Drugs and Prescriptions
News that won’t make Big Pharma happy…
Exercise is as effective as drugs at preventing diabetes and repeat heart attacks, and it is potentially better than medication for averting additional strokes, according to an analysis published Tuesday.
…
“Exercise is a potent strategy to save and extend life in coronary heart disease and other conditions,” said Mr. Naci, who also is a graduate student at the London School of Economics. “We think exercise can be considered or should be considered as a viable alternative or in combination with drug therapy.”
The study, published Tuesday in the British medical journal BMJ, analyzed data from published reviews of randomized clinical trials related to four health conditions—Type 2 diabetes, repeat heart attacks, repeat strokes and heart failure. About 14,700 participants were put on exercise programs and 324,000 were given medications across 305 trials after they had already suffered an event like a heart attack or stroke, or had some signs of heart failure or of developing a condition like diabetes.
The results showed that in three of the four conditions studied, exercise was as effective as, or possibly more effective than, drug treatments. This wasn’t the case for heart failure, a progressive weakening of the heart’s ability to pump blood to the rest of body. For this condition, some drugs like angiotensin converting enzyme, or ACE, inhibitors appeared to be more effective than exercise in preventing death.
(click here to continue reading Exercise as Good as Drugs at Preventing Repeat Heart Attack – WSJ.com.)
Selling America pills is a lot more lucrative than educating Americans about healthy living. If we really wanted to make a difference, we’d ban the use of automobiles in urban centers with large populations – force people to walk more, or bike, whatever. Never gonna happen…