When I say Drug Free Children, you have to wonder, just what does Dr.
Craig mean? Is he referring to the illicit or licit (is there such a word?) drugs? After all, of course I am strongly against the use of illegal substances for children and adolescents.
I have spoken at and been involved with many red ribbon youth programs that have worked to educate parents and children on how to avoid their exposure to and prevent their involvement in such brain and body harming activities.
But what about the prescription drugs and the over the counter (OTC) ones?.
Surely they cannot be too harmful can they? With all of our awareness to the many side effects and dangers of recent drug recalls and problems with i.
e.
Vioxx, Fosamax and others, we would be very careful about indiscriminate medication use.
Well, not exactly...
apparently television drug ads sell, big time.
A new study, published in the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, says the percentage of Americans who took at least one prescription drug, rose from 43.
5% in 2000 to 48.
3% in 2008 That is practically HALF of all Americans are on a prescription drug of one form or another.
The use of two or more drugs increased from 25.
4% to 31.
2% over the same decade (ONE THIRD of us are on TWO OR MORE PRESCRIPTION DRUGS!!), and the use of five or more prescription medications jumped from 6% to nearly 11%.
In addition, nine of ten older Americans used a prescription drug the previous month.
Here is the really frightening news, for the same time period, they found twenty to thirty percent of our kids are on prescription medications (that is NOT including OTC drugs or illegal drugs).
Here are the report highlights: One of every five children reported using at least one prescription drug in the month prior to being surveyed.
An astronomical 22.
4% of kids up to age 11 used at least one prescription drug and 29.
9% of young people 12-19 used at least one.
Two of the most commonly prescribed medications are bronchodilators for children, especially for the surging rise in asthma cases, and central nervous system stimulants for youths 12-19 years old.
Why are so many bronchodilators being prescribed to kids these days and why is one out of every 10 children diagnose with Asthma, (7 million children)? A recent study correlating Acetaminophen (Tylenol) use in over 322,000 children in 50 countries reported a connection (though not necessarily causal) that found three out of every four (73%) of the youths studied, had used Tylenol during the past year and one-third used it monthly.
Now here it gets interesting.
Children who used acetaminophen at least once per year were 43% more likely to have asthma, 38% more likely to have severe chronic nasal congestion and 31% more likely to have eczema.
But if the one third of our children that used acetaminophen monthly, the associated likelihood increased to 250%, 239% and 99% respectively.
Could this link explain the coinciding timing of 50 years of increasing public acceptance of this OTC pain reliever with the significant rise of childhood asthma we have seen? As far as I am concerned, this all points to the still growing trend of accepting drugs as the American way of dealing with problems resulting from poor lifestyle choices with our attention, diet, lack of exercise and much more.
Programs such as the Michelle Obama sponsored LetsMove.
gov and local programs like the Experience Food Project that work to change the ways kids move and eat, especially at school, are critical to avoid what appears to be a growing storm of chronic health problems that turn children towards lifetime prescriptions of obesity related diabetes medication, respiratory inhalers and more.
As a practicing Chiropractor for twenty years, I have the privilege of being able to work in a drug-free profession, with powerful healing drug-free methods to assist children and adults in getting and maintaining their health.
I feel fortunate to not have the option of offering an easy "quick fix" of prescribing a symptom-relieving medication to my patients that may come to haunt me later when I find out what long-term damage may have come from that.
The first rule of being a physician of any discipline is "Do No Harm.
" This also applies to us as in being our own inner healer for ourselves and our children.
Craig mean? Is he referring to the illicit or licit (is there such a word?) drugs? After all, of course I am strongly against the use of illegal substances for children and adolescents.
I have spoken at and been involved with many red ribbon youth programs that have worked to educate parents and children on how to avoid their exposure to and prevent their involvement in such brain and body harming activities.
But what about the prescription drugs and the over the counter (OTC) ones?.
Surely they cannot be too harmful can they? With all of our awareness to the many side effects and dangers of recent drug recalls and problems with i.
e.
Vioxx, Fosamax and others, we would be very careful about indiscriminate medication use.
Well, not exactly...
apparently television drug ads sell, big time.
A new study, published in the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, says the percentage of Americans who took at least one prescription drug, rose from 43.
5% in 2000 to 48.
3% in 2008 That is practically HALF of all Americans are on a prescription drug of one form or another.
The use of two or more drugs increased from 25.
4% to 31.
2% over the same decade (ONE THIRD of us are on TWO OR MORE PRESCRIPTION DRUGS!!), and the use of five or more prescription medications jumped from 6% to nearly 11%.
In addition, nine of ten older Americans used a prescription drug the previous month.
Here is the really frightening news, for the same time period, they found twenty to thirty percent of our kids are on prescription medications (that is NOT including OTC drugs or illegal drugs).
Here are the report highlights: One of every five children reported using at least one prescription drug in the month prior to being surveyed.
An astronomical 22.
4% of kids up to age 11 used at least one prescription drug and 29.
9% of young people 12-19 used at least one.
Two of the most commonly prescribed medications are bronchodilators for children, especially for the surging rise in asthma cases, and central nervous system stimulants for youths 12-19 years old.
Why are so many bronchodilators being prescribed to kids these days and why is one out of every 10 children diagnose with Asthma, (7 million children)? A recent study correlating Acetaminophen (Tylenol) use in over 322,000 children in 50 countries reported a connection (though not necessarily causal) that found three out of every four (73%) of the youths studied, had used Tylenol during the past year and one-third used it monthly.
Now here it gets interesting.
Children who used acetaminophen at least once per year were 43% more likely to have asthma, 38% more likely to have severe chronic nasal congestion and 31% more likely to have eczema.
But if the one third of our children that used acetaminophen monthly, the associated likelihood increased to 250%, 239% and 99% respectively.
Could this link explain the coinciding timing of 50 years of increasing public acceptance of this OTC pain reliever with the significant rise of childhood asthma we have seen? As far as I am concerned, this all points to the still growing trend of accepting drugs as the American way of dealing with problems resulting from poor lifestyle choices with our attention, diet, lack of exercise and much more.
Programs such as the Michelle Obama sponsored LetsMove.
gov and local programs like the Experience Food Project that work to change the ways kids move and eat, especially at school, are critical to avoid what appears to be a growing storm of chronic health problems that turn children towards lifetime prescriptions of obesity related diabetes medication, respiratory inhalers and more.
As a practicing Chiropractor for twenty years, I have the privilege of being able to work in a drug-free profession, with powerful healing drug-free methods to assist children and adults in getting and maintaining their health.
I feel fortunate to not have the option of offering an easy "quick fix" of prescribing a symptom-relieving medication to my patients that may come to haunt me later when I find out what long-term damage may have come from that.
The first rule of being a physician of any discipline is "Do No Harm.
" This also applies to us as in being our own inner healer for ourselves and our children.
Source...