Why avoid OTC painkillers....

Today's Post:  Thursday, 7-26-2012

Many people in the United States today make heavy use of OTC painkillers. 

In fact, a recent article in the new San Francisco Chronicle Health section had this;  “The average American takes 17 ibuprofen tablets a month.

People with arthritis take that many in a single week.”

But there are two significant problems with doing this.

1.  People think of OTC painkillers as extremely safe; but in such high amounts for long periods of time they are not quite that safe.

Heavy use of NSAID’s such as ibuprofen has been linked to increased rates of heart problems.  And, I saw an article recently that said they can sometimes cause liver damage.

Because acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol has been in so many cold and pain combination OTC drugs people who have overdosed on it without intending to do so.  Worse, people who drink moderately or more can get an acetaminophen overdose at even lower intakes. 

And, an overdose of n acetaminophen is not just something that makes you feel bad.  The liver damage it causes has killed people in less than a week.

Aspirin is a somewhat better in lower and infrequent amounts.  But taking it every day can cause hemorrhagic strokes and fatal but painless stomach bleeding and it sometimes does!

Simply put, these things are drugs and have a death rate attached to them.

The good news is that taking a few Advil’s, ibuprofen, for a few days for a strained muscle or a nondrinker taking a couple of Tylenols for a headache a few times a year or taking a few aspirin for a suspected heart attack ARE usually safe for most people.

But the average American and people who take these drugs for arthritis and take so much every month are running far more of a risk than they know.

2.  There is an alternative that is far safer and has extremely desirable health benefits that most of the people taking OTC painkillers have never heard of.

a)  People who use this alternative for osteoarthritis have gotten relief. But even more exciting is that using this alternative tends to prevent, stop or even reverse the underlying damage to their joints.

b)  People who use this alternative are far less likely to get Alzheimer’s disease.

c)  People who use this alternative tend to become less likely to get cancer.

d)  People who use this alternative may get better heart attack protection than by reducing high LDL cholesterol.  And one part of this set of things lowers high LDL cholesterol too!

What is this alternative?

1.  The pain from excessive short term or chronic inflammation can be reduced or even turned off by taking the supplement curcumin derived from the spice turmeric once a day.  And taking it with black pepper helps it work better to do ALL the things listed above.

(Eating curried foods with the characteristic yellow color from the turmeric in them with black pepper has similar effects.)

One man who actually had hip joint damage that stiffened up his walking enough he had to get hip replacements was totally pain free because he took turmeric.

Recent studies show one of the key causes of the damage that becomes Alzheimer’s disease is excessive brain inflammation.  Using Curcumin or turmeric or both turns that off as well or better than the drugs being developed for it.  (An article on just that as an Alzheimer’s cause was in the Medical News Today for Thursday, 7-26, today!)

And, not only does doing this protect your blood vessels and heart from excessive chronic inflammation, it lowers LDL cholesterol too!  When I began doing these two things my LDL went from 106 to 73!

2.  Ginger is a cousin of turmeric.  You can use it in many foods.  And, each morning, I like to put a couple of teaspoons of powdered ginger in glass of water, mix it in and drink it.  I don’t drink soft drinks; but this ginger drink gives me the mouth refreshing effect that some people drink soft drinks to get.

This may not be as effective as turmeric; but I think ginger tastes better both straight like this and in foods.

Both turmeric and ginger protect your heart.  They do so better and more safely than aspirin and they protect your heart instead of risking it as ibuprofen can do.

3.  Omega 3 oils have been tested as effective in relieving joint pain and likely also help prevent mental decline and heart disease.  Taking them helps lower triglycerides which helps keep the circulation to your heart and brain working well besides lowering excessive inflammation.

4.  The last step takes a lot more work if you don’t already do it.  But some simple changes will help you get started.  It may be as effective as the first 3 steps together.   And it certainly works well when combined with them!

People are adapted by what our ancestors ate until 10,000 years ago or even 100 years ago to get the SAME amount of omega 3 oils and omega 6 oils in their diet.

But omega 3 oils lower inflammation.  We get a third of what our ancestors got.  So if we add omega 3 we lower inflammation.

But the news on omega 6 oils is dramatically worse!  Most people get 15 to 20 times too much omega 6 oils.  And, in amounts higher than what our bodies are evolved to get, omega 6 oils CAUSE inflammation.

Before 10,000 years ago people didn’t eat grain; but they do now and far too often.  Grain is high in omega 6.  Most people today also eat tons of refined grain foods which also boost blood sugar so much it tends to cause obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.  That’s in addition to the effects of their excess omega 6 oils.

Worse, most people eat a lot of animal foods from animals fed grain exclusively instead of their natural diets.  The fat from these animals has up to 20 times too much omega 6 oils as the fat from naturally fed animals.

Eating lean and fat trimmed versions of these foods occasionally instead of full fat versions a few times a day DOES help prevent heart disease and high blood pressure.  But the reason is more because of the extremely high amount of omega 6 oil in their fat than it is because of the excess saturated fat that you also avoid.

Then too, corn oil and soy oil from corn and soy grown in huge farms and heavily sprayed with pesticides and herbicides and using genetically modified version have excessive omega 6. 

But extra virgin olive oil has monosaturated fat, omega 9 oil, that is neutral in your omega 3 to omega 6 balance and is NOT inflammatory.  Using olive oil instead of corn oil and soy oil and fat from grain fed animals is a major reason, maybe the most effective reason, why the Mediterranean diet is so health protective.

If you eat as many Americans eat now, ---

You can stop eating virtually all refined grain foods.  (This IS doable I’ve found.)

You can occasionally eat fat trimmed versions of meat and poultry from animals fed grain instead of full fat versions a few times a day.  And you can eat beans and wild caught fish more often or eggs from pasture fed hens. You can even eat beef and lamb from 100 % grass fed animals some days and be OK.

You can read labels and stop buying or eating foods that contain soy or corn oil and use extra virgin olive oil instead.  This one is possibly the easiest to do I think if you are new to all this.

And you can eat more nonstarchy vegetables to make up for the refined grains you ate before.  This gives you far better nutrition more safely and fills you up better with fewer calories.

If you do each of these steps, you likely will only occasionally have need of OTC painkillers, you will be less fat, your health will be dramatically better, and you may even reverse some of your arthritis or stop it from getting worse if you have it now.