Free The UltraMind Solution by Mark Hyman Page A

time, for the right reason. But the problem in medical practice today is that our
only
tools are medications. The old adage, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail,” applies to medicine today.
     
    The best or right treatment for any particular condition may be ignored, because all we have studied and used are medications.

    If you are sleep-deprived you can increase alertness and energy with a stimulant medication, but the “right” treatment is sleep. If you are depressed because your intestine is inflamed and you are not absorbing vitamin B 12 , Prozac may help you feel a little better, but the treatment is fixing your gut and replacing B 12 .
     
    This all seems obvious enough, and in fact is common sense, but it is
so
far away from how doctors are trained and how we currently practice medicine.

    Our goal in medicine should be to find the right “medicine” for eachperson, without prejudice, whether it is a drug, a nutrient, diet change, detoxification, a hormone, exercise, or exorcism! We must embrace whatever works, and inquire into its effectiveness with all our scientific, economic, and political resources.
     
    Let’s take a look at the main categories of medicine for the brain: antidepressants (such as Prozac), stimulants (such as Ritalin), and tranquilizers (such as Valium and major tranquilizers such as Risperdal). Do they work? Are they safe? What problems are associated with them? Is there a better alternative to medications like these, one that addresses the underlying causes of mental illness and brain dysfunction?

    These mood-altering drugs are the fastest-growing segment of the pharmaceutical market, and as a group constitute the second-biggest class of medication in total sales and prescriptions. In children alone over the three-year period from 1997 to 2000, the use of antipsychotic medication increased by 138 percent, atypical antidepressants by 42 percent, and SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors—they are the most commonly prescribed antidepressants) by 18 percent. 10 The global use of ADHD medication rose 300 percent from 1993 to 2000. 11

    What’s worse is that the use of untested and potentially unsafe combinations of psychotropic drug cocktails has increased 500 percent in children. The authors of the study that pointed this out warned that our prescribing practices are not in sync with our current knowledge. 12 In other words, our current research
does not
support these drug-cocktail combinations.

    Concerns about overuse extend to adults as well as children. In fact, Eli Lilly, the maker of the antipsychotic drug called Zyprexa, has already paid $1.2 billion to settle thirty thousand lawsuits from people who claim that Zyprexa caused them to develop diabetes or other diseases, and is also alleged to have promoted Zyprexa for unapproved off-label use, which it denies. Drug companies cannot actively promote drugs for off-label uses, but doctors can prescribe them for such uses. (For example, Zyprexa is approved for schizophrenia but doctors also prescribe it for anxiety.)

    Do we really need medications to keep us from being sad, hyper, anxious, or psychotic?

    Today modern psychopharmacologists dispense drugs like candy despite their limited effectiveness. Often these drugs are administered in untested cocktails and combinations, which may occasionally be helpful, but come with more side effects.
     
    Consider the rather astonishing example of antipsychotics or major tranquilizers (including Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroquel, and Geodon). This class of medications is one of the biggest-growing sectors in drug sales.Antipsychotic usage has shown a 10 to 20 percent rate of increase per year over the last few years and today sales of these drugs total about $12 billion a year.

    Traditionally such medications were reserved for psychosis, defined as an inability to distinguish what’s real from what’s imagined. Hearing voices and thinking that aliens are visiting