Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

Robbing Peter to Pay Paul

            You have heard this saying before about taking from one merely to give to another, to charge one debt by incurring another. This can also be used to explain the way our health is looked at in this country. When someone is not feeling well they go to the doctor to tell them about their symptoms. The doctor then prescribes something that will cover up the symptoms without paying much attention to the cause of the symptoms.  That is fine for a short time, but a lot of these drugs have side effects. You start taking something to feel better, but in the meantime you are damaging another part of your body.

For example you might have a headache and you take something like Tylenol to get rid of the pain. The pain doesn’t go away and you continue to take more and more Tylenol. One of the major side effects of Tylenol is liver damage. So you take Tylenol to get rid of the headache while you are incurring damage to your liver. There are a lot of people that don’t know this, but the leading cause of cirrhosis of the liver is Tylenol usage not alcohol abuse. That is not to say to drink more alcohol and you won’t have problems down the road, but every drug has a side effect and everyone should read the label before they decide they want to rob Peter to pay Paul. Eli Lily said “It’s not a drug if it doesn’t have a side effect.”

Another example is cholesterol lowering drugs or statins. You go to the doctor and the doctor prescribes a statin because your cholesterol levels are too high. The doctor never addresses the cause of the problem or tells you why cholesterol is needed in your body. Cholesterol is an important substance in your body to maintain healthy hormone production. As we grow older we actually need more cholesterol because our bodies can’t produce hormones as efficiently as we were when we were younger. The other problem with lowering cholesterol too much is it can cause a massive heart attack not just a regular heart attack. Cholesterol is not a good indicator of heart attacks either. Did you know that high cholesterol levels are only a 50% indicator of having a heart attack? These cholesterol lowering drugs are robbing Peter to pay Paul. Take these cholesterol lowering drugs and you will eventually damage your liver and also damage your muscle tissue. The real cause of the heart attacks is inflammation in the body. The fat won’t adhere to your arteries without inflammation. Some of the ways you reduce inflammation in the body is by exercising and watching your diet. Most people won’t do these things because it is either perceived to be too painful or they just want a quick fix with a drug.

Remember when you are making decisions about your health that you are not robbing Peter to pay Paul, but rather paying both Peter and Paul. By paying both Peter and Paul you will become much healthier over your entire lifetime.

Healing Journeys Book Cover