Most prescription drugs deplete your body of essential nutrients

Most prescription drugs deplete your body of essential nutrients. Perhaps the most notorious of these widely-prescribed drugs are statins. Quite apart from the patients-reported adverse effects of pain, statins deplete the body of Co-enzyme Q10. Patients who take these drugs should be warned of this and advised to take Co-enzyme Q10 as a supplement. This information should always accompany the prescription. But it doesn't.

 

The many prescribed drugs that cause sodium retention/water retention/fluid retention/weight gain/obesity/water weight deplete the body of calcium, potassium, magnesium and possibly zinc. This means (among other adverse health effects) that the bones get weaker and a fall is much more likely to result in a fracture - and a more complicated fracture. These dangerous drugs include amitriptyline and other tricyclic antidepressants, Epilim and other anti-epilepsy drugs, HRT, steroids including hydrocortisone, prednisone and prednisolone, anti-psychotics and others. Patients taking these drugs should be advised to eat full fat dairy yogurt for its dairy calcium and to reduce their intake of salt and salty food. They should also eat plenty of potassium-rich foods, e.g. vegetables.

 

Diuretics like bendrofluazide/Bendroflumethiazide, which are often prescribed for raised blood pressure, deplete the body of potassium and magnesium. Patients taking these are often advised to eat bananas because of their potassium content.

 

Isoniazid, a drug used to treat tuberculosis, depletes the body of vitamin B6 (pyridoxine). This depletion in turn causes disordered sleep, mainly insomnia. Patients taking isoniazid should be prescribed vitamin B6 to remedy this problem.

 

Beta-blockers such as propranolol can deplete our bodies of melatonin, and insufficient melatonin (one of the hormones in the body) causes loss of sleep. If the physician does not prescribe melatonin to help the patient with this problem, melatonin can be bought without prescription.

 

These are by no means all of the nutritional problems caused by prescription drugs, and of course malnutrition is only one of the host of adverse side-effects of prescribed medications. It is best to consider carefully whether taking prescribed drugs is more likely to do harm than good. For example, statins do most people more harm than good, and anti-depressants work no better than dummy pills, but cause many health problems, including cognitive impairment and memory loss. - You've only got one brain and it is not infinitely elastic to cope with brain-damaging drugs. You've only got one body and you can't trade it in for a new one. In my opinion it's best to avoid all prescription drugs unless they really are necessary, and best to have the lowest effective dose and to take it for the shortest time. The safest medicine is good natural food (not processed food), and the best doctor is good nutrition.

Melatonin: I take a 3mg capsule of melatonin near bedtime to help me to sleep

Melatonin: On most days I take a 3mg capsule of melatonin near bedtime. It is a natural human hormone that has many roles, but it is as an aid to sleep that I take it. There are many possible causes for a person not secreting enough melatonin. One of the causes is prescribed medication: e.g. beta-blockers such as propranolol can deplete our bodies of melatonin. So if your sleep has deteriorated and you are puzzled as to what has caused this, it may possibly be a side-effect of tablets you are taking or have taken.

But it may be that, like me, you are in a lot of pain and that pain is keeping you awake. - You may feel pretty desperate at times because of severe lack of sleep. You may be wondering whether sleeping pills would be helpful. - I hope you will decide against that course of action. - If you look on the internet you will find a wealth of research findings about the adverse effects of sleeping tablets, or hypnotics as they are also known. And these side-effects are even more harmful to older people. Sleeping tablets are harmful and dangerous and should be avoided, especially by older people.

Doctors often confuse pain, insomnia and depression, so they sometimes persuade patients, particularly female patients, to take antidepressants when they are in pain. Antidepressants do not work for depression and seldom help with pain. They are sometimes helpful for insomnia, but most of them cause serious weight gain and many other adverse side-effects and also cause brain damage years later, so they are better avoided.

The other medication you may be considering, or have very likely tried, is analgesia/painkillers. And you may, like me, have found that they do not help at all with the pain or with the sleep problem. Or you may, like me, be concerned about the many harmful side-effects from them. And you may, like me, prefer 'natural' help when possible, rather than pharmaceutical products.

Well the natural ways to reduce chronic pain are to avoid salt and salty food, and avoid dieting and calorie-counting. And obesity is linked to poor sleep and to greater sensitivity to pain, so it is helpful to lose excess weight. Eat good, nutritious food, preferably low carb, low sugar and high fat of the good sort, such as from grass-fed cows. See LCHF. Make sure you get enough calcium and vitamin D. - See this Fat Retention page, with further information about calcium and vitamin D.

And one of the ways to help with poor sleep is to take melatonin. I believe it is safer than hypnotics, antidepressants and painkillers. - I'm assuming you have already made sure the bed is as comfortable as possible and that the curtains keep out unnecessary light, etc.

This may help with problem of inadequate sleep

The hormone, Melatonin, is one of the many factors involved in helping us to sleep. Computer screens usually emit a lot of light. Apparently the blue part of the spectrum is particularly ‘melatonin-suppressive’. Here is some free software that filters the blue light out of computer screens at dusk. I've just downloaded it and am running it and my screen is now less bright. It seems more restful for my eyes.
Note: Beta-blockers such as propranolol deplete the body of melatonin.