- According to the Department of Health and Human Services at least half of all Americans use at least one prescription drug daily.
- Total number of prescriptions filled in 2010 at retail pharmacies: 3.7 billion.
- Total cost of prescriptions in 2010: $220 billion.
- Projected cost of prescriptions in 2014: $414 billion.
- According to CDC: antidepressants are the most prescribed drugs in U.S.
- Total retail prescriptions for psychotropic drugs in 2009 exceeds 380 million, at a net dollar cost of over $22 billion. The statistic includes only the 200 most prescribed psychotropics and doesn’t capture the institutional drug use.
- According to a 2006 Archives of Internal Medicine study, 96% of all "off-label" psychiatric drug prescriptions lacked scientific support.
- The number of antidepressants prescribed annually for children under 19: 11 million.
- 20% of recently approved prescription drugs have serious, life threatening side effects.
- 25% of 239 patients consuming Vioxx (used to reduce pain, inflammation, and stiffness) had heart attacks within the first 13 days of taking the drug. Vioxx was pulled from the market on September 30th, 2004.
- The number of adults with high blood pressure in U.S. grew from about 59% to 66% (according to other estimates to at least 74%) million. Near 74% of them are taking medication.
- The AHA forecasts an additional 27 million people with high blood pressure, 8 million with coronary heart disease, 4 million suffering strokes, and 3 million with heart failure by 2030.
- Nearly 22% of adults 45 or older take statin drugs.
- According to the World Health Organization: “No drug is without risk and all medicines have side effects, some of which can be fatal.”
Why do we willingly and passively surrender our bodies to the inevitable “side effects” of every new medicine on the market? What makes us take the “easy way out?”
To Medicate or To Meditate is a complex psychological, social, economic, and political issue. There are many layers to this onion, many reasons why consumption has gotten out of control. It’s no use pointing fingers, not if we’re serious about turning things around. There is no easy way out.
Nevertheless, there is a way out. And although finding it is largely up to you, we’d like to share some mind-body meditative practices, such as yoga, Qigong and Tai Chi, combined with dietary changes, herbs and supplements that helped us reject the false hopes offered by prescription and over-the-counter medications.
The magic word is: PRACTICE.
Practice allows you to make friends with your body. To take responsibility for it. It’s not only beautiful; it strives to be radiantly healthy. So support it.
We hope you find this information as useful in your daily life as we did when we rejected the “easy way out” many years ago!
To better health,
