-James Bryce
A week ago, it was my 40th birthday. At 30, everyone jokes about how you have to start watching your health. But at 40, it's only a half-joke. Injuries take noticeably longer to heal, 18 year olds run circles around you on the soccer field, and no matter how much you shift it around, that pesky bulge around the belly just won't get any smaller. And as a physician, I'm even more keenly aware of what happens post-40. A lot more people come into the hospital after 40. People like my father.
Twenty years ago, my father was diagnosed with adult-onset type 2 diabetes. He actually diagnosed himself after developing tingling in his fingertips and increased frequency of urination. Looking up the symptoms at the library (Wikipedia didn't exist yet), it became pretty obvious. A couple of lab tests later, his doctor confirmed the diagnosis. The treatment back then was pretty much the same as it is now, except that we have more choices for drugs now. But biochemically, they all function pretty much the same way.
In the last ten years, my father was diagnosed with hypertension and high cholesterol as well - more medications added. This is not a new story, and you're either very familiar with it already or know someone who is. The thing is, very few in the healthcare community would have picked him out as a high-risk individual - part of the reason his diabetes was missed for several months. My father was not particularly obese. He never had any of the typical lifestyle habits that are usually blamed - high fat diet, smoking, alcohol. None of his family members (six brothers and sisters) have ever had diabetes. And yet, there he was, barely 50 years old with all the chronic conditions we're so familiar with.
Even with these diagnoses though, my parents seemed to be blissfully unconcerned. Like most people, they implicitly trusted the medications and the doctors that prescribed them. Admittedly, so did I. It would have been tough to go into medicine if I didn't. Back then, I figured if the medical field had a better way, it would have been suggested.
In 2010, my father had a minor stroke and his health began to decline. He had always appeared young for his age, but that year he seemed to age before my eyes. He had weakness and muscle atrophy on his left side, resting tremors in his right hand, and his gait turned into a half-shuffle. Just like that, he had a new diagnosis - Parkinson's. For the first time in my life, I became truly worried about the direction of health. What did modern medicine's latest standard-of-care guidelines say to do? Start new drugs and change the old ones - levodopa, ACE inhibitors, statin, insulin. All the newest generation drugs ("fewer side effects", "more effective") were used - the end result of billions of dollars of research. The triumphant symbols of cutting edge medicine in a society flush with resources.
But something bothered me. If the medications were really helping, would we even be at this point? I've never liked the idea of drugs and even after my medical training, there are a precious few that I would concede are more beneficial than harmful. But modern medicine has this aura of authority about it that makes it difficult contradict, even when the evidence goes against what they say. There's so much knowledge accumulated by a lot of smart people that you figure if there was a misconception, surely it would have been noticed. It took me awhile to realize, that if you want to get closer to the truth, you have to do your own homework.
