why I think this is a new medicine that's just, you know, brewing has been growing tremendously. And whether or not traditional medicine, you know, entities, establishment, whether or not they admit that it's going on, it doesn't even matter is going on. And yeah, and you can see, see it from popularities of all these doctors who are talking about it, you know. Yeah. On YouTube. People need information. They want it, they're so hungry for.

It, so are ready to take on their own health. And I think the era of our parents and grandparents who just did whatever the doctor said, just because that was the institution is broken. And it's so great because it's breaking itself. We're not even doing it. It's just burning itself down over there with. And we're just going like we've been trying to tell you for 10 years, but okay, catch up, come on. And so it's a beautiful, beautiful moment that we're living in where so many people just get. Get it.

Yeah, yeah, can wear. I can't wait to hear, you know, to see where medicine is. In about, in about 40, 50 years, it's going to be a whole different world, different way of practicing but the resistance is still strong. You know, I still hear, you know, doctors even blasting functional medicine on social media. So. But what, what this doctor doesn't know is that wait until you're really sick with some kind of chronic illness or your own family get really ill with chronic illnesses. Western medicine is fantastic at surgeries, at acute conditions like infections, but for chronic conditions that has so many causes, it's not an acute impact, acute damage. It's not a bug that's attacking you and is because of so many imbalances all over your body. That's why this traditional Western medicine is kind of at a loss. And that's what's been showing in the doctors, you know, in their own practice. They're exhausted. You know, not only they don't have much time, but they're not making much impact on really helping these people living a better life. So. So that's what you're saying is breaking yourself down, you know, from the doctor's level, even if they, they don't want to admit it, but just the way how they, they don't love medicine as much, how they're telling their kids not to go into medicine. I mean, all that, that's breaking itself down. So.

So hopefully because it's. Because we've lost the art of medicine, the actual, like, I mean, you know, I think back to some of my first patients and just like grieving by their bedsides, agonizing over what they were going through, like, that's medicine. Laying hands on someone is medicine. Listening is medicine. But, you know, I did a post on Instagram the other day, air is medicine. Breath is medicine. Human connection is medicine. Eye contact is medicine. Movement is. There's so much medicine. And I guess my bottom line here today is pharmaceuticals are not always medicine.

Yeah, they certainly make a lot of people a lot of money. They may temporarily solve some problems.

They do.

But I tell people sometimes when you take that medicine, it's like you just dealt with the devil. The devil said, take this. You're going to feel better. You take it. Guess what? You just made a deal. Anyhow, it's been such a fascinating conversation. Thank you for sharing such breadth and depth of knowledge, and I hope the listeners will learn something about what they've taken and general ideas about what medicines can do and what they can do to take a different route of taking other forms of medicine rather than just the pharmaceuticals.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. So thank you so much.

Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Thank you for the great work you do.

Oh, thank you.

I love to have you back.

Oh, thank you so much. That's, like, the highest honor ever. You know, you and I just been like sisters from the very first time we met. So such an honor to be here. Absolutely.

All right, I'll see you next time.