Wellness Weekly

World Tobacco Use: Recently and perhaps frequently, I have mentioned the growing use, sale, marketing and consequences of tobacco in developing nations. It is even said that the amount of persons in China who smoke is greater than the number of persons living in the USA. What I have not noted is that many of the countries’ with the increasing numbers of tobacco users also have government owned tobacco companies and do not have public smoking bans. There are other differences too between countries whose tobacco use rose fifty some years ago and countries where it is only beginning to take off. In our country, those who still smoke are often undereducated, white and poor. In other countries, it is the upper middle classes who, earning more money in booming economies, are beginning to smoke. They will learn not from our evidence and our mistakes, but from the passage of time. In forty years when their people begin to die of lung cancer they too will begin the studying and the review of research and learn what we know here. One of five deaths is related to cigarette smoking. For those who don’t die from a fatal smoking related illness, the chances of chronic, debilitating disease, such as lung infection, is a given. Heart disease is rampant in smokers as well and often kills them before lung cancer develops or is detected. I wish we could tell them. I wish they would listen. In time they too may have $250 fines for smoking in nonsmoking hotel rooms, but for now, they will light up with freedom and not only increase their risk of disease but the risk of all those around them.

Lung Cancer: It seems appropriate to follow with a story about cancer. My discussion here is not about the development of the cancer but its treatment. That being said, ninety percent of lung cancer is attributed to cigarette smoking both active and passive. This past week I read articles that provided information on the progress of some pharmaceutical companies. Some drugs for instance, are created to shrink existing tumors, while others are met to cut off blood supply to keep them from growing. Some are meant to add a few more months to a person’s life. A company who successfully creates a drug to do any of those things with a particular cancer, say breast, and has FDA approval to market the drug to consumers and providers as a breast cancer treatment, will next try to prove its worth to treat different cancers. It makes a certain sense in that cancer is abnormal cells and or tumors that grow and drugs that can stop that process might do so universally. One such case that did not work out is Nexavar which was recently approved to treat liver cancer. It failed in lung cancer trials however when the subjects had higher death rates while on it. The article I read in the WSJ had phrases such as these, “lung cancer was a future growth driver,” and the “lung cancer market.” Since cigarette smoking is the main cause of the disease that drives the companies’ profits, I imagine that they would be a friend of big tobacco. They do seem dependent on each other and dependent on the nicotine addict to keep smoking. It isn’t just lung cancer and smoking however. Avastin which was created for colon cancer is being groomed for the breast cancer arena, or as the article said, “breast cancer niche.”

Lipitor: This drug is meant to help lower cholesterol which would lower ones risk of heart disease. There are about six known risk factors for heart disease, high cholesterol is one. Lipitor has sales of 12 billion a year and its spokesman is credited with creating an artificial heart. That may be the only true thing about Robert Jarvik. He does not practice medicine nor prescribe it and one ad that showed him exercising used a body double. So when the drug company suggests as it does in its commercial, “diet and exercise” as a first line treatment for lowering cholesterol and risk for heart disease, let’s be clear, It is your OWN exercise that is health promoting.

Anti Depressants: Most of the stories this week did relate to smoking or drugs. We’ll end with this latest in a batch of research that questions the effectiveness of antidepressant medications. I’ve already shared my opinion. The research out of Britain did compare placebo to some of the big drug sellers, such as, Prozac, Paxil, and Effexor. Most persons in the study had the same response. The drugs were only marginally effective and that was in the severely depressed category of person. I.e., people making self diagnosis based on TV commercials who ask their doctors to medicate them have flooded the system with people who do not need these drugs and thus do not benefit from them. That is my opinion, not that of the researchers!


Wishing you Wellness