Are you drugging yourself to an early death?

Reality check!

If you’re taking any medications, they may well be killing you.

You likely don’t know exactly what they’re for, how they work or what side effects they produce. Your doctor probably hasn’t told you. Sound familiar?

Western society has been enticed by advertising and huge pharmaceutical financial profits to believe that you can cure poor health purely by drugs and surgery alone. It is one of the most successful cons of our time and worth trillions of dollars to multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical corporations.

Dorothy, 72, came to see me. She is a former nurse and was taking 10 medications, some of which she had no idea what they were supposed to do. Every time she saw her doctor he added another medication and she just did as she was told.

But rather than making her feel better, she was continuing to put on weight, getting tired more easily and was too depressed to go on the world cruise she and her husband had booked for six months’ time because she couldn’t get into any of her clothes.

Just because you are over 60 it doesn’t automatically mean that you should need multiple medications.

There are five main health issues that mature-aged people suffer from in the Western world:

• Progressive diabetes
• Senile dementia
• Alzheimer’s
• Arthritis
• Cardiovascular disease

All of these diseases are largely preventable by lifestyle and diet.

While most doctors pay a nodding acknowledgement to this, they are not trained in nutrition and lifestyle, so the concept of preventing disease and creating health is generally out of their knowledge base.

We changed everything about Dorothy’s life. She had to eat everything fresh from that day’s shopping, follow a plant-based diet, incorporate exercise each day, volunteer at the social club three times a week, and engage in daily self-hypnosis that I taught her.

Naturopaths can take a diametrically opposed view to wellness and healing than the majority of allopathic medical practitioners do.

During the history taking of clients, I want to know everything they are taking, eating and doing. I spend two hours dissecting people’s lives and then give them the changes they need to make to live a vibrant and healthy life. The aim is to maximise lifestyle and minimise medication.

When looking at Dorothy’s blood test I had ordered it was plain to see that she had virtually no level of DHEA produced by her adrenal gland which led to the symptoms of exhaustion and most of her other complaints.

No one had thought to look for that before – they just gave her more medications. By the time the cruise came around she had lost 20 kilos, was supplementing with DHEA, was off nine of her medications with a view to losing the 10th one later and was buying new clothes for the cruise which she was excited about. She had also ordered a special diet for the cruise to maintain her healthy lifestyle.

Now, I’m not suggesting that all medications are bad for you. There are times when drugs and surgery are appropriate and you should certainly not simply stop taking anything you’ve been prescribed unless under the advice and supervision of your healthcare practitioner.

But, be aware that older people are often infantilised by allopathic doctors, given pills and told not to expect extraordinary health. This is a failing of our healthcare system and does us a disservice, cheating us out of quality of life in our golden years.

It’s never too late to get stronger and healthier. You can start now.

Editor’s note: Please see a doctor before stopping any medications. This is advice provided by a health expert and not the opinion of Starts at 60.

Do you take a lot of medications? Do you know what they do? What changes do you want to make to your health? Tell us below.