By Ben Fuchs | Pharmacist Ben
The PolyPill Has No Clothes. Polypharmacy is defined as the use of multiple medications to treat an individual patient. Given the toxicity of even a single pharmaceutical, it is an especially inelegant medical technique and soon it won’t even have to involve taking lots of pills practice. That’s because scientists are working feverishly to produce the world’s first “polypill”, a four-in-one combination pill, which is supposed to cut the predicted risk of stroke and heart disease in half.
No mention is made however, in the glowing drug company promotional material for the high-tech medication monster 4-plex, of whether side effects are also quadrupled. Composed of four off-patent drugs, aspirin, a cholesterol lowering statin and two blood pressure drugs (and ACE inhibitor and a diuretic) , the polypill, in my opinion, simply represents another egregious attempt by drug companies to extract hard-earned dollars from patients and insurance companies by painting old-time inelegant medical interventions with a shiny new coat of marketing and product positioning.
In any case, the best protection from stroke and heart disease remains lowering blood sugar and insulin levels, nutritional supplementation with cardiac friendly nutrients like the B-vitamins, Vitamin C and essential fatty acids and moderate exercise.
